Trump to cut taxes on Social Security

adjusterjack said:
www.westernjournal.com

Instead of Cutting Social Security Payments, Trump to Cut All Taxes on Social Security

Donald Trump's bold promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits got one step closer to becoming a reality this week.
www.westernjournal.com www.westernjournal.com

"The congressman (Massie) has reintroduced the Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act every year since 2012."

Maybe 13th try will get it done.
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Government is nothing more than a poorly disguised imitation of Royalty/Nobility. I've read many explanations that attempted to describe governance as an improved makeover of Royalty. Frankly, I've often pondered the "why" of government. A quick review of history reveals government to be the primary cause of wars, slavery, misogyny, hunger, disease, poverty, pedophilia, and a myriad of other activities that plague humankind.
 
army judge said:
Government is nothing more than a poorly disguised imitation of Royalty/Nobility. I've read many explanations that attempted to describe governance as an improved makeover of Royalty. Frankly, I've often pondered the "why" of government. A quick review of history reveals government to be the primary cause of wars, slavery, misogyny, hunger, disease, poverty, pedophilia, and a myriad of other activities that plague humankind.
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That's all true. But preferable to the chaos that would ensue without government.

"Democracy is a very bad form of government. All the others are so much worse."

Variations of that phrase have been attributed to many.

Quote Origin: Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All Others Which Have Been Tried – Quote Investigator®

quoteinvestigator.com quoteinvestigator.com

Even made it to a TV show.

 
army judge said:
A quick review of history reveals government to be the primary cause of wars, slavery, misogyny, hunger, disease, poverty, pedophilia, and a myriad of other activities that plague humankind.
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People are the cause of most of those ills, and they existed before big government ever existed and even before writing was invented to record the history of humankind. Government is simply a reflection of those who run it.
 
adjusterjack said:
"The congressman (Massie) has reintroduced the Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act every year since 2012."

Maybe 13th try will get it done.
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Cutting the tax from taxing 85% of SS income back to 50%, as it was for a long time, makes sense because only the taxpayer was never taxed on the 50% of the SS contributions that the employer is required to provide. But if the Republicans wan't to cut that tax they'll need to find spending cuts to make to offset that loss of revenue. Otherwise they commit the sin they've long accused the Democrats of doing: adding to the budget deficit and thus growing the national debt.
 
welkin said:
That's pretty much what the Trump administration is doing on a grand scale. Isn't it?
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Some of what Trump — and especially his henchman Musk — have done very likely violates the Constitution. Unlike running their own corporations where they have the sole power to run them any way they want, the Constitution wisely divides government power among the branches of government to prevent the kind of power grab Trump and Musk are attempting to do. The power of the purse is given to the Congress, not the President, and lawsuits are already underway challenging some of their overreach in shutting down agencies they don't like and refusing to enforce the laws we have. So they'll need to come up with a plan that Congress will accept and right now they are not exactly winning over members of either party with their steamroller approach.

Second, elimination of the tax on Social Security would cut $50 billion of revenue. That revenue is currently dedicated to propping up the Social Security system. Cutting that tax thus would only accelerate the coming Social Security crisis in which tax revenue dedicated to Social Security are less than the benefits being paid out. In order to keep Social Security solvent and paying out benefits Congressional action is needed. Cutting the money coming into Social Security while not reducing benefits is only going to make the problem worse. Members of Congress (and hopefully the president too) are keenly aware that seniors vote more consistently than any other age group and that proposals in the past to cut to Social Security benefits have drawn fierce opposition from Social Security recipients.

In short, what Trump and Musk want to do is going to take more than they are already doing and they will need the help of Congress to do it. They don't seem to fully realize that they can't rule by decree like CEOs and dictators do and aren't doing a very good job so far in building support in Congress and the public for what they are doing. The opposition they've generated so far has already forced them to retreat on some of their actions.
 
Tax Counsel said:
and aren't doing a very good job so far in building support in Congress and the public for what they are doing.
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You must not follow the news or Congress.
Americans held a 53% approval rating for Trump, according to the poll, which was conducted Feb. 5-7, while an overwhelming 70% agreed he is doing in office what he promised on the campaign trail.
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Trump's Approval Rating At 53% In New Poll—But Americans Are Less Sure About Elon Musk

After 22 days in office, the administration has identified and marked 37.69B worth of cuts. By the end of the month, you'll have your $50B and much more.

D.O.G.E. Clock powered by DOGE Tracker
 
welkin said:
You must not follow the news or Congress.


Trump's Approval Rating At 53% In New Poll—But Americans Are Less Sure About Elon Musk
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I do keep up with the news.That Forbes poll hardly shows overwhelming support for the president. 53% is just over half of those polled, hardly a ringing endorsement of his approach. He's not manged to win over many of the people in the other half of America that didn't vote that he's taking us down the right path. Moreover, the headline alone doesn't tell the whole story. In that same article, Forbes states:

While a 56% majority of poll respondents backed Trump's tariffs on imports from China, Trump's plans to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and Europe are broadly unpopular, with between 56% and 62% opposing them, depending on the region where the tariffs are imposed. An overwhelming 66% of respondents say Trump isn't focusing enough on lowering prices, as he said he would do on the campaign trail, which includes 48% of Republicans. Only a slim 53% majority of GOP respondents believe Trump's policies will make their grocery prices go down.
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And as for this:
welkin said:
After 22 days in office, the administration has identified and marked 37.69B worth of cuts. By the end of the month, you'll have your $50B and much more.
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Those cuts haven't been made yet. He's just floated the proposals. He's going to need Congressional approval to do most of what he wants to do and I don't see him exciting a significant majority of representatives and senators with these early moves. It's going to be a hard harder to actually make the cust harder than it is for him to simply stand up at press conference and say he's found $X billion in the budget that he wants to cut.

He's chosen to start with a confrontational approach from the start and that's going to make it battle all the way through. He would have done better to at least make some effort to appeal to some of the moderates who didn't vote for him before going all out with guns blazing.
 
welkin said:
After 22 days in office, the administration has identified and marked 37.69B worth of cuts. By the end of the month, you'll have your $50B and much more.
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Are we ever going to see any evidence of this waste and fraud, or are we simply to take Leon and The Felon's word on it?
 
Tax Counsel said:
Some of what Trump — and especially his henchman Musk — have done very likely violates the Constitution. Unlike running their own corporations where they have the sole power to run them any way they want, the Constitution wisely divides government power among the branches of government to prevent the kind of power grab Trump and Musk are attempting to do. The power of the purse is given to the Congress, not the President, and lawsuits are already underway challenging some of their overreach in shutting down agencies they don't like and refusing to enforce the laws we have. So they'll need to come up with a plan that Congress will accept and right now they are not exactly winning over members of either party with their steamroller approach.
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Obviously the President cannot unilaterally cut payments specifically earmarked by Congress, such as entitlement benefits. But the President does IMO have the unilateral power to determine how much to spend on the bureaucracy needed to distribute expenditures approved by Congress. For example, Congress must approve Social Security payments, but they don't have absolute control of how much is spent on running the Social Security Administration, even though they may approve the SSA budget. If the executive branch can administer Social Security with fewer people, I doubt the Supreme Court would find that unconstitutional.

So there is a difference between enforcing laws that requires payments to people under a defined schedule, and spending money on a bureaucracy to enforce those laws. But I find it amazing that any Democrat would complain about Trump not enforcing laws, since Biden blatantly ignored the enforcement of immigration laws, and even sued states for enforcing those laws. Biden also unilaterally cancelled student debt that Congress created programs for, and Congress specifically excluded that student debt from cancellation even in bankruptcy, but somehow Biden wiped it off with an executive order. Even after the SCOTUS initially ruled against Biden on cancelling student debt, he continued to cancel more student debt under some other fake pretext.

Lastly, how can anyone claim that make government more efficient from an administrative perspective is a power grab? This is mind boggling.
 
stealthy1 said:
Are we ever going to see any evidence of this waste and fraud, or are we simply to take Leon and The Felon's word on it?
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You don't need to see it. We all voted to elect the leader of the Executive Branch to do that job. Does the executive branch get to review whether there is waste or fraud in the budget of running Congress?
 
Mark_A said:
Lastly, how can anyone claim that make government more efficient from an administrative perspective is a power grab? This is mind boggling.
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Making the government more efficient is great. But doing it by attempting to do it by either going around Congress when Congress must approve it or creating or terminating agencies, another power given to Congress rather than the President, and attempting to take power granted to other branches or wholly create new powers not granted by the Constitution are all things that amount to a power grab by a president. and we've already seen Trump try a majority of those to bring more of the federal government under his direct control. Die hard Trump supporters won't see that as a problem, at least until after Trump leaves office and someone is wielding those powers. Regardless of the person occuying the White House or the party controlling Congress IMO putting even more power concentrated in the presidency is a danger to democracy and our freedoms.
 
Tax Counsel said:
Making the government more efficient is great. But doing it by attempting to do it by either going around Congress when Congress must approve it or creating or terminating agencies, another power given to Congress rather than the President, and attempting to take power granted to other branches or wholly create new powers not granted by the Constitution are all things that amount to a power grab by a president. and we've already seen Trump try a majority of those to bring more of the federal government under his direct control. Die hard Trump supporters won't see that as a problem, at least until after Trump leaves office and someone is wielding those powers. Regardless of the person occuying the White House or the party controlling Congress IMO putting even more power concentrated in the presidency is a danger to democracy and our freedoms.
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I don't think you care about more power concentrated in the presidency, because Obama and Biden made more power grabs than other presidents in history, some of which were struck down by SCOTUS. Obama had one executive order struck down 9-0 by SCOTUS, and Obama admitted that his action was unconstitutional. Bidens's wholesale ignoring of US immigration laws is not only a power grab, but IMO treason since it involved tacit or sometimes explicit cooperation with foreign governments.

It may be that some of the things that Trump tries to do will go too far and be struck down by SCOTUS (there are many left-wing federal judges who will try to do that before the cases get to SCOTUS), but in general the idea that reducing the bureaucracy is a power grab is ridiculous IMO. As I explained before, Congress can legislate that certain people or organizations are entitled to certain government benefits or funding, but Congress does not have the power of control of how many bureaucrats it takes to administer those laws, even if Congress approves the budget for those organizations. If that were true, then President would be violating the constitution by failing spend every last dime that Congress allocated for hiring workers to administer federal programs, which is patently ridiculous.

Taxpayer funding for USAID doubled from the beginning of Trump's first term in 2017 to the end of President Joe Biden's, rising from $20.5 billion in 2017 to $42.4 billion in 2023. Here are just a tiny sliver of the fraud and abuse found to date:
  • $50 million to fund condoms in Gaza
  • $47,000 on a transgender opera in Colombia
  • $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru
  • $16 million in funding for institutional contractors in gender development offices
  • $600,000 to fund technical assistance for family planning in Latin America
  • $1.5 million to "advance DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) in Serbia's workplaces and business communities"
  • $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland
  • $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
  • $2 million for sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala
  • $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
  • Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation
  • Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab in China, generally accepted now as the origin of COVID-19
  • Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria
  • Funding to print "personalized" contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
  • Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund "irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan," benefiting the Taliban
  • $40 million in subscriptions to the New York Times, $20 million in subscriptions to AP, and also subscriptions to other media outlets such as Politico. According to USA Spending, an official government website tracking federal expenditures, other major US media organizations, including Bloomberg, have also received payments from various federal departments.
USAID has a bloated organization of 10,000 employees to dole out all this money, and the Trump administration wants to transfer legitimate foreign aid to under the State Department and cut out the bulk of the waste, fraud, and abuse, and also stop the government funding of the news media.
 

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