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Social Security, Medicare are "going to be gone," Donald Trump warns (www.newsweek.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if the Democrats don't approve funding, there are dangers to the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Trump said at a press conference that when he asked Democrats for feedback on the funding bills, one said, "It means death."

"There's nothing about death," Trump said. "Theirs is death because they're going to lose Medicaid, they're going to lose Social Security, they're going to lose Medicare, all of those things are going to be gone because the whole country would be bankrupt, and you're not going to have any kind of medical insurance."

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[–] 74 points 1 year ago (19 children)

Hypothetically, let’s say the administration cancels social security. What happens to all of my money I’ve already paid into the system? I’m not at retirement age yet. Are they just going to steal my investment?

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago

    What happens to all of my money I’ve already paid into the system? I’m not at retirement age yet. Are they just going to steal my investment?

    The Reupublicans stole that money a long time ago.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    It's not like it's sitting there waiting for you to use. Every dollar you pay into SS just goes into the pocket of someone drawing SS. It's a good system but not good if you plan to cut the program. Meaning millions will have paid in for nothing.

    It will also destroy old people, since most need it to survive.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    We didn't "pay for nothing," we contributed toward the well being of people in our communities that cannot work.

    Jesus Christ people, it's not always about you.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    We did pay for nothing if the program gets cut. Sure we took care of old people, now what? I could have used that money for my own retirement. If the system is still in place then it wasn't for nothing and you'll be using the younger generations tax dollars for your retirement. So it's not all about me, but if I don't get the same benefit why pay in?

    That's the whole point of social security. Not social security for a certain generation tax

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    You paid for "social security". It's literally just right there in the name.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah someone else's. If the program gets cut then who is paying my social security? Oh yeah. No one. So it's social security for a certain generation. I could have used that money for my own retirement, but if the programs cut it was social security for boomers and then alone lol.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago*

    It's not "someone else's," it's social security. It's for the entire society.

    Like you realize that the old lady down the road isn't literally getting the exact same money that you put in, right? They are just numbers on paper. You pay into a fund that is used to benefit all of society. And it does.

    Stop looking at it so selfishly and read about why FDR introduced it in the first place.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    It will also destroy old people, since most need it to survive.

    I wonder if this is partly why I see so much efforts whipping up one generation against the other. If you get zoomers all pissed off at some caricature of the boomers, they just might cheer at fucking over the old people (and their own future selves, too, but the anger will override the cognitive functions).

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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Every dollar you pay into SS just goes into the pocket of someone drawing SS.

    Gee, that sounds like a Ponzi scheme. Which I guess works fine as long as the population keeps growing and is forced to pay in.

    Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted. I wasn’t saying it IS a Ponzi scheme. Just that it sounds like one. We often talk about social security as something we pay into to then get back later, but that’s not what it is. And the government has been spending the social security money like other revenue for a few decades. It’s just another tax now, like any other. And because population growth is slowing, I probably won’t get to benefit from it.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    That's the great misconception and lie of Social Security. People think it's like a government run 401k, that you're "investing' in some retirement account every paycheck. That's not at all how it actually functions though. Social Security is two entirely independent things. First it's a benefits program like SNAPP or Medicaid. In that regard Congress votes every year on how much budget they're going to allocate towards paying people Social Security. Literally everyone receiving Social Security cheques in the following year are reliant on Congress deciding to allocate enough money to make sure those cheques don't bounce. Secondly it's an income tax. The two are not connected in any way. The amount of Social Security income tax that the federal government collects each year has absolutely no bearing on the amount of funding that Congress allocates for Social Security in the coming year.

    Let that sink in.

    Social Security is the world's biggest Ponzi scheme. Always has been. That's a huge part of why a lot of Republicans, particularly older ones (like ones around retirement age) are hand wringing about falling birth rates. Social Security always counted on the idea that there would be more people working and paying into Social Security than the number of people currently collecting Social Security. In a country with a positive population growth that would always be true. It ceases to be true the moment you have a negative population growth rate though.

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  • [–] 81 points 1 year ago*

    Social Security is the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme. Always has been.

    No, it's a big insurance scheme, but its finances have been fucked with. The original intent was that the money went into a trust fund isolated from other government finances. It didn't take long for some scumbag to realize that the trust fund could be used as collateral for loans, or "lent" directly from the trust fund to other government activities.

    Also, even if it's funded year-to-year, if the cap on contributions were lifted, the system could be self-funding, or nearly so. But the Republicans (and some conservative Democrats) have been trying to kill it since FDR started it, and the specious argument is always that it's not affordable.

    The US in 1935 could afford it. The only difference now is a matter of priorities and who's in charge.

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  • [–] 64 points 1 year ago

    They cap it at 160k a year. So if you make 3m a year, you'll only pay on what is due on the 160k.

    Getting rid of that, along with taxing the rich, would fix that problem. If 8 people have more wealth than like 4 billion people, it's really not a "we need more people to keep this ponzi scheme" problem, it's more of a France in the 1790s problem.

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