Obama calls for $250 payments to seniors

Uh, no, social security was NEVER intended to be the sole or primary source for retirement income.

According to most elementary history books, the first years SS started, a typical monthly benefit was $22. That's about $350 in today's dollars.

 

My daughter lives paycheck to paycheck. I live paycheck to paycheck. Most people here probably live paycheck to paycheck. Where is your sympathy for them?

No, YOU owe it to them. WE do not. I certainly don't expect you or anyone else to take care of my elders. That's my responsibility.

 

What would you say is the responsibility of grown children to their aged parents?

 

I agree with you that we should take care of our own elderly, but it's not nearly as simple as you seem to think. Believe me, when we placed my grandmother in a nursing home, we looked at EVERY SINGLE option available first.

When faced with two choices, feed your children or buy grandma's medicine, the reality of the situation is very bleak, especially when the elderly person is still of sound mind but their medications, oxygen, feeding tubes, etc. cost as much as an entire month's paycheck for just a few days worth of their life.

As God-fearing Christians, of course we will do all we can to support our loved ones without resorting to assistance from others. However, sometimes EVERYTHING YOU CAN DO physically and financially is still not enough. Then you face the alternative which is take the assistance or watch a dear family member die. We chose life. I'm sorry that bothers you.

 

Why not? That's what people did for thousands of years. Even after social security was implimented, people condinued to do that. Only in the last few decades has the mentality shifted to expect the American public to bear the burden.

 

For thousands of years people did not have life saving medications and medical proceedures that could help them live longer. People died young, and they died of medical conditions that are treatable today. They died in childbirth, they died from the flu, chickenpox, you name it.

Should we let our loved ones die simply because they have diabetes, or heart problems, or thyroid or blood pressure problems, knowing there are life saving medications that will help them?

When you know your loved one needs medications in order to continue to live, yet you cannot afford to buy them all, you feel helpless and guilty. You also feel helpless and guilty for accepting help even if the loved one legally qualifies for that help. So the deciding factor is life.

 

A slight increase in social secturity payments would not have changed this situation.

In the end the combined resources of the entire country both physically and financially is still not enough - we are all destined to a physical death.

What additional percentage of your families gross income are you willing to give up so the elderly parents of others can spend "an entire months paycheck" for a few more days of life?

 

No, but that doesn't mean the financial responsibility of those things should fall on the American public. If my mother can't afford her medications, I will gladly make her a dependent of mine, put her on my insurance, and take care of her medical needs. I don't expect you to pay for it.

 

I agree, but right now there is no other option. As long as US citizens keep voting in politicians who mismanage our money, it is a necessary evil we have to live with. I shudder to think what will happen if we get "Obamacare" because we will all be forced to become socialist and these issues will be much worse.

 

If you agree, why are you arguing about social security?

 

Again matt, the SSA "benefit" started out as a contributory fund. Each of us contributes 14% of our gross income into this "fund".

However, the fund has been converted to debt by the many raids on it by our government officials and is bankrupt.
That is why it is presently a hand to mouth fund.

BTW, no one is holding a gun to your head (yet).
A little know fact is that you CAN get yourself removed from the SSA role and no FICA will be witheld from your paycheck.
It is expensive and time consuming, but you can do it. You will probably lose your job as well.
However when your turn comes to retire, you will receive nothing.
Then if you don't have your own private retirement fund, your family or State welfare will have to take care of you.

I know it's easy to get heated in a political debate.

One day, by the grace of God, or unless the Lord returns, we will all pass through the elderly phase.

Of course, especially as Christians, we are to care for our own.
According to the Scripture to do less is to be worst than an infidel.

But we all know this is an ideal that has never worked on a social level.

Be angry and have righteous indignation with the politicians who did this to the SSA and destroyed its primitive intent and are bent on changing the very structure of the self-enterprise system.

There is presently a long awaited awakening growing among the citizenry of this greatest nation on earth as we witness the dismantling of the basic structure of our beloved Republic.

We the people have become aware of the present danger of the real meaning of the president's own words "We're looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington".

Should this present global distress not be the forerunner of the final hour, we have an opportunity to restore our nation to a righteous place among the nations.

This is what we need to do to those who have violated the public trust with which we the people have empowered them:

Put them in the unemployment line. VOTE THEM OUT, then repeal Roe v. Wade, repeal "death with dignity", repeal/cancel this flood of thinly disguised bills (which we aren't allowed to read) designed to fully convert us to a godless socialistic secular humanist nation.


HankD

 

Because we are living in the real world. On one hand we have things the way they "should" be theoretically, but on the other hand that's not going to be reality, because our world is contaminated by sin and is flawed. So, while in theory I WANT to be able to help all of my elderly loved ones, the REALITY is, it's not possible and SS is what we have in place legally.

 

AMEN!!! Good post, HankD.

 

And in the real world, Social Security was never designed to be the sole or primary source of a retired person's income. So, again, if a person chose to live their life not putting any money away for retirement, do not expect the American public to foot the bill.

 

But in reality we do john.

Truth, if a man will not work neither should he eat.

But not in America. No one needs to go without in this land of plenty. Welfare, food stamps, food banks, a multitude of charitable organizations, etc...

I remember the total irony of a newscast showing a woman crying because after several years she suddenly had her ration of food stamps cut as a matter of government policy.

The irony: she was morbidly obese.

HankD

 

That is an excellent post. On top of that, most are collecting multiples of what they ever paid into the fund, which is being subsidized by those working now.

 

From reading this thread it is clear why we have this thread currently running...

Apparently some have not seen the sites I see in Appalachia...
Apparently some think that every family in America have 401ks...
Apparently some think that every family can have 401ks...

BTW, my grandparents died in the 80s..


Some people live off of minimum wage.. not because they want too.. but because they have too... Yes, have too... Some have learning disabilities that have hindered them. Some live in communities where there are NO jobs... Of course you could say, well move...

Well friends there is more to life than money... and these people do not want to leave family.. .for if they did, no one would be able to take care of their moms and dads...

Some people lose jobs because they have to care for a loved one.
Some people don't make enough to live off of, let alone put aside money for retirement..

For instance.. The average wage of my Grandfather back in 1940s-50s was $.40 an hour..
That is $3.20 a day..
They had 7 kids to raise.
They also had maybe 10 cows they raised and sold, or sold the milk.
they had some chickens they raised to sell the eggs...
They raised hogs to butcher so they could have some meat.
They had a garden.

Every penny they had went to raising the family.
Grandmother stayed home to raise the kids... BTW.. they were well adjusted kids.. because she was a mother... a real mother.. not a fly by night.. rush in, rush out.. career woman...

Grandpa couldn't read or write.. back then in Appalachia, this was common.. he was born in 1902, and had to drop out of school to help HIS family get by. They lived in a little cabin in Roane county, WV.. where it took 1 days journey to get to the nearest town.. YEAH.. he knew all about 401ks....

Anyway, he went to work in the natural gasfields when they got married..

NOW.. making $2-4 dollars a day, raising a family, etc.. how much money would they have put aside? (And they did manage to put some aside).. but how far would that money have gone in the 80s.. after inflation ran rampant?

That principle still applies today. We can save.. but when we get older.. don't think that your retirement fund will be enough when you consider inflation, the cost of nursing homes, healthcare, etc...

Another story is my wife's grandmother..
She is in a nursing home in Charleston WV... not because the family wanted to put her there, but because of her health conditions, that is the best place for her. In order for her to stay there and get any kind of goverment help.. she had to get rid of all she and her husband worked for.

She had to sell her home, get rid of her savings, etc..

NOw someone will come back and say, "Why can't the family pay for the nursing home themselves?" the answer is simple.. the cost is outrageous... and no one can afford too. The healthcare industry in this land has ran the prices skyhigh so that this was their only choice.. to get help from the Government.

Her SS goes to pay her nursing home bills.. and she get's like $20 to live off of a month.. and this was a family that DID save, and put away money...

But in the end it was not enough!

Don't think for one moment that the money you have saved will be enough if you have terminal cancer, or a heart attack, or have to be put in extended care in a nursing home.. You will be wiped out... and will have to ask for help...

Are your kids going to help you? Are they going to have a job that pays enough? Especially after they get through paying back the country's debt they now owe because we bailed out millionaires on wall street!!

The seniors in our country are depending on SS.. and to not help them, or want to help them, speaks volumes about the Baptists on this board, and in general...

Again, we are not talking about millionaire seniors.. .we are talking about the real men and women that have worked hard all their lives and now have to live off of $500-$1000 a month...

Besides this, part of their medicare premiums will increase.. .so although they are not getting a cut in their payments... it will seem like one because they will be paying out more next yr for their prescription part of medicare...

Call me a liberal.. I don't care, I just have a heart for senior citizens that have to choose every week to do without food, so they can buy medicine.

Maybe I am becoming more liberal than I would like.. but I think this is the right thing for our civilized country to do...

We shouldn't be bailing out millionaire bankers on the backs of our senior citizens...

 

Social Security probably needs to be changed so that payments are need based. I don't see any need for millionaires and billionaires to be receiving payments from a taxpayer funded program designed to help retired folks keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their bodies, and food in their stomachs.

 

That's not what the program was designed to do. The program was designed to keep progressives in office.

 

I know, Bro. Curtis, I know.