Obama's cat food commsion tells us to slash middleclass goodies

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
11,925
2,908
136
Imagine for a second Bush got his way and had medicare and SS privitized and into the stock market back in 2006.. Now imagine where all the seniors would be when their monthly payments drop to 40 percent or lower than they were getting when the bottom fell out of the stock market in 2009..


What people need to realize is the social safety net isn't just for the poor. Its for everyone because frankly the sheer strain of 200 million homeless and starving people would drown the entire country....

That's not what Bush proposed, sorry.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Government spending as percent of GDP under Eisenhower = 17% (not counting the Korean War)

Government spending as percent of GDP under Obama = 24%

See the problem?

That's cuz we did not pay Chinese to build our iphones and pay our people to sit at home. We built them we built everything and anyone that wanted a job had one. Meatpackers, autoworkers whatever made enough to support not only wife who sat at home but send their children to college on their dime, not .govs
 

bamacre

Lifer
Jul 1, 2004
21,029
2
81
That's cuz we did not pay Chinese to build our iphones and pay our people to sit at home. We built them we built everything and anyone that wanted a job had one. Meatpackers, autoworkers whatever made enough to support not only wife who sat at home but send their children to college on their dime, not .govs

Progressives acknowledge the problem...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

Unfortunately, they don't understand the causes.
 

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
18,161
7
0
That's cuz we did not pay Chinese to build our iphones and pay our people to sit at home. We built them we built everything and anyone that wanted a job had one. Meatpackers, autoworkers whatever made enough to support not only wife who sat at home but send their children to college on their dime, not .govs
Wow paradise huh??

One in which most people owned one TV, if they were lucky.
One car.
A smaller house than today.
The number of people who went to college was FAR less than it is today.
 

bamacre

Lifer
Jul 1, 2004
21,029
2
81
Wow paradise huh??

One in which most people owned one TV, if they were lucky.

Bad example. It's like saying people were poor in 1995 because they owned one computer, if they were lucky.


With one person working, that's all they needed.

A smaller house than today.

You really want to use this example? :hmm:

The number of people who went to college was FAR less than it is today.

They were a lot smarter coming out, and it was a lot less expensive.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
23,061
1,229
126
Tax subsidies for kids, correction, adults living in parents basement.

And they could call it the ATOT tax, intriguing. It's crazy how half the people here are so rich they could lose a million dollars and not even notice and the other half are so poor they have no money for food.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
0
And they could call it the ATOT tax, intriguing. It's crazy how half the people here are so rich they could lose a million dollars and not even notice and the other half are so poor they have no money for food.

lol this is ridiculous, a lot of people on here have identified themselves as neither.
 

Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
12,839
2,625
136
I work for a large homebuilder (top 10)...we didn't get a bail out.

You didn't get a direct bailout, but your industry got tons of stimulus money thrown at it.

Homebuilders are a lot different than most industries, anyway. Anyone that has been around the block through more than one boom and bust cycle knows that homebuilders-of all sizes-fly high in good times and crash hard in bad. The fact that your employer isn't in Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation) is pretty much proof how much they have been propped up since 2009.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
You didn't get a direct bailout, but your industry got tons of stimulus money thrown at it.

Homebuilders are a lot different than most industries, anyway. Anyone that has been around the block through more than one boom and bust cycle knows that homebuilders-of all sizes-fly high in good times and crash hard in bad. The fact that your employer isn't in Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation) is pretty much proof how much they have been propped up since 2009.

tons of stimulus? Like the $8000 tax credit when buying just a car could qualify for about $4000?

We are still alive because we had a huge cash 'war chest' at the time from the CEO and partners not taking out their 'cuts' and a reduction of 80% of our work force.

We have not been propped up at all. Our CEO speaks almost weekly about there needs to be more done to stimulate home ownership.

Fortunately we are building again. It's slow, but nothing really has been built in the last two years and their is a backlog of people ready to buy, but afraid to do so.
 

sothsegger

Member
Jul 6, 2004
106
0
76
Fact-this is a bipartisan commission that is charged with making NONBINDING proposals to fix the federal budget problem in the long term. The President (and Congress) have no input on the panel's reccommendations nor are they in any way bound by them whatsoever


FACT-the panel's proposal to raise SS retirement age (to 68) would kick in in 2050. I'll be closing in on 100 then if I'm still alive.

semi-fact: i heard congress is obliged to give an up or down vote on these proposals if 14 out of the 18 commissioners agree.

more-than-semi-fact: the cuts to SS also include reduction of benefits for existing retirees. any cuts to benefits ignores the trust fund, and is therefore equivalent to a retroactive tax on the middle class.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
There is a lot of crap going on today that is unamericanizing America. We are heading back to a Monarchy.