OT - Tribute to a hero

[rextorres]

Bill,

You made a mistake in your calculations. You included social security and medicare spending which is money people are merely getting back. I believe tax for this should not be used for anything else.

Social Security/Medicare Spending ~ $1.2B (Social Security Tax is collected for this)

Discretionary Spending ~ $800M - Defense Spending ~ $400M (Income Tax is collected for this)

So i'll clarify - 50% of our income tax goes to defense spending.

Anyway - my original point still stands - we all participate to "protect our way of life" which is true whether the portion of the taxes we pay to protect it is ~20% or ~50%.

[ April 24, 2004, 22:23: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[Phoenix-D]

Social security is not money people are getting back. There is no "lockbox"; the system pays money out immediately from one person's paycheck to the retiree's SS check.

[rextorres]

Hmm . . . I expect that the 15% (i'm self employed) i pay every year in social security tax i will get back (in the form of social security) when I retire.

The problem is that the social security surplus is being used to hide an even bigger deficit. If it were set aside there wouldn't be a social security crisis.

[ April 24, 2004, 22:32: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[Phoenix-D]

If it were set aside, A. it wouldn't work as of now, because most people would either already be retired or have nothing in their box and B. you'd be better off letting people keep it and invest it themselves..

EDIT: and very shortly social security won't have a surplus, it'll have a deficit. Should point out this proves it isn't the lockbox model, since by definition you can't have a surplus in that.

[ April 24, 2004, 22:45: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[geoschmo]

sigh, I guess there is no chance for this thread now. *shakes head and walks away*

[taterbill]

Rextorres, you said 50% of your tax dollar. As you point out, if you amend that to nearly 50% of discretionary federal spending, then yes, I agree.

Geo is right, though. This thread has gotten ridiculously OT the OT.

Tillman is a hero to me. As are my dad, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Corrie ten Boom, and many others than mean nothing to many of you. That's fine... everyone is free to choose those that they emulate. I just happen to believe that the world would be a better place if more people approached it with a value system similar to Tillman's.

Bill

[ April 25, 2004, 02:51: Message edited by: taterbill ]

[rextorres]

That's part of the tragedy. The politicians who sent Tilman are the very same ones who did not follow Tilman's example. They did everything within their power not to go.