Tea party leaders say they would ‘absolutely’ abolish Social Security.

[democracy1st]

Run time: 01:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpiZ3kgBFk0   Posted on YouTube: March 30, 2010 By YouTube Member: ThinkProgress2 Views on YouTube: 2010   Posted on DU: April 01, 2010 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1856

 
Last night on CNN, Larry King discussed the rise of the tea parties with a variety of guests and featured footage from last weekend’s lobbyist-organized Tea Party Express rally in Searchlight, NV. Dana Loesch, a tea party organizer from Missouri, and another tea party organizer, Wayne Allyn Root, joined King for the discussion. Root and Loesch decried the “unprecedented” and “unconstitutional” reach of a health care mandate. However, King noted that programs like Social Security are mandatory and asked if the tea parties would like to “do away with” that program as well. Both tea party organizers enthusiastically said “yes, absolutely” and added that a compromise would be at least privatizing the system:

KING: Would anyone turn away Social Security now? Would you do away with it?

LOESCH: I would, yes.

KING: You would?

LOESCH: Yes, absolutely.

KING: Would do you away with it, Wayne?

ROOT: I’d certainly like to. At best, I do away with it because I could find better ways to spend and save my own $15,000 a year.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/30/teaparty-social-security/

[DesertFlower]

1. i'd like to hear what they would

say if it wasn't there when they needed it.

people don't realize that if you become disabled, you can collect SSDI.

[JuniperLea]

2. I wonder how many Teahadists are down with this sentiment...

Seems to me there are many retired folk and others without jobs in their "crowds" so...

[DesertFlower]

4. don't let the government get it's hands on

my medicare. :sarcasm:

[goclark]

3. Wish we could hold them to all their threats nt

[unapatriciated]

10. they do and they just don't care.

If they had there way they would of privatized during the Reagan years.
Funny thing is if they had privatized it then, what do you think would have been left after the wall street crisis.
You can bet they would be screaming for the govt. to help them out.

[CLANG]

5. Gore wanted to put it in a "lock box" and they ridiculed him!

[thereismore]

6. Idjits. nt

[Wickerman]

7. 15K a year?

Root, Root, Root, if you make cash enough that you think you are paying 15k a year into SS then you either need a new accountant or a lesson in reading your pay stub from McDonalds.

[unapatriciated]

11. I thought the same thing, even with matching from employer can't come up with the figure.

shit that would be six months of pay for most of us.
He must be a wealthy elitist making more than a mil and including medicare taxes.

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10022.html
Paying Social Security and Medicare taxes
The Social Security tax rate for 2010 is 15.3 percent on self-employment income up to $106,800. If your net earnings exceed $106,800, you continue to pay only the Medicare portion of the Social Security
tax, which is 2.9 percent, on the rest of your earnings.

There are two income tax deductions that reduce your taxes.

First, your net earnings from self- employ ment are reduced by half of your total Social Security tax. This is similar to the way employees are treated under the tax laws, because the employer’s share of the Social Security tax is not considered wages to the employee.

Second, you can deduct half of your Social Security tax on IRS Form 1040. But the deduction must be taken from your gross income in determining your adjusted gross income. It cannot be an itemized deduction and must not be listed on your Schedule C.

If you have wages as well as self- employ ment earnings, the tax on your wages is paid first. But this rule is important only if your total earnings are more than $106,800. For example, if you will have $30,000 in wages and $40,000 in self-employment income in 2010, you will pay the appropriate Social Security taxes on both your wages and business earnings. However, in 2010, if your wages are $77,500 and you have $30,000 in net earnings from a business, you do not pay dual Social Security taxes on earnings more than $106,800. Your employer will withhold 7.65 percent in Social Security and Medicare taxes on your $77,500 in earnings. You must pay 15.3 percent in Social Security and Medicare taxes on your first $29,300 in self-employment earnings and 2.9 percent in Medicare tax on the remaining $700 in earnings.

[livingonearth]

12. Great post

You bring up the cut off of $106,800 for the Social Security tax, which is a great point. I can't figure out why the rich like Limbaugh etc. complain so much about something they don't have to pay for.
Also, don't these tea bagger folk realize that all those Social Security checks that go out every month go toward purchases that keep the economy going. It all goes around; another concept the right never gets.
It's too bad it never was put in a lock box, because, by population size, the baby boomers would have put in way more than what would have been needed to take care of their parents. The system would not be broke, and there would be a good start for the next generation. Oh well.

[unapatriciated]

14. one of the problems is we expanded without raising medicare taxes.

SSI was a good expansion but we needed to pay just a little more in to cover this cost.
The second problem was when we allowed the insurance companies to become the middle man.

[LaPera]

8. That's the usual republican bullshit corporate privatization of everything talk...

[Bitwit1234]

9. privatize it sure, give all that billions to wall street to squander and loose

you know these people are corporate shills. Else why would they want to give wall street the money.

[DailyGrind51]

13. And Thom Hartmann wants "us" to find common ground with these people?

A rabbinical scholar would have an easier time with a gang of skinheads!

[suzanner]

15. the comments here are brilliant!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. they're nuts n/t

[Historic NY]

17. spread that one around & it would really bring out supporters abolish SS..

it would be like having a Palins death panels...old people jumping out windows w/o the safety net.

[socialist_n_TN]

19. Yep. I think that EVERYBODY...............

over the age of 55 ought to know this. Spread it far and wide folks.

[applegrove]

18. They truly are the jetset's army.

[neobeetle]

20. *sigh*