Combat Ranting (formerly known as Famicom Mini)

[Weltall]

Totally insane. For proof look at pre-1940s America.

Yeah, middle class people sure did a great job of saving up money before Medicaire/SSI, yup! Oh wait, only in your demented imagination...

In those times there were practically no investment opportunities, and people hardly knew about what little there was. That is not the case today by any means, thus, your argument is invalid.

SSI and its related programs is one of the best programs the government has ever started. That alone easily would make Roosevelt one of our greatest presidents.

And the system isn't failing because it's a bad idea. Actually, it's in financial trouble because it's a good idea. It's failing because 1) not enough money is going into Medicare/SSI -- every time there's a budget problem money is stolen from it. 2) more and more old people every day. It puts a big strain on the system even in our system which isn't nearly comprehensive enough. (The only ways we have, long-term, to solve this are either to restrict benefits or raise taxes... there are no other options.)

Your second point shows exactly why it's a bad idea, and why the first point exists: The program is over-extended, created in a much different time. It was created in a time where people would collect benefits at age 65 and be dead in little more than five years. Now, people are living into the late eighties and early nineties, almost thirty years of collecting. The minimum age, for starters, needs to be raised by five, preferably ten years. Second, the program should be optional. Participation in SSI should not be forced. If people want the option of investing their own money, it should be provided. Those who wish to continue paying for SSI can do that as well, and many people will because investment isn't for everyone. But the system, like so many other liberal ideas, was much better in concept than in execution.

It's pretty depressing to see you continue to believe such delusions about poor people... I have said fifteen times before why this view of yours is lunacy so I don't see a point in repeating myself yet again.

As for the student loan part though, it's rare to get a full scholarship, which is what poor people would probably need (or full enough to pay the rest with a job), unless you play sports... and not many people get sports scholarships. And anyway, a lot of families need those people to work and can't afford to have them off in a school making nothing... after money that's the biggest reason they don't go as much.

So defeatist. You're then saying that they shouldn't bother, should not even be encouraged and helped to try. They should just become little piglets sucking on the welfare tit for everything they need, at my expense. Since not everyone will succeed, they should just give up and let Big Brother provide everything. The rest of us have the obligation to pay for all that.

THAT is delusional, yet it's exactly what you're suggesting.

I still can't understand why conservatives hate Clinton, given that he was so strongly middle of the road and a centrist who was quite pro business...

Anyway, maybe we could try something with China but it'd be tough... especially since a lot of Washington people seem to not care enough about this and think that because of the economic situation between our countries that they're untouchable...

Because he wasn't really a centrist, he pretended to be to cow the sheeple vote. And it worked. That horrendous attempt to communize health-care wasn't very centrist at all. Thank God it was defeated.

It was really wrong to hate Clinton though because he was the ultimate puppet. His policies were whatever his interest groups told him they should be, whatever it took to stay in power. That's why he was such an effective centrist. Puppets make good centrists. When he tried his own policies, like the health-care one, it was a pure disaster.