Conservative VS Liberal

[tdslf1 0]

Is it not scary that people believe EVERYTHING they get in an email and read on the Internet and never bother with checking their facts? I blame our crappy school system that we have such ignorance and they haven't a clue they're ignorant.

[loserbob 11]

Where do I disagree with saying that everyone should pay a flat tax? Please enlighten me bobby because I read through that post about 3 more times and can't see anywhere that it says I don't think we should have a flat tax. It only states that we were tax at a specific rate, and promised that rate, and now we are taxed at a higher rate, hurting lower income people more. And as for cleo, did all four of your grandparents pay into social security or did they move here after 65 and start collecting? Because that is clearly the point of the statement in that post.

Thats loser to you!(bobby)

[loserbob 11]

Did some fact checking, ariscus99, and couldn't let your post go unchallenged:

Browse > Home / Ask FactCheck / FDR’s “Voluntary” Social Security

FDR’s “Voluntary” Social Security

March 24, 2009

Updated: March 27, 2009

Q: Did FDR promise that Social Security would be voluntary? Did Democrats end tax deductions for Social Security withholding?

A: Social Security has never been voluntary and taxes paid to support it have never been deductible from federal income taxes. A widely e-mailed "history lesson" gets nearly all its facts wrong.

FULL QUESTION

Dozens of readers have asked about this one, which has been going around for months in various forms:

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full text ⬏

Just in case some of you

young whippersnappers

(& some older ones too) Weren’t taught or just didn’t know this. Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what’s what.

And it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat of Republican. Facts are facts!!!

Our Social Security

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the program would be completely voluntary.

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the program,

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the General Operating Fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other

Government program, and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the federal government to ‘put

away, you may be interested in the following:

————————————————– ———–

Q: Which political party took Social Security from the Independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it in to the General Fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.

——————————————————————–

Q: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

———————————————————————–

Q: Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.

——————————————————————-

Q: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

AND MY FAVORITE:

A: That’s right!

Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, they began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them even though they never paid a dime into it!

———————————————————————-

Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so. But it’s worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT

FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!

‘A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.’

-Thomas Jefferson

FULL ANSWER

This elaborate collection of falsehoods is so detailed that we believe it must be an intentional and malicious effort at disinformation. It grafts some new whoppers on top of a list that we debunked in April 2004, in a special report we called "Lies in the E-mail, Part 2." The earlier version, we said, was "full of laughably inaccurate claims," and this one is worse.

FDR Never Promised That

We’ll address the newer claims first, specifically the five "promises" supposedly made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the inception of the Social Security system in 1935. We rely here on no less an authority than the official historian of the Social Security System, Larry DeWitt, who has written up a detailed response to these claims under the heading "Myths and Misinformation About Social Security," which can be found on the Social Security History Web page, along with answers to other frequently asked questions.

1. Not Voluntary. Contrary to the e-mail’s very first claim, FDR never promised that "the program would be completely voluntary." It is supported by taxes and participation has never been voluntary. As historian DeWitt states: "From the first days of the program to the present, anyone working on a job covered by Social Security has been obligated to pay their payroll taxes. "
   
2. Not 1 Percent. Another false claim is that FDR promised participants would pay only "1% of the first $1,400" of income. The law FDR signed taxed income up to $3,000, for one thing. And while the rate was 1 percent for the first few years, the law FDR signed raised it incrementally in 1940, 1943, 1946 and 1949, when it reached 3 percent.
   
3. Not Deductible. Also false is the statement that Social Security contributions "would be deductible from their income for tax purposes." The opposite is true. Section 803 of the law Roosevelt signed specifically says Social Security payroll taxes "shall not be allowed as a deduction to the taxpayer in computing his net income for the year." So the claim made later in the e-mail – that Democrats "eliminated the income tax deduction" for payroll taxes – cannot possibly be true. There was never a deduction to eliminate. Update, March 27: An alert reader points out that self-employed persons must pay "self-employment tax," which is a Social Security and Medicare tax similar to the taxes withheld from the pay of most wage earners. Half of the SE tax is indeed deductible when figuring adjusted gross income for federal income tax purposes. However, the SE tax deduction has not been eliminated, not by "the Democratic party" or by anybody else.
   
   
4. Trust Fund Falsehoods. The message claims that FDR promised Social Security funds would be used "for no other government program," but that Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress later took Social Security into the General Fund "so that Congress could spend it." This is twisted history. The government has always been able to use Social Security funds for other purposes when not needed to finance benefits. As DeWitt states: "[T]here has never been any change in the way the Social Security program is financed or the way that Social Security payroll taxes are used by the federal government." All LBJ did in 1968 was to make Social Security taxes and spending part of a "unified budget." As DeWitt notes, this was an accounting issue and "has no affect on the actual operations of the [social Security] Trust Fund itself."
   
5. Taxation of benefits. The e-mail also gets it wrong when it claims that Roosevelt promised that "annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income." It’s true that Social Security benefits weren’t taxed at first, but DeWitt writes that this was the result of a series of administrative rulings by the Treasury Department, not the result of Roosevelt’s law or anything he did or promised. And contrary to a false claim made later in the e-mail, it was not Democrats alone who "started taxing Social Security annuities." Congress authorized taxation of Social Security benefits in 1983, when Republicans controlled the Senate, and the measure was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The measure was part of a bipartisan compromise to shore up the finances of the system, which were then on the verge of collapse.
   

Nixon’s Gift to Immigrants

Another huge whopper in this e-mail is the claim that President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party "decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants … even though they never paid a dime into it." In truth, no illegal immigrant is allowed to get a penny of Social Security retirement benefits, as this message implies. (We address more false claims on that theme in another Ask FactCheck.) And any immigrant who has become a citizen or legal resident can qualify only to the extent that they have worked and paid into the system for years, on the same basis as everybody else.

The earlier version of this e-mail made this claim only about the SSI program – the Supplemental Security Income program for the blind, disabled or elderly and destitute. But the truth is, that program was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1972. Under Nixon’s SSI law, legal immigrants were eligible for benefits from the start. It is a federal welfare program funded out of general tax revenues and is separate from the Social Security old-age pensions and disability insurance programs funded out of dedicated payroll taxes. While Social Security benefits are paid to those who have paid payroll taxes for a certain minimum period of time, SSI benefits were available to all – citizens and legal residents alike – regardless of whether they had "paid a dime into it" or not.

I did hear that ss was originally supposed to be a kind of insurance plan, rather than for everyone it was supposed to be for those who needed it.

[loserbob 11]

I appreciate all the time you people put into researching and fact finding. It just seems like alot of work, just so Patty can come on here and say the same thing over and over, "Obama is spending us into oblivion!"

Im not being smart, I wouldnt know half of whats going on if it werent for you people posting. I understand why you do it, its just that Patty doesnt seem to understand what your saying and just resorts to the only thing she knows. Either copying magazine articles word for word or using "big, scary words like oblivion".

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I appreciate all the time you people put into researching and fact finding. It just seems like alot of work, just so Patty can come on here and say the same thing over and over, "Obama is spending us into oblivion!"

Im not being smart, I wouldnt know half of whats going on if it werent for you people posting. I understand why you do it, its just that Patty doesnt seem to understand what your saying and just resorts to the only thing she knows. Either copying magazine articles word for word or using "big, scary words like oblivion".

There are too many right wing lies, distortions, misconceptions, fear-mongering etc.. that go unchallenged in the media. I try not to let that happen here.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Great photos of the people at the wall street protest yesterday. It's a great, diverse crowd who actually know what they are for and against. If the estimates of 30,000+ is accurate that is about 3 times the number at the big tea party rally on tax day - April 15th in DC.

Daily Kos: Photos and Stories from the Labor March on Wall St..-

This protest deserved the same coverage that the stupid tea partiers get, but it didn't because they didn't have the hateful (and misspelled) anti-Obama signs.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

And to Sarah Palin I ask: How's that drill-y, spill-y thing working for ya?

[BJean 16]

yeah, spill baby spill. Coming soon to a seashore near you.

Bob, I have decided that I agree with you about certain posters double identity.

[pattygreen 5]

loserbob I hope you're not just now figuring out that she posts stuff consistently without naming her source. She passes the stuff off as if she thought up the whole rant. I suspect that sometimes she even has posted under a different name. I think, in fact, you may be the one who noticed that first.

And you post without checking your facts. Mike Hewitt wrote that piece and I posted his name at the bottom of it.

[pattygreen 5]

I am still trying to figure out what your point is? That laws get changed for the benefit of the country and Dems do it? Bush did many things with the law and we didn't care for it, but he did it. WIre tapping, etc. What is your point, that just dems do it? I really don't think you understand the history of congress if you think this is all Dems fault.

The point is that when politicians say that a program is for one thing, it ends up being something totally different and not what the people thought. The point is that politicians lie. The point is that if Obama says the HC bill will lower the deficit, you can be certain that it will only raise it! If F. Roosevelt (D) started SS for the good of the country and it was well intentioned, you can be sure that any other programs that the feds start will end up just as disasterous. They have a past record of screwing up!

Edited May 1, 2010 by pattygreen

[pattygreen 5]

Let's get this straight, you want the government to do NOTHING? So you won't have to pay taxes, right?

wrong!

Tell me a country that doesn't have income taxes - a developed country - and tell me what their standard of living is overall.

How about comparing our country to a country in lets say, South Africa, where no income taxes are paid. How are their roads, their health, their personal safety, and the list goes on, as you like to say.

I never said I don't want to pay taxes. I don't want to pay for other peoples expenses. I will gladly pay for infrastructure and roads and military protection and police and firefighters, etc. You know, what the federal government is supposed to provide for us.

This country is great because we DO CARE about all of our fellow countrymen. We have the best things because of our government. All the good stuff doesn't just pop up out of thin air.

This country is great because of the free enterprise system and because God blessed it because it started as a Christian Nation, wanting to glorify it's Creator. No other reason. While it is true that we do care about others here, it is better to allow others to fend for themselves than to make them dependent upon you. Every good parent knows this. If you coddle your children and help them out of every dilemma and pay for all their expenses, they will never grow up and mature and leave the nest. They will become dependent upon you and need you to carry them. Every parent should allow their child to fall and learn how to be self sufficient. They should help minimally and even guide, but never make them dependent. When governments pay for everything for you from helping you to buy a home and a car, to food, housing, heat, etc. it only hurts you in the long run.

Tea baggers are downright stupid if they think it is best to have the government do nothing! They think that the country just recovers from corrupt bankers and greed corporations by doing NOTHING. Yeah I'd like to see one example of a country the size of ours where this actually worked. And yes, what we've seen is a resession but what we were facing, without government intervention, was a DEPRESSION. Two very different things. So far the country hasn't recovered from a severe depression without the government getting involved. So as usual, your logic is based on a misrepresentation of the facts.

This was not a 'severe' depression. Go back to the twenties and you'll see what 'severe' was. This is a recession.

People who were looking to buy a home recently scrambled to get their closing dates before April 30th so they could take advantage of the tax credit of up to $8000. off the price of their home. They would have bought their houses whether our taxes got paid to them or not. It was such a waste! It was thievery. No one gave me $8000. when I was purchasing my home, and why should I have to give someone that kind of money to buy their home?

[pattygreen 5]

Clinton makes me laugh! His pious concern about a "vocal minority" protesting government threats to freedom was nowhere around when Bush was in office. Many liberal commentators were saying that Bush was "shredding the Constitution". A "local minority" back then thought that Bush was a far greater threat to American liberty and a far greater threat than Islamic extremists. Their saying so didn't trouble Clinton back then, nor was he moved to speak out when anti-Bush protestors labeled him the world's worst terrorist and carried posters of the president wearing a Hitler mustache.

The best poster spotted at a tea party rally:

"IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT I PUT ON MY SIGN, CAUSE YOU WILL ACCUSE ME OF RACISM ANYWAY!"

Dems are reduced to warning certain attitudes can lead to violence because there has been NO actual violence at tea party rallies. All have been remarkably orderly, even friendly.

You can almost feel the democrats frustration at this. By contrast, many left wing protests have sparked violence.

Just last year at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, rampaging protestors broke shop windows and scuffled with police, who used batons and tear gas to subdue them.

A 1999 meeting of the WTO in Seattle was so badly by anti globalization fanatics, who smashed windows and shut down the center of the city, that the governor had to declare a state of emergency and call out the National Guard. (Clinton failed to assail those who critisized corporations as inspiring the violence)

In 2007, several hundred protestors who descended on Washington DC during the International Monetary Fund meeting turned over trash cans, smashed windows, threw bricks and pushed a police officer off her motorcycle.

In 2008, anti republican protestors at the convention in St. Paul threw bricks through the windows of busses, sending elderly convention delegates to the hospital. They dropped bags of sand off highway overpasses onto vehicles below. They attacked a bus full of boyscouts that were passing through. The violence was only fleetingly covered in the press and went unmentioned by leading dems, including Clinton.

Reps have repeatedly condemned violent acts or even intemperate words by right individuals or groups. They have even condemned some that didn't happen, like false accounts of racial slurs shouted at members of Congressional Black Caucus.

While it's important to police ones ranks, it's also necessary to expose the Democrat's persistent and malignant libels.

(excerps from Mona Charen, who is a syndicated columnist.)

[Cleo's Mom 257]

The violence done in the name of the tea partiers has been documented and posted on here. From the man (who sits at home collecting his government disability checks) who advocated throwing bricks through the windows of democrats who voted yes on healthcare, to those who spit on black, democratic lawmakers and called them the N word, to harrassing a man with Parkinson's disease, to planting an explosive device at a democratic congressman's brother's home.

The media attention to the tea party has been way out of proportion to their actual importance. They are just loud, insulting and mean spirited.

So, let them continue to rally with their misspelled signs about taxes (when theirs have been lowered :thumbup:) because they don't know what they're yapping about. Yawn.

But where are they on wall street (financial) regulation? Absent!!

They claim to be against government intrusion into our lives and taking away our freedom and liberty - but what could be a bigger intrusion than the recent Arizona law? Talk about big brother and nazi-ism. In nazi Germany is where you heard "show me your papers".

But do you see the teabaggers protest this blatant government intrusion into our lives? NO, of course not.

They are just puppets of the conservative/republican movement and parrot those talking points.

[LeighaMason 19]

"malignant libels." :thumbup::lol::laugh:

[Cleo's Mom 257]

The violence of the tea party.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Cleo's Mom