So, this is an article I probably should've written years ago, but I'm watching the republican debate. It's a dumpster fire. The first couple debates, I actually kinda sorta liked by republican standards, but this one...sucked. They talked about deporting people who were pro palestine and banning tiktok and increasing our military spending even more than they are. And of course they moralize about their christian conservative values. It sucks.
But one part really incensed me, and that was the talk of social security. Republicans wanna cut social security. They wanna raise our retirement age, and talk as if its nothing for someone who is my age or something working a few more years. Uh, screw you chris christie, and all of the others, who talk like that. Ya know, I could almost tolerate the most moderate conservatives like haley and christie in the last debate, but at this point...no...hell no.
On our social security crisis. It's a made up crisis. The national debt as a whole is. The republicans created it, Reagan tripled the national debt with his tax cuts and star wars. George W. Bush gave more tax cuts and two wars, one of which we didnt even need to be in, and doubled it. Trump gave irresponsible tax cuts to the rich, but the second a democrat takes office, OMG THE NATIONAL DEBT IS SUCH A CRISIS WE CANT AFFORD ANYTHING WE NEED TO CUT SPENDING, HOW CAN WE CUT ENTITLEMENTS?
I mean, to be fair, republican fear mongering over the debt in 2012 was one of the reasons I became as fiscally left as I am. Obama wanted to compromise, and then the republicans wanted to cut unemployment...while also cutting taxes on the rich, who they called "job creators" (gee and you wonder how i turned out as I did? LMFAO). And it's so fake.
First of all, I dont believe the national debt is a huge deal. It's debt to GDP levels that matter, and while we're starting to push the "yellow" zone on our "red = stop, yellow = slow down, and green = go" spectrum here, the fact is, I kinda sorta accept the MMT arguments that to some extent the national debt doesnt matter. it grows the economy by increasing spending and as long as we outgrow our debt, the debt isn't a huge problem.
Republicans love to act like we're going to implode the economy and china is gonna own us and throw big scary numbers out there like "$75 trillion in unfunded liabilities" but they dont seem to give context that this is over like 50 years of spending or something.
Social security is a problem, but like with many things, our fiscal issues are from a desire to both have social programs, but not pay for them. That's the key issue. We got republicans who addict citizens to low taxes and tax cuts, and then we got democrats who wanna fund social programs. You gotta do one or the other. Either have higher taxes and fund stuff properly, or lower taxes and don't. And I made my bed on what side of the argument I support. Bernie Sanders believes we can fix social security just by raising the payroll tax cap (its currently like $140k or something) and taxing the rich more to pay for social security. And I believe him. It's not hard to fix social security. The issue is completely artificial and created by republicans getting people addicited to low taxes that sabotage our nation's finances.
And you know what? This is a strategy the GOP has been for for decades. its called "starving the beast". These republicans are far right ideologues who believe in low government so much they are creating a fiscal crisis that we have to constantly deal with in order to limit our abilities to fund existing safety nets, or even increase our safety nets. The republicans have been sabotaging the country's finances for decades to force their vision of small government on us, and my ideas are LITERALLY a rebuke of that. I literally not only support expansive safety nets, I explain how to fund them, and i explain how it actually saves the average person money and makes their life better. And that's what the democrats need to do. We need to get out of this mindset of just conceding spending cuts to him. We need to, like bernie, talk about "expanding" social security, not cutting it. Flip the narrative, fight back.
And yes, democrats have contributed to the national debt too. but Clinton literally balanced the budget. Obama had to deal with the great recession, and Biden had to deal with covid. If those democrats didnt do what they did, we would've entered a great depression, TWICE. So thats why I give the left a pass. its keynesianism, spend during the downturns, cut back during the good times. At least the democrats deficit spent for good reasons. Republicans just waste money on pointless wars and tax cuts.
As such, we shouldn't touch social security. The entire framing of the issue is dishonest. If you wanna fix social security raise taxes on the rich. of course the republicans dont wanna do that because they only exist to give the rich exactly what they want: lower taxes, while the rest of us have to make do with less. Recognize this, and fight back.
Don't tell people in my generation we cant afford to retire. Or we have to wait until 70 or something. That's BS.
I mean, honestly, I wouldnt be opposed to some "entitlement reform" if we implemented a full UBI and then we decided to reduce social security benefits to make up the difference (still leaving everyone on it as well off as they are now, or better off), but don't try to screw people, ya know? These republicans, they wanna screw average people. Workers. And they they demonize the nonworkers. The problem aint people like me. It's the rich and people who want lower taxes while screwing everyone else.
I literally ask everyone to think about their actual interests here. Do you benefit more when you have benefits cut and have to work longer, or do you benefit more with a lower retirement age and more benefits? Do you benefit more with a UBI and higher taxes? Or do you benefit more with that $1k tax cut the GOP wants to give you while they screw over your retirement. Choose wisely, America.
PS, I already know the answer. if most people acted rationally here, around 75% of people would agree with me and only 25% of people would be republicans. Because I did the math. And the republicans haven't. They dont care about the math. They care about their extreme ideology. Don't buy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment