I’d like to see what Warren would do if all his money suddenly disappeared. Or if his church suddenly decided to be actual Christians and kicked his money-worshiping self out onto the street.
(Same goes for P Ryan and R Santorum: they’re over-privileged and too stupid to recognize it.)

Yeah, and the Easter Bunny died for our capital gains and all that… Really, screw Rick Warren with his speaker’s fee from Obama’s coronation way back when. Rick’s got his, and God’s got his back — apparently he thinks that allows him to piss on the poor and suck up to his well-heeled buddies from the Sunday morning circle jerk. Too bad it really just confirms his status as scum-of-the-earth.

As long as he’s rewriting the scriptures he might as well tackle the Beatitudes. Hows about “Blessed are they who give not to the poor but do force the poor to work hard for a living for theirs is the factory ownership of Heaven. Blessed are the greedy. Blessed are they who do whine about paying taxes for they shall be exempt.” Personally, I think that Rick Warren makes Jesus cry.

So a guy who runs a tax-exempt megachurch thinks he knows something about the dignity of labor, of honest toil and the plight of the poor? He looks at the fact that half of America falls off the tax rolls and calls them freeloaders: I look at that and wonder why so many make so little?

I’m sure the founders had megachurches and their affiliated publishing and TV empires in mind when they came up with tax-free status for houses of worship.

Whereas the real Christian had this to say at a megachurch today:

Champion asked Tebow what he thought needed to change culturally in America. ‘First and foremost is what this country was based on: one nation under God,’ he said to applause.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127029/Tim-Tebow-draws-crowd-15-000-Texas-Easter-service.html

Rick’s right.

There’s a shocking number of children entirely capable of working and paying taxes who aren’t. Those ungrateful fucking urchins! Little kids have so much energy they should be working 4 or 5 part-time jobs and mowing Rick’s lawn during their down-time.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all those layabouts at the old folks’ home….

He was supposed to draw 30,000.

God’s not gonna be happy….

Well, supposedly of all the mega church grifters Warren actually does donate most of what he makes. I do not know what he donates to, the report I saw wasn’t that specific (and frankly it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t to anything all that charitable.) That this man is supposedly a man of Christ only proves how much of a grift that usually is. Look I agree with him about the jobs, and I would add education. The thing is I don’t see him excoriating those job creators because the jobs they create do not pay enough to support a family. I don’t see him demanding that those who work should be treated with respect and honor for that work – whether it be as a vice president or as the company janitor. I do not see him condemning those who would steal the pensions of their workers so that they have more money. I do not see him demanding that the American people get what they have paid towards their entire working life so that they do not end their lives in poverty after that hard work. IOW, he may talk about work, but he does not demand that work provide the means for the workers to live with honor and comfort and not poverty and fear. Without that it is mere deflection from his and others lack of the care of the poor, and even he cannot believe it is a way to change things.

I think ol’ Rickie has aligned himself on the left hand side of his Lord.

And now, when I go to market, there are any number of Pibbles begging at the doorway.

That’s right. Beggars. “Please Miss, Can I work for you?” Please, Miss, can I help you? Please Miss, can I…..

It makes me want to do one damned thing….. Move back to Canada. Get out of here. People shouldn’t have to beg for pennies to survive. I shouldn’t have to give decent people the contents of my change purse.

I am sickened by this. I do not want these decent human beings to beg me in order to survive.

Yeah. Rick Warren apparently doesn’t think sales taxes or payroll taxes are taxes.

Pastor Rick™ Warren should be in prison.

Which came first: Claiming the politics of the other side was causing the woes of the nation or claiming God’s word actually meant the politics of the other side…..?
I’m starting to think the Christians are jealous of the attention the Catholic church received with all the pedophile priests and are whoring for attention.

Why does anyone take this fucking asshole-in-chief, Warren, seriously? We live in fucked up times?

Sometimes you have to stick with the classic.

“When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You–you rob them of dignity.”

And of course this means that ol’ Ricko’s heirs will be cut out of his will when he goes to his great reward. Wouldn’t want to take away their dignity, you know.

I do not believe in wealth redistribution, I believe in wealth creation…

Don’t forget to call in a pledge. The number’s up there on your screen.

Doesn’t political speech from the pulpit endanger Pastor Rick’s religious tax exemption?

Ooops. Did I say that out loud?

Wait, didn’t this guy write “Purpose Driven Wife”?

Wealth creation vs. wealth distribution: can I have some of both? Or is that illegal?

“And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.”

Rick Warren, January 20, 2009

Christian church? nah…Catholic? Jewish? MMmmmmm….nah…other? Depends upon which party they are pushing…

Half of America hasn’t fallen off the tax rolls. Most of America is paying taxes. Social Security surpluses that were created by the paid taxes of every American ,including the ones Warren is claiming paid no taxes, have funded this country for years now. It’s only in retard-o republican land that those taxes don’t count despite the fact they’ve been utilized to fund just like federal income tax has.

One wonders why the IRS doesn’t come down on these obviously political, obviously money-grubbing enterprises. These Jeebuz Clowns are playing fast and loose with their tax-exempt statuses, it would seem to me.

Warren is on that camel and he is on the wrong side of the needle. He has been corrupted by the wealth Jesus warned would corupt. He is just another rich man, with no moral legitimacy. He can stand on that street corner spewing bogus righteousness, and be on TV, he has his reward. Too bad he is going to do so much damage before he suffers the consequences of being on the wrong side of that needle.

Or as a somewhat pithier grifter used to put it:

“Git on the telephone!”

It will take a revolution before these schemers are held accountable.

And who is surprised that the Warrens greatest adversity is the Mrs. Warren is too critical of her husband. In their next interview the problem will be that Mrs. Warren walks 8, not 9 steps behind her husband.

and lest we’ve forgotten Dear Leader insisted Flim Flam Rick be present at his coronat, oops, inauguration.

Exactly. Asking Warren to speak at his inauguration tells as much about Barry as his appointment of Rahm as COS, Geithner at Treasury, Republican Daddy at Defense and reappointing Bernake to the Fed.

Sheesh. He’ll be coming for Romney next. But as long as Obama’s cool with it, I am, too.

The die was cast even before he took the oath of office. By his appointments and his penchant for giving the impression he was “above it all” he signaled to those with a mind of their own that his Presidency was doomed, transformational change was just not his “thing.”

So glad you quoted that. I do not recall the Jesus lesson to take care of the poor, the widows, and “the least of these” having a caveat about creating dependence….Just wasn’t there in the lessons about looking out for the poor and the vulnerable.

I would love to see a special tax legislation act done. I’d call it the Rick Warren tax. For anyone who creates nothing but audio/video snake oil, normal tax rates up to $50K. After that 90% marginal tax on the next million, 95% on the next $10MM, and 98% thereafter. We’ll help con men pastors like Warren economically take care of the rubes they skin. Wealth creators…no, he and his ilk are wealth cremators.

The word “Left” in Latin is “sinister”. Kind of makes the whole Right/Left Hand of God more interesting. Warren is definitely a Leftie in this context..

His tweet in the capture above is just a lie — a big, fat, self-satisfied, honking LIE. If there really is a God, I don’t want to have to wait till after I die to see Rick Warren, public liar, get his just deserts. To paraphrase one of my heroes, Henry II, will no one rid us of this lying priest — or lat least throw a cream pie in his face and use the cream to write “LIAR!!!” all over him?

Giant oil & gas companies are people, too. We must stop robbing them of dignity by giving them taxpayer subsidies! Only moral thing to do.

This is the reference for my statement. Damned Fundies never read the freaking Gospels.

When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity.

Ya know, that why Jesus didn’t heal lepers and the sick, he encouraged them to shop for better health insurance. Wouldn’t want to encourage dat awful dependency.

-stewartm

Wrong, Rickie. They may not pay federal income tax, but they sure as your fat, phony, pseudo-Christian ass pay plenty in other taxes. Gas tax, sales tax, license fees, and any number of other taxes. Even not paying federal income tax, many if not most on the bottom pay a larger percentage of income in aggregate taxes than most at the top end. A pox on your ‘church’, Pharisee.

And when are we gonna lay to rest the lie that “half of people pay no taxes”?

Here’s a hint–when I worked near-minimum wage jobs at or near full-time, I paid income taxes. I also payed payroll taxes and all the other federal, state and local sales taxes and the such, but also INCOME TAXES.

I conclude that the people who pay no income taxes make so little damn money that they don’t even come close to what I made. And that wasn’t much.

-stewartm

Why would a man of God give a flying fuck about who pays what in taxes?

Jesus said “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; render unto God that which is God’s” He never said: “Those who are too poor to render unto Caesar must be too lazy to make an honest living”. Or even: “If thou are too poor to render unto Caesar, then thou must want others to render more”.

No. Jesus had pretty little regard for the subject of taxes, as he rather flippantly dismissed them with his remark. He did however, as Warren admits, mention the poor a whole lot. And not once did he warn against helping the poor lest they become dependent on assistance. One would think that a man of God would have noticed that and would have patterned his public musings after that instead of the pandering Tweet that Warren published.

Jesus must have been a dirty socialist hippie.

I blame Obama that you didn’t get to experience a McCain presidency.

Warren is no different than the other religions. It’s just another business. The poor just don’t contribute to the bottom line.

“Half of America pays No Taxes. Zero”

This Fox News soundbite-lie from the CEO of a megachurch, shilling a plastic, shallow and selfish version of Xtianity for big bucks, that pays no taxes.

Rick Warren is to Christianity what Thomas Kinkade was to art.

Obama was supposed to be “the lesser evil”. Instead, he’s demonstrated how to be “the more-effective evil”. He gets away with implementing more neo-con policies than a Republican would have, because he somehow got labelled (and sold as) “progressive” by the party loyalists who would rather trash/abandon traditional D-Party principles than admit that they’re backing a smooth-talking fraud.

Romney/? 2012!

Vote for the lesser evil!

John “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain/Heartbeat Away would never have thought of going all neocon had they won.

Arrrgh! We’re f’d!
Here’s the link to the Black Agenda Report, where I learned why/how Obama is “the more effective evil”, and a funny bumpersticker graphic saying “CAUTION, this president makes wide right-turns” Haha

http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil

While he has been a huge disappointment (though I was never under any illusion that he was anything other than a centrist) and has embraced a lot of formerly Republican policies and positions, he is still the lesser of the available evils. Any Republican would be worse, because all those GOP policies Obama embraced are too sane and moderate for the current Republicans.

My point being, the Democratic Party would have (hopefully) opposed a Republican president who’s supporting the s#!t Obama is/does. I’m past voting for someone, or a Party, that is somewhat/slightly better than the worst we could have.

Most of us don’t get to view the alternate reality that you apparently do. We just get to live with the suckitude of a President that has damaged civil rights, made the idea of decimating the social safety nets bi partisan-y, and screwed up health care by insisting that those DFHs shut the heck up and having his party leadership insist the actual constitutional solution to health care be declared “off the table.” I’m not even going to bother thanking him(and Stupak) for clearing the way for defunding Planned Parenthood, making contraception a religious issue and all these neat new rape er I mean ultrasound bills that he helped create by insisting that women’s reproductive choices were something that he was entirely open to compromising on. No, President Hunky Dory is sooooooooo much better than McCain woulda been. Heh.

I swore I was going to vote Republican to get rid of O, but that’s before I saw the corporate courts in action. Now, I’ll just stay home and eat ice cream dreaming of what could have been.

Heaven is now (per Jesus), Heaven is later after physically “dying” (per most religions, but especially western monotheistic religions) or there is no Heaven, either now or after physically “dying” (per atheists).

Which is it? These are the only three choices we choose between in this world, with the latter two actually being he same since adherents of both believe that Heaven can’t possibly be NOW, or at least not the Heaven that Jesus was talking and teaching about.

Jesus: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” (not outside ourselves, not distant, as close as our next thought).

Jesus to his disciples, deleted from the New Testament, found in one of the gnostic gospels that just lists statements attributed to Jesus: “The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out across the surface of the earth, but you do not see it.” (note: “do not see it,” not “cannot see it” because they could “see it” if the disciples just changed their Minds and saw as Jesus saw, Innocence instead of guilt, unconditional Love instead of hate, Peace instead of war, Oneness instead of Separation, all united in God instead of individuals fighting over who will “win” and rule over hell, “gaining” and “owning” as much earthly “treasure” as possible, money, power, prestige, properties, possessions. Note: none of what Jesus saw can be seen with human eyes, only with eyes “re-tuned” and inspired to “see” from a specific part of our Minds, deep within our own Minds, past all the roiling surface thoughts).

Jesus: “What profits a man, though he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?” (those focusing their minds on gaining the whole world, on accumulating, storing up and defending as much “earthly treasures” as possible hardly have time for, or an interest in, turning their thoughts inward, deep within, past the roiling surface thoughts, to the one place on this earth where the Kingdom of Heaven can be discovered now, as Jesus indicated).

Does this help explain what Jesus was saying when he told the young man who wanted to follow him to sell all his possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor, and then he would be ready to follow Jesus, essentially discovering the Heaven within himself that Jesus kept talking about and even demonstrating the power of, a power transcending the world and everything about the world?

IOW, either the young man valued his “earthly possessions” more, valuing them even over the poor, or he valued Heaven more, right then, at that moment, following Jesus, learning more about and where Heaven is from Jesus, having his eyesight “born again,” as it were. Instead, the young man chose to remain “blind” and go back to his “earthly treasures” because he believed they could “save” him, not Jesus and what he was teaching.

Rick Warren, Paul Ryan, and so many others (including myself) are this “young man,” choosing our “earthly treasures” over Heaven, right here, right now, but all of us are also the Prodigal Son, our Father’s “treasure,” our Father who loves us always and forever, waiting patiently and for as long as it seems to take for us to awaken and return home to our Father’s waiting feast and loving arms in Heaven, with all that we thought we did forgiven and forgotten, just a mistake, correctable as soon as we choose to change the way we think and then view things, looking within, releasing the world and therefore setting ourselves free along with everyone else. It’s the only Way. Happy Easter. Resurrect today. Or go the way of the “young man” for as long as one chooses. It doesn’t matter. Heaven is inevitable. This was (and still is) the promise of Jesus, our elder brother. Good News, eh?

Note: “A Course in Miracles” discusses this much better than I can. The Course is about forty years old, the product of a Jewish woman, head of a medical school, and a gay guy working there and who helped her record this illuminating message from Jesus. If one reads the Course and then rereads the Four Gospels then one begins to understand the nuances of what Jesus reportedly said in the New Testament. Acceptance is another matter. One part of our mind will employ every trick and distraction imaginable to try to block acceptance of Jesus’ message, which actually also describes what Jesus experienced two thousand years ago and what his message still faces today. And all his message was, then and now and forever, is Peace.

“Half of America pays no taxes”

Let’s look at who is paying no taxes.

How Everyone Else Pays for Big Business’s Tax Breaks: Families and small businesses pick up the tab for egregious tax loopholes exploited by corporations

Jan 2012: Companies that pay no federal income tax on the rise. The Wall Street Journal reported that 69 percent of U.S. corporations were organized as nontaxable businesses in 2008, up from 24 percent in 1986, and that the percentage is actually higher when including partnerships and sole proprietors.

Do the rwingers ever stop to ask themselves “Why is it (if true) that half of Americans dont pay taxes?”

Poor people with incomes below a specific level ($20,000 as a couple?) do not pay taxes. Seems Warren hopes to switch the focus from the wealthy paying more tax to the poor not paying enough tax. Its sick.

And we know wealthy folk and corporation have firgured out ways in which to pay no taxes.

Willful ignorance strikes again.

Here is a tweet for Rick. “Rick Warren is a parasitic dink”

Your stupidity knows no bounds.

So you’ll be voting for Nader again? I think I speak for the country when I say that your dedication to unenlightened self-absorbtion is an inspiration to us all.

And thanks again for putting Dubya into the presidency in 2000.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

we should be focusing on wealth creation

Not something a so-called “Man of God” should be focusing on.

“Half of America pays no taxes”

Yes. How many of them are under 18?

Rick Warren is so full of shit it’s coming out of his ears. He knows nothing about deprivation, and less than nothing about taxes. Everybody who works, purchases goods, has a telephone or has cable television pays taxes, whether they pay Federal income tax or not. If you work for minimum wage you might not make enough to pay Federal income taxes, but you by god will pay FICA. If you own a home, you’ll pay taxes on it whether you have $20,000 or $200,000 in income.

He might want to ask himself something about how we got to the point where half the people in this country have incomes so low as to fall below the minimum level for Federal income taxation. Just “lucky duckies”, as the Wall Street Journal would have it.

You appear to be saying that the President is in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. That’s crazy talk.

Look, I don’t know what your deal is with Obama. Perhaps, like me, you voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, but unlike me, upon her loss, you didn’t get over it and go with Obama in the general, as Hillary and I did.

Your argument in any case is not well served by falsehoods, and you’ll forgive the rest of us for thinking that there may be a darker motive driving your thinking in this regard.

Which you obviously need to get over.

“Verily, I say unto you: You have your reward.”

No pie in the sky for Rick. Pretzel logic for HIS dinner instead.

Merci, m’sieur

I swear they read “A Modest Proposal” and thought ‘how nice’

I loathe these people, Warren, Santorum, Ryan, all of them. I loathe the fact that there are now able-bodied men begging outside the doors of my local super market. I loathe the fact that people out of work for the last four years now have -no where- to go, no way to survive.

I suppose that was the point.

I am a Dutchman [laughing], but c’est vrai, n’est pas? Merci back atcha.

I have a couple of Rick Warren’s employees who follow me on the twitter machine, so I’ve been sending out some annoyed tweets regarding Warren this morning. In fact, for me, Rick Warren is now the profit of Ayn Rand.

BTW, I do love that Shakira’s Ass gif. It makes me smile.

Bitter person is bitter.

Echoing Dana Carvey’s SNL Church Lady: Aw, isn’t that *special*?? Could it be….. SATAN?

Or as some southerners are wont to say: “Why how nice!”

Here’s Mega-Ricky from his Mega-Flim-Flam-Griftapocalyse-Empire waxing lyrical with the Lucky Duckies meme put forth by his Wall St/Bankster buddies way back when.

Guess old LIES are good LIES by the reckoning of “Paster” Mega-Rich-Rick.

Bastard. ptoui!

What an ass. Half of Americans pay no tax because of REPUBLICAN policies, like the child tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Let’s see Democrats try to repeal any of these. WAR ON FAMILIES!!!!!

This, by the way, explains more …. and it’s from the very Republican Keith Hennessey, who was an economic advisor to Bush The Lesser.

Excellent!

This thread does seem to be infested with Reedy Nasal Whine.

OK one moar time. Yes Jesus was a liberul. And he died for our sins. Which proved that lilylivered liberul pantywastes cannot survive in a god eat dog world. sooooo GOD absolves me of my selfish Galtian sins cause you know thats just what I have to do to survive. I eat your dog, you whine. Teh Wingnut Gospel.

Also too. You know the Asymetrical Overton Puke Funnel is workin like a charm when liberuls say they wont vote for NoBama cause hes too mmmm Moderately conservative. Cause when it comes right down to it teh goal of totally wacky wingnutia is to push the envelope of acceptable discourse to the fart right and thus disemfranchise the whole left side of the political spectre. And We can thank teh Liberul Media for givin us wingtards a rightious reach-around to make libbies look like terrorist radicals.

WOW>.

Thank you for putting into words what I was raised to believe.

The oddest thing here (on Easter Sunday) is that I experienced the same thing put in action (God in action – what all religions should teach) while at work. It was as if Jesus was right NEXT to me saying “forgive them, you are exactly the same as they” but WITHOUT any guilt!!!!!!!!!

Rockin’.

Actually they DO pay taxes. They just don’t pay federal income taxes. The money they have paid into Social Security has been treated like general revenue though. That’s why there is no money in the trust fund and instead is a stack of IOUs that Congress doesn’t want to pay back in a timely manner.

Yep, and I’m pretty sure my daughter and son(new voters) are going to be bitter right along with me.

Isn’t that the “creative destruction” of the libertarian Kochs?

The President allowed a Democratic lunatic to hijack health care and make women’s reproductive health a “religious issue.” Actions have consequences. There is a reason they are now going after birth control on RELIGIOUS GROUNDS and the moron in the WH is that reason.

Oh and I don’t need to get over a darn thing. I’m not the one running for re election.

It also seems to be infested with morons.

So the CEO of a megachurch that pays no taxes criticizes those who, in his twisted world, pay “no” taxes?

The hypocrisy within hypocrisy should make him collapse under its own weight.

Matthew 7:3, bitch! Get Some.

Aaaaand then another bennie of the Citizens United decision is that it allows teh Koch bros to fund social media sock puppets to pose as disaffected liberuls. You too can earn $$$ money at home sittin on yer ass and snarkin sophistic BS.

The constitution specifies that the government can’t interfere with religion, and religion has a problem with contraception. Thus, in the healthcare legislation, an end run was conducted around religion to make sure that contraception was accesible to women.

I don’t see a problem here, but then again, I’m not furiously parsing each and every one of the President’s actions for wambulance chasng purposes.

Again, that’s what makes people wonder about you– since your arguments repeatedly fall to the ground so swiftly– what is your real problem with Obama?

Oh, the under-14 and over 65 crowd makes up about 36% of the population…

cwaltz writes: The money they have paid into Social Security has been treated like general revenue though. That’s why there is no money in the trust fund and instead is a stack of IOUs that Congress doesn’t want to pay back in a timely manner.

The money is loaned to the US– at interest, same as when you buy a treasury bond– and is available to Social Security recipients as always.

You have no excuse for your ignorance in this regard. What’s interesting is that you will no doubt post the same misinformation here or elsewhere within days, or minutes.

Why is that?

Near as I can tell, Republican Jesus is an upside-down version of the Jesus of the New Testament. Seems to me I’ve seen something before about ‘upside-down Jesus’. Something associated with goat’s horns and blood and midnight rituals. Oh, yeah – Black Mass! Well, isn’t that special!

The poors and olds have always been a punching bag for the politically powerful. And what’s the downside? Their lobbyists suck.

However, it is always disgusting when a supposed man of God kicks the weak and desperate to the curb. In the name of helping them, of course.

On this one cwaltz has a point, even if his language isn’t precisely correct.

The Payroll tax money that is invested in T-Bonds and T-Bills to pay future Soc Sec benefits has been used to subsidize the tax cuts for the 1%’ers.

If these funds are ever used for the purpose that we were told they were being collected for then somebody’s taxes are going to have to go up to re-deem that debt.

That is why we are hearing so much about “Entitlement Reform” these days, because if the Banana Republicans can weasel out of paying the Nation’s Soc. Sec. Obligations, then they will have successfully shifted the tax burden of the Wealthy onto the Middle Class.

Where cwaltz is wrong is that it isn’t O’bama’s fault that this may happen, it’s the fault of people like him (assuming that he isn’t really a paid Troll) who haven’t been paying attention for the last 40 years.

As an atheist, I find *any* ranting of religious folk mildly entertaining, expansively misleading & extremely self-serving. Tax the churches, synagogues, mosques, ashrams, or whatever name these charlatans hanng on their scam centers. Tax all these reverend devout wonderful godly frauds & let them pay for the priveledge of being allowed to front their lunacy on the gullible. So many of our societal probems arise from the arrogance of these mythologists.

Ridiculous.

Money paid into SS is used to pay SS benefits and administrative costs, period. If you wish SS to keep the money held in trust stuffed under a mattress, that is just stupid. It makes more sense to invest it so that it will bring interest, and it makes the most sense to invest it in the US government, where, as I said, it brings the same rate of return as a T-bill. But it must be paid back to SS from the general fund, as with any T-Bill. Saying that it is being used to fund tax breaks for the one percenters is just empty rhetoric, like saying that your kid’s savings account is being used to pay for hookers for BofA execs.

The future of SS is a separate argument entirely, and suffice to say will require adjustment in the near future to avoid hitting a point at which revenues are less than outlays (currently estimated as 2040 or so plus or minus ten years). I hope it is not necessary to point out that this isn’t “going broke”, by the way.

The SS administration is paying attention of course, and has been doing so since the inception of the program, and that’s why we have estimates like this, obviously. cwaltz simply doesn’t understand any of this and it is fortunately not necessary for him to do so.

The money invested in T-Bonds and T-Bills pays for Government services and purchases. Ideally when the Government borrows money it will be used wisely to offset future expenses or expand the tax base, so that the debt could be redeemed out of future tax revenue.

The Baby Boomers have been paying forward for their own Social Security benefits since the Reagan administration, that’s why there is a surplus. That money was borrowed from the Boomers and used to offset tax cuts for the Wealthy, for no return on the investment.

When the Boomers eventually retire and start collecting their benefits, they will be drawing down on the Social Security Surplus, which means the Government needs to pay back the money it borrowed from the Boomers. This can be done by either raising taxes, cutting services (expenses) or by new borrowing.

In addition to drawing down the Social Security Surplus, the retired boomers will no longer be paying Payroll Taxes, a major source of borrowed money for the Government. The Chinese aren’t the only ones funding the National Debt.

So you tell me, how will the money used to pay for Baby Boomer Social Security benefits be replaced, when it is no longer available to subsidize Government Operations?

Everybody knows the Social Security Surplus is not part of the General Fund, but pretending that paying those funds out will have no affect on the General Fund is over simplifying the problem.

And I am suggesting that beyond the fact that most every Obama supporter I know of is quite fully aware of his faults and the faults of the Democratic Party, the razor-thin line you see between one side and the other is much, much thicker than you think. IMO. Perhaps it’s the result of never, not once, not even with JFK, having had a president who accomplished what I wanted or stood for everything I stand for in my lifetime, but I’m sanguine about the fact that this election seems to be exactly what most of them turn out to be: a choice between unmitigated disaster and some semblance of sanity. People sat out, voted Nader, and we reaped the Bush-Cheney whirlwind. Sith this one out, vote third party and we’ll get the same thing again.

Right, it’s Obama’s fault that the right wing is turning contraception into a religious battle.

*sit* sted sith.

I was wondering if that was a Star Wars fanboy Freudian Slip.

I have a hard time telling the difference, personally.

For years I’ve wondered why I couldn’t understand WHY these people say such stupid things and other people act like they believe it. I mean, I first noticed it when I was five or six years old and my parents made me go to Sunday School every week and I was appalled that the teachers had such poor critical thinking skills. I’ve recently decided that I have mild Asperger’s syndrome. Not enough to be disabled, it’s just that I don’t properly empathize with other people, my brain lacks the wiring to think like them. But really, when my attention is brought to it, I can’t fathom why people give money to “spiritual leaders” like Rick Warren.

Even if you work for minimum wage, you’re going to pay income tax. You get it back when you file an income tax form – but that’s money you haven’t had the use of. (Been there, done that. And I don’t think R Warren has been there in years, if ever.)

Those are special T-bills. The money was ‘borrowed’, like a lot of the money in other government trust funds. And the people who did it were GOoPers.

It is a growth industry. Pays good and….ooops, those jobs will soon be outsourced to India. Don’t have the problems understanding those Indian accents, have better writing skills, and, of course, work a lot cheaper.

Am I to understand that you believe that the revelations contained in the three paragraphs you’ve written beginning with “the Baby Boomers” is unknown to the actuaries employed by the Social Security administration?

That’s incredibly ignorant, and sorry, but there’s really no point in being polite about it.

As well, believing that SS is some sort of bank where you deposit x dollars and recoup the same x dollars when you hit retirement is aqain, simple ignorance.

Look: you clearly don’t understand the purpose of SS and you don’t understand how it works. Apparently you don’t understand how any insurance program works.

If you want to verify my assessment, tell any economist: you are “loaning” (as you claim) money to your car insurance company, or to SS. They’ll look at you sideways and if they are taking pains to not offend you, will tell you that it’s an interesting way to look at it.

See, me, I’m not taking pains to not offend you.

Shut up and read up, please.

How does Social Security work:

If you assume that the population and the economy grows at a steady and predictable rate, then you can fund a national Insurance/Retirement Subsidy benefit that is funded entirely on a pay as you go basis.

For about 10 yr’s after WWII, there was an unexpected increase in the National Birth Rate, the “Baby Boom.” This was followed by a decline in the National Birth Rate starting in the 60′s. Both of these events/trends caused Actuaries to project that there would not be enough future workers to fund benefits for the “Baby Boomers” on a pay as you go basis.

In reponse to these projections, the payroll taxes were increased to collect surplus funds (which was invested in Government Debt) that would be used to cover the shortfall between future collections and the future benefits paid to the “Baby Boomers.”

Social Security will need to start drawing down the “Trust Fund” in the next few years to maintain benefit payments at current levels.

Please Sir, point out where my understanding of the situation is faulty.

You do understand that T-Bills and T-Bonds are debt, right?

That the Government borrows money via these instruments and theoretically pays it back at some point, right?

You do understand that Social Security has collected more money than it needed to pay benefits for about 30 years and the surplus was used to buy government debt, right?

Do you believe that the Government just stashes the money it borrows under a mattress?

You do realize that the Actuaries only comment on the fact that there is enough money in the “trust fund” to pay benefits for the foreseeable future, right?

Do you understand that the Actuaries don’t comment on how the Government is going to come up with the funds to redeem the debt purchased by Social Security?

I’m not going to ask if you understand that how Social Security works has nothing to do with how the Government redeems debt, because you clearly don’t.

I never said that Social Security isn’t solvent; I’m saying that there is a political movement flogging the meme that the Government isn’t obligated to pay back the money borrowed from Social Security. Trying to push the idea that Social Security is a welfare program, not a bought and paid for Social Insurance Program.

And that if they succeed, they will have effectively converted the money that was paid forward to fund “Boomer” Social Security Benefits into a hidden tax on the middle class that was used to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

I hope these concepts aren’t too difficult for you to follow. You can’t just look at the National Budget and Social Security in isolation. Just because they are tracked in separate financial statements, doesn’t mean that one doesn’t affect the other.

your kid’s savings account is being used to pay for hookers for BofA execs.

I checked with Jon Corzine in accounting… apparently “Hookers and Blow” are a legitimate business expense… and since money is fungible…

I’m not even a Christian, but I still wouldn’t go to Jesus’s grave and piss all over it like that greedy fat fuck Warren just did.

“When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity.”

Abso-fuckin’-lutely! If they aren’t qualified to work, they can at least donate blood plasma for money twice a week, enabling us to trim $250 per month from welfare payments per household. Don’t think of the savings to the government–think of the “dignitude” that poor people will receive from helping others!