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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter O'Brien who wrote (485065)	11/1/2003 9:29:46 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

So blame Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the greatest president ever. You're totally cynical to even think that SS and Medicare are about politicians buying votes. The people pay for those programs and they are national insurance policies against personal disaster in old age. They work (more or less) and without them there'd be millions of horror stories. When my father got caner Medicare paid for his treatment. If he hadn't had it, he'd be broke at age 83.

To: Peter O'Brien who wrote (485065)	11/1/2003 9:45:37 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

<<Now these old people think they are actually ENTITLED to the benefits because of the meager payments they made when they were younger.>> Hi Peter. (BTW i agree that you are one of the few posters i can have a rational debate with regardless of whether or not we agree, and i appreciate that.) But you continue to poorly characterize SS. Old people are entitled to benefits not because of how much they've put in the system but because they financed the retirements of America's elderly when today's "old people" were working. That's the deal. The first generation to receive SS put little or nothing into the system. So the deal is: current workers help finance the retirement of current retirees in exchange for knowing tomorrow's workers will subsidize them when they are retired. Can't we at least argue from that, factual, basis? And i wouldn't put too much into the ravings of posters from either side. I actually think there are smart people on all ends of the spectrum. You just don't meet a lot of them here. It's an internet chat group after all. Steve Dietrich

To: Peter O'Brien who wrote (485065)	11/2/2003 5:41:38 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 769670

I think you may be wrong there. Many people paid and received nothing. Both my parents died at age 62 and we received $250 each to bury them thats it (today I understand its $255--A JOKE). I myself have paid in THE MAXIMUM RATE from the first day I started working after graduating from college. Eventually I became an owner and paid in 1 1/2 times the maximum. If anyone wishes to give ME the MONEY I paid in in return for my forgiving the indebtedness owed me for the benefits, I AM READY TO ACCEPT. jdn