Let’s talk “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”…..no, not the movie – we are talking about the Presidential election contest. Years ago it seems when George and Laura Bush ran for office in 2000, all the buzz was about likeability. Would you have a beer with which political candidate. The choice was interesting. Al Gore or George Bush? George Bush was a National Guard fighter pilot that seldom attended meetings or went flying much either. Al Gore was an Army, Stars and Stripes veteran that spent less time “in theatre” than any known person in Army history. Both guys were from political families. Al the son of a famous Senator, George the son of a famous Vice President and President. Both had nice wives. Laura was a wonderful school teacher that made George look good, no matter what he did. Tipper was Al’s wife….born on Bill Clinton’s birthday….and basically – knew how to put up with Al – under almost every circumstance.
The election of 2000 was of course the most contested in American history. They even went to the Supreme Court to finally determine whether or not the contest in Florida should be counted or not. In between, all the horrible accusations and bad blood – the people out here in the hinterland stood amazed and when asked about whether or not any of it mattered: “Well, we’d prefer to have a beer with George Bush!” became the final outcome. Al Gore seemed too phony for some inexplicable reason. There were some unanswered doubts that Al Gore; was actually going to do what he said he would do – Al lacked that giant credulity factor! Maybe, his ego desire got in the way – “I invented the internet!”. Maybe, just his association with Bill and Hillary was enough – at that time!
The disputed results of the 2000 Election got voters aquainted with “contention”, “nasty accusations”and “vile and despicable tactics and strategies”. The thought that “anything goes” came to mind and offended nearly everyone in the country.
Well, the brand has been set with the likes of Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Sean Hannity and a litany of “newspeak” pundits like Riehan Salam, Erik Gillespie and the like…..all with one express purpose: Lie, deceive, obfuscate and attack in a very nasty fashion! They want to see “Blood on the Campaign Trail” with any chance they can. The current attack on Joe Biden’s comments regarding “Banks and their chains on the public!” is just a simple example. Calling a sitting President everything but a “White Person” is telling. With less than three months to go…..the name calling will accelerate by the Romney-Ryan ticket. We expect it – along with those robo calls that have their surrogates making even broader and nastier remarks.
Will we survive all this nastiness? Will we vote for the right person? Will the United States of America prevail? Well, it all depends on what you think “prevail” means. Did the United States survive LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter? We guess it all depends on what you call “prevail”. The good news is that we had a few good Presidents along the way….that managed to pull our fat from the fire…..at least momentarily.
Getting down to it – Mitt Romney is not someone we would want to invite for dinner, even with his wife. Paul Ryan is someone we understand and we also know is going to be “kidding us” from the get go. Romney has a bad case of “non-relate” to us out here in the hinterland. We know he is quite happy at cocktail parties with Hedge Fund Managers (the little people) and the big time Bankers and moguls of International Industry. Mitt Romney is a “Fat Cat” in a skinny person’s body. When you look in his eyes……it is very hard to see much of anything…except “a temporary Bain Capital” flashback. If we had the choice to have dinner between Mitt and Ann Romney or Joe and Jill Biden…….the choice is obvious to us…..”Hi Joe and Jill – thanks for your service to our country!”
Mitt and Paul……..are not exactly your inspirational types. You look up charisma in the dictionary and you are not going to find either one of these guys. We wouldn’t know what to say to them. We wouldn’t know what to ask them to get a straight answer. We couldn’t think of an adequate reason….to see them again. Why do we have that feeling? Is it the lack of being forthcoming on just about every issue. Is it the mean spirited remarks about anyone that apparently gets in their way? Is it the fact, that we know the great decimated American Middle Class is not going to prosper under a Romney-Ryan administration? Or is it just the plain exhibition of “small mindedness” that we are appalled by? Isn’t a Presidential candidate supposed to offer the people of the United States a “Grander Vision” for our future?
Finally, making much ado about nothing is not attractive either. Social Security – raise the retirement age to 70 and Means Test for Millionaires! That will make sure we have benefits until 2028 without adding one cent of tax. Medicare – Expand it to include all those without Healthcare. Make it so the new folks into the system can afford the Medicare Coverage. Do not reduce or freeze Medicare payments….because of something called “Inflation”. Debt Recovery: Make the banks that borrowed on TARP and any other Stimulus Packages – Pay up within 48 months – no interest. Deficit – Make our Budget based upon the rate of Inflation and Freeze spending at that rate. National Debt – keep bringing back manufacturing and small business back to the shores of the United States. Freeze the National Debt minus those tax breaks for companies bringing jobs back to the United States. Immigration: Restrict and Freeze all immigration until the current stockpile of over 12 million undocumented workers and aliens have been accounted for. Add stricter Border Security, bring our troops home from Afghanistan and find unlimited healthcare and jobs training for our veterans after three years of service when they are separated. No more 2nd Amendent laws, add Bi0-Engineered Labeling and increase our prestige around the world without going into another war!
There are questions and there are answers to our American and Global problems. Keeping restrictions and regulations on our International Banking is a must! How about finding those tax loopholes in overseas climes – for the rich? How about taxing American Companies doing business overseas at the 35% rates regardless of whether they bring the money back to the USA or not?
So, what to do? Mitt and Paul or Barack and Joe? This time, we are going Barack and Joe! As far as nasty remarks are concerned? We think it is time for a designated Federal Election Committee Catholic Nun to take these folks into the bathroom and whack them where they won’t forget; and remind them to keep a civil tongue in their heads. After all, the kids are watching all this stuff on TV, the Internet and on their I-Pods and Androids …too!
Are you guys retired?
If so, it’s easy for you to sit there and ask for the retirement age to be raised to 70. I, for one, want to retire when I’m 65, not 70.
So raise the cap on taxable income and let’s keep the retirement age at 65.
anon – Putting an unlimited cap on Social Security is counter productive…for just one
reason. Put in more….you will want more out. Just that simple. Currently, SSN runs about $2600 a month at the top tier. Can you imagine how much Mitt would want a month if he had to pay a couple of Million a year?
Where did I say “unlimited”? I said raise it. $110,100 is inadequate to the task at hand. The system needs to take more money in to respond to the expanding numbers of boomer retirees.
Your generation had a lot of kids. Turning around and asking us to retire at 70 when you retired at 65 is patently unfair.
*Anon….sorry Charlie….but the retirement age is already 68.5 Years…..you missed
your chance about five years ago. It is simply better to Means Test …..and tell the
Richy Rich…..like Mitt and Kerry…..sorry no SSN.
More inaccurate information from the Winship’s.
The 1983 Social Security Amendments base full retirement upon your birth year. To determine your specific retirement year, go to:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/ageincrease.htm
For example, if you were born in 1960, your full retirement age is 67.
That 68.5 years that Wins cite is an average of when people choose to retire.
*Demo- come on now dude….do you get a SSN statement? If so, it is pretty easy..to
look at it. Talk about worthless info…….the average age for a full retirement benefit
is not going to be 67 any time soon.
So, when is your full retirement benefit available to you? If you want to take the short
money……you take it at 62… while you can. Next year, the rumors are; that will change
too. To much older…..maybe 64..
“Talk about worthless info…….the average age for a full retirement benefit
is not going to be 67 any time soon.”
No, it’s 66 if you were retiring today.
Why do facts confuse you so much ? This is all info published by by the SSA, and easily pulled up on the internet.
*Demo – we asked you a specific question: When Are YOU scheduled to get your full
SSN benefits? Simple quesiton….none of this bulloney obfuscation stuff. Just answer the question….too hard?
Go phishing much?
My age has nothing to do with you posting misinformation.
*Ok Demo – since you are so forthcoming…we suppose…we have to be.
The true fix for SSN is so simple even you should have figured it out…..long, long,
long ago.
First off, keep raising the cap on salaries and income based upon the CPI and
as inflation goes up…..so does the annual salary cap. What this will accomplish is
two fold….you get more by indexing the cap and additonally it allows those presently
on the system to keep getting their CPI increases annually.
So Demo – you make up your figures and we will use what really happens. How about this one – What age did anyone in your family start getting full SSN benefits? How old were they when they started getting them and how much did they get?
Since, you probably lost your SSN card long ago…..we know this is probably just a
rhetorical question….but the readers can decide…that.
“The true fix for SSN is so simple even you should have figured it out.”
Nobody’s going to fix SSN, which is the acronym for Social Security Number. Nobody’s SSN is broken, so we don’t need to fix it.
As far as Social Security (SS), which is the money that you receive upon retirement, I’m with Anon on the fix: Uncap the $106,000 limit on payroll deductions. That would strengthen it.
But, it’s not going broke. By 2023 SS (Social Security) will have a 4.6 trillion SURPLUS. After 2037 it will pay 75% of all benefits if we do nothing. So I say remove the payroll cap.
So the Social Security Trust Fund is full of U.S.Treasury Bonds, which the Government has never defaulted on. Bush and others (can you say Wall Street) wanted to invest the Trust Fund in the stock market, but, luckily that never happened.
Something else that you Dumb Fox (Fux) viewers believe is that SS adds to the deficit. It can’t because SS funds are separate from the general fund. Some people think this because it was included in the “Unified Budget” of the late ’60s, until it was again taken “Off Budget” in 1990. Just accounting lingo that never changed the actual treatment of those funds.
So the sky isn’t falling, just the intelligence of the scaredy cats.
We do agree on the best choice for Prez ! Obama/Biden !
*The truth of the matter is: Unless we give full amnesty to the 12 million illegals…and
we raise the retirement age……and if we continue to bring in millions and millions of other illegals along the way…..there is only so much milk in the Golden Cow! Which means of course that somehow we are going to create 30 million new jobs in the next
10 years. That is 3 million a year. And unless we start bringing back manufacturing, engineering and new tech industries…..like nano….we are never going to hit the Singularity. The biggest issue facing America is the cost of Healthcare……which does not require more of the same Republican styled HMO’s!
You talk a good story Demo – you just don’t speak it.
You’re assuming that the 12 million don’t already have jobs.
That’s bullship!
Triple bullship:
1. Of course the vast majority of the 12 million have jobs – what do you think they came here for?
2. We’re not bringing “millions and millions of more illegals in” – immigration has zeroed out in recent years. (I think it doesn’t serve you two well to remain socially friendly with your old Republican demagogue friends from your rightwing decades – they just make you believe stupid things.)
3. Most of these 12 million illegals have been paying into the SS system for years with no hope of getting that money back, so if anything they’re helping bolster the system.
I’ll give the Winships one thing…I think if you were to corner them in a moment of honesty, they’d admit that their beloved GOP has lurched further right into an unbending, ideologically-driven place that bears little resemblance to true Conservatism…and it’s a place they’re increasingly uncomfortable with.
I am going to get them drunk this year and hear them say that.
The way Vern used demagogue in that sentence isn’t the only definition of that word.
My inspiration is the Greek or Roman definition: an orator who espoused the cause of the common people.
That’s good to know. I never really knew why you used it, I thought you were being sarcastic or self-deprecatory.
*We are assuming that most of the 12 Million are not paying into the system.
Those that are are using phony documents and to change over to a real and new SSN is going to be a nightmare…Black economy…ever heard of it?
Meanwhile, how many do have jobs? You seem to be an expert on illegals and their documents. How many ar using real documents? Well, because Obama passed his Executive Order…if that works out…..we know that upwards of 1.7 million will be joing the system legally.
That leaves about 10 million out of the loop….one way or the other. It also does not count the millions of so-called “others” (non-hispanics)….that also are not included legally in the system.
You still miss the biggie….we still need another 30 million new jobs over the next 10 years to deal with the influx of NEW immigrants that can feed the system. Without a doubt, both parties are counting on that to fund Medicare and whatever new healthcare (Romney or ObamaCare) which is a reality.
Without new folks – no funding and more borrowing.
Demo-bull……please keep your name calling to a limited pale….just to show you are not frustrated by your own lack of logic.
Chairman Vern….obviously has some secret numbers he can bring to the party as well – which we would also love to hear.
“Please keep your name calling to a limited pale….just to show you are not frustrated by your own lack of logic.”
That is not a result of frustration. My name calling is always colored by sarcasm, sometimes with a touch of silliness.
You need to get over yourself.
Is it just out of sheer stubbornness that you won’t hit the “reply” key that is contained in the upper-right corner of Demagogue’s comment?
*Anon – think substance! We know it is difficult….but just think substance!
You ever heard of being able to do two things at once?
Vern and I have noticed that your substance is lacking any sort of truthiness.
The “I just can’t hit the REPLY button” tic that you have is most unusual. I could teach a Rhesus to hit it in about an hour with a box of raisins.
*Anon – have you ever heard of being able….?
Well I’ve certainly heard of being able to click on the correct reply button.
*Anon – yes….you are special………..we can appreciate that.
*Chain CPI is one of the suggestions to fix Social Security. The same idea we came up with rather than using current wages.