Best way to deal with SSI and the budget deficit....

[WCGreen]

Lower the rate down to 5% and raise the cap to $250k. This would help small business folks employing minimum wage workers and it would also put a little extra cash in the hands of every worker making less than $50k.

Remove the double taxation of SSI benefits for wealthier taxpayers. Why should anyone be taxed twice on the same income stream.

Perhaps consider letting taxpayers who can prove they are wealthy enough to not be a burden on society to take a lump sum payout of their benefits when they hit retirement age. Doing this would cut the administrative costs and also bring in more tax money that would be designated for debt reduction only.

Cut the defense budget drastically. We are no longer the police force for the world. Let other countries take care of their own problems.

Kill off farm subsidies for the agra conglomerates.

The extra cash freed up from the SSI cuts would more than compensate for the slight increase in food costs that removing subsidies would supposedly cause.

Theres more but you get the drift.

[FreakinDJ]

1. Legislate Defense Contract profit margine to be no more then 1.5%

Whooops There it is........

[WCGreen]

2. That would beat some heavy duty plowshares out of them swords now wouldn't it...

[FreakinDJ]

4. Defense Contractors certainly would not have been able

to fund George Bush's 2004 campaign

[Junkdrawer]

3. Funny how the "Trust Fund" has morphed into "Deficit Spending"...

As long as excess FICA taxes funded the deficits, it was "Everything's Fine!"....

But the MINUTE the trust funds were needed....



It's "OMG, think of the Deficit!"

[WCGreen]

5. The thing is they used this to pay for Bush's War and his unfunded

Medicare Drug Benifit...

[FreakinDJ]

6. Ever since they pumped 100% of the surplus into the Gen Fund

at least Clinton used the surplus to "Pay Down" the deficit. Some thing that eliminated $Billions of dollars in interest payments for future generations

[sinkingfeeling]

7. SSI is Supplemental Security Income for the blind and disabled.

http://www.ssa.gov/ssi/

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes):


It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and

It provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

[WCGreen]

8. Then why are my benifits based on what I contributed to FICA....

[Hannah Bell]

9. There are two disability programs. One is SSI, funded from general revenues; it's "welfare" & has

nothing to do with Social Security contributions. One need not have ever even held a job to be eligible. SSI = Supplemental security income.

Social Security Disability is a completely different disability program; its benefits are based on SS contributions.

Both are administered by the Social Security Administration; the similarity in the names & the placing of SSI under SS administration is deliberate, IMO, to confuse people into equating SS with "welfare".

If your disability is based on FICA, it's SSD, not SSI.

[WCGreen]

10. Thanks for pointing that out to me...

I had no idea.

Mine is SSD. I keep hearing SSI when people talk about disability and I just assumed there was only one program. Anyway, all my stuff was based on the benefits from funding due to FICA contributions.

[Hannah Bell]

11. yes, they've managed to confuse people on lots of social security related issues.