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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JHP who wrote (84727)	10/31/2000 1:00:04 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

jhp, i didn't know social security paid to wealthy americans went for infrastructure. well, not in theory as we all know the govt steals from the social security fund to boost the gen'l fund. i'm not complaining about taxes in gen'l. in fact, as i make more money, i want to pay a higher % of my income in tax. i'm complaining about a guy or gal making $6.50 an hour sending a check to some guy worth $10 million. what does that have to do with providing "some of the best infrastructure in the world?" an important issue, just not related. i get the impression you mistook my statements as being anti tax in gen'l. i am not. i do not think either candidate should lower anybody's taxes (except maybe the very poor) and i think they are irresponsible for promising they will. i've been to canada, mexico and europe. some rich places, some poor places and some rich places right in the middle of poverty. i read where an amazing % of world of the world's population starve. i hear about the children of iraq. i see what israel and arabs do to each other on the news. all very important issues. i don't draw a correlation to the issue at hand, though. having the working poor / middle class support the rich elderly or living like a third world country are not the only two options. i don't need to accept luck (and where each of us was born is really luck and we should feel fortunate - more often than not - some folks in abusive families would be better off in loving poor families in a third world country) and sit on my butt and not try to improve things or keep quiet about what i think is not right. it just doesn't gell (sp??) w/ me.

To: JHP who wrote (84727)	11/1/2000 12:35:46 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

my argument is citizens should pay taxes to provide some of the best infrastructure in the world, But that just isn't happening, now is it JHP... SS is a ponzi scheme, especially if Gore is elected and succeeds in passing all of these governmental entitlement schemes that will have to be funded each and every year for decades... Those entitlements will wind up leaving the SS trust fund with empty IOUs that will require the US govt to issue even more debt, with estimates ranging from between $11 - 40 Trillion. But even worse, the SS trust fund actually forces the govt to increase the national debt each and every year since the only instrument it can be invested in is Govt debt, (and we know that what the govt borrows it spends). The fact is that nearly 20% of the current government debt consists of SS trust fund obligations: ssa.gov And since the Treasury Dept is limited to what it can actually buy back in the government securities markets so as not to distort yields, the value of the dollar, or discriminating against commercial debt. The government only started repurchasing debt last March and then only a paltry $1 billion worth of debt despite the fact that we had a $90 billion surplus: foxmarketwire.com policy.com The reality is that the greatest majority of the surplus will find itself incorporated into the general governmental budget and IOUs placed in the trust fund. They simply can't buy enough debt back each year, certainly not $200 Billion worth, with drastically screwing up swap rates between government and commercial debt. So that 10 year $2 Trillion surplus they keep talking about will really turn into a $1 1/2 Trillion in additional debt and governmental entitlement spending. And that is $1 1/2 trillion that will be removed from the general private economy, spent by the government, and paid back by our descendants. That's why getting Bush into office and restructing SS is now important. Gore obviously isn't going to do anything about it but maintain the status quo. Regards, Ron