Well it spent way to much time talking about the Koch bros imo but a few comments:
Thanks for watching it. That's a fair comment, but not one that really is too bad about it.
1. Social Security does not have 2.7T in cash laying around. It has intragovernment securities which must be transferred into actual Treasury notes and sold on the open market. At current, especially with the market tanking, that wouldn't be difficult. That might not be the case when we need it though, especially with trillion dollar deficits as far as we can reasonably predict.
The point is, though, that's not a Social Security problem; that's a government problem, of having borrowed every dollar fro the trust fund, because it's politically beneficial.
Cutting Social Security benefits to pay for the government's other spending is backwards.
2. Means testing goes against the very spirit of the wildly popular and successful program that the Dems single handedly implemented and Reps are trying to dismantle purely for political points. The entire idea was for it to be "social insurance". You paid into it and they promised that you would receive the benefits. Same thing goes with removing the cap unless you also wish to remove the cap on payouts (which is determined by what you paid in)
You're right. But look at the larger picture - the wealthy have had decades of shifting wealth from the rest of society to themselves, so the wealthiest 1% have gone from 10% to over 20% of income, they own 40% of all wealth, they have taken practically all of the economy's growth that doubled its size after inflation - so it's very important we reverse some of that for the benefit of the country. If the politically practical way to do that is to do some tiny bit of shift back with tis change, it's a good idea.
This just some 'fairness' question like everything is fair before we do it. We're in a hugely unfair situation in their favor.
As I understand it, it's a temporary measure to get past the baby boomer bubble.
I'm ok with the 'impurity' of shifting a tiny bit of wealth back, after they've shifted far more.
3. The system was implemented when people might live a few years after they started receiving benefits. We are much healthier now and live much longer due to it. Most people can and do work a few years longer but the system wasn't designed to support people for 20-30 years. OTOH, we don't take care of our parents anymore and a lot of people have careers in fields that their body simply can't take the abuse for another 5-10 years. Not sure what to do about this but it is a problem. For the record, I am not about, nor have I ever been about, kicking Granny out in the cold.
While it 'wasn't designed to', it can and should. It can for decades without change, and after that with relatively small changes.
4. On the larger topic of entitlements, we must have significant cuts in entitlement spending (along with a host of other things some of which you agree with and some of which you don't along with increasing revenue). The math simply does not lie.
The question is how. 'Medicare for All' would provide both massive savings AND massive benefits, by putting the huge waste of our private insurance system to use for the public.
Harry and Louise are unfortunately convincing to too many Americans we should continue to throw away trillions to benefit a few wealthy interests.
5. Not sure if you realize this or not but the .gov is spending 40% more than it takes in.
I am. Other than the short-term recovery policies, that needs to change.
The truly wealthy like this a lot. Who do you think most of that money eventually goes to? Its not like people just stick it in a mattress. No, they shop at wallyworld, but gas, pay mortgages, etc... Deficit spending helps the rich just as much as it does the poor, probably more. The rich get richer because of it and the poor just tread water.
It's not that simple. The truly wealthy like parts of it a lot, but they like really slashing it, and slashing the American people's wealth, so they own an even larger share, even more.
The wealthy can be very short-sighted in demanding 'more now' from society over a long-term stronger economy. Companies want OTHER companies to hire creating consumers for their products, but to hire as little as possible themselves. People forget that business was finally asking FDR to implement many of his policies as they came to better recognize the need for a stronger economy. They just wanted their competitors blocked from doing wrong too, which meant regulation.
FDR was actually passing a lot of his liberal policies as compromise measures to avoid more liberal measures the then-strong socialist movement wanted.
The cycles of high and low inflation, boom and bust, are more complicated about how they can redistribute wealth to the top. The wealthy are now hoarding cash - and if the rest of the economy crashes and assets become cheap, that cash will allow buying up a ton more wealth, which is what happened in the Great Depression. One wealthy man who did this said, 'I can buy companies more cheaply than their products'.
While I say it's complicated, just watch the bottom line of the distribution of wealth. Is it stable, or shifting towards or away from the wealthy?
It's had a radical shift to the wealthy for decades.
Look at what the wealthy support - it's 'austerity', not the big spending you mention benefits them - for the public, that is.
People often say 'the economy is based 2/3 on consumers'. That's a statistic that reflects a middle class strong enough to have that large consumer role. It can change.
Anyway, did you have any other comments about the video? It was about the propaganda for the public.
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