Deficit Co-Chair Alan Simpson Thinks You're Greedy and Stupid

[MaryWaterton]

Sam Seder is a dumbass. Can't believe I wasted my time listening to this BS.

[largraf]

Alan Simpson has become a toxic asset. He must be removed. He must be fired.

[SeaWolfe59]

Another socialist.

And how is social security deemed successful? Because people draw from it after having money taken from them by force? Typical liberal thinking.

[beancube2010]

Those debts are manipulated bubbles. They should be default as planned.

If they put the huge jobless population in jail, they have to create prison jobs at least.

Jobless population shouldn't isolate themselves. They should do everything together even it is going to jail for a breeding bed for real democracy.

[sewbuttns]

I have lost respect for older people because of this. It seems like they are perfectly fine letting social security be cut for their grandkids.

[mkhomero]

Reallly great work, Sam! Keep it up and speak truth to the nonsense in Washington!

[dizzymasekela]

The U.S. is fast headed toward that world in Fritz Lang's Metropolis where the rich live it up on the surface and workers work their asses off for nothing underground.

[arga400]

sam you should be a senator

[aceonfire11]

Great work sam. You really care aboiut the working class.

[kingsdun]

The real problem is a system that allows for 70 and 80 year old lawmakers.

Ask Simpson the difference between a megabyte and a terabyte.

[TruthAndMoreTruth]

Throw my grandparents and parents into the street, as well as a few million of my fellow Americans' grandparents and parents, and the US is going to have a problem dealing with us!

A REAL PROBLEM!!

[Maxdwolf]

Social security pays for itself, but at present rates of taxation it is expected to begin losing money fairly soon as baby boomers begin to retire. Do you deny that this is a valid projection? If not, what do you propose as a solution?

[SamSeder]

@Maxdwolf you're incorrect. the trust fund (essentially padding for the anticipated demographic bump of boomers) will be exhausted approx. in 2018 but SS payroll taxes will continue to fully fund SS until 2037- thats not fairly soon. even then if absolutely nothing is done and US econ growth remains anemic ss will pay out 80% benefits until you and I are dead. Those are the facts in the SS Trustee report.

[Maxdwolf]

@SamSeder For dealing with large matters like this, that is fairly soon. I want the society I live in to consider my posterity as well as myself. That's why I care about global warming, population growth and peak oil as well.

[LY8Ze7xK]

@SamSeder I don't understand why you pretend that the trust fund is a magical pot of money somewhere. It isnt. It is a demand on the US Treasury, and must be paid by the federal government out of general funds.

[ReliableInsider]

@Maxdwolf

Should we increase the FICA tax in the middle of the Great Bush Recession or should we wait until 2037?

Should we reduce Social Security benefits in the middle of the Great Bush Recession or should we wait until 2037? 

[ReliableInsider]

@Maxdwolf

Ronald Reagan did the same thing that Alan Simpson is proposing. He raised the FICA tax on poor Americans . . . and generated a HUGE surplus . . . and then he used that huge "surplus" to justify massive spending in other parts of the budget and to justify massive tax cuts for the super-rich.

That was fraud.

[atheistveganheathan]

Agreed! US is coming closer and closer to pre-revolutionary France. I have said it before.

[grendelcatt]

It was s***t like this that, led the French to build guillotines...

[HostileNegotiator]

@grendelcatt Indeed, the French had the guts to take care of business before it was too late.