Republican Bill would steal from Social Security for highway funding

Republicans, including many on this site, continually deny they want to cut social security despite the fact that they are constantly talking about cutting social security. Well now they are putting their wish in a budget bill, the highway funding bill. They plan to steal benefits from people accused of a felony, which some here will no doubt support. But once this terrible precedent is set it's only a matter of time before everyone Republicans dont' like (which is just about everyone) gets targeted for theft of their hard-earned benefits. This is one of the worst ideas of seen, and I've seen a hell of a lot of bad ideas in the last few decades.

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Horribly mis-leading title !!!!

The provision saves billion by eliminating retirement or disability benefits for certain recipients with outstanding felony warrants.

According to a summary, the measure cuts off benefits to people who are "subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant."

How *DARE* anybody insult Senator Barbara Boxer !!

Get *REAL* !!

a reply to: xuenchen

subjects of a felony arrest warrant

What does that mean? Does the warrant have to be active, or does it mean anyone who has been subject to a felony arrest warrant that are affected? Is it just the accused that are barred from their benefits, or are convicted felons ALL barred from their benefits?

a reply to: CB328

Wait, just stop the presses.

The government is going to steal from our social security!

So they're going to dip into those vast accounts they've been holding our money in all these years and spend it!?!?

This is an outrage! They can't take the money they forced us to pay and then spend it on other stuff! How could that POSSIBLY happen in the USA?

a reply to: xuenchen
Clarify, no message is coming thru.

It sounds kind of stupid. Why can't they create the funds out of thin air, bankers do it all the time.

Your source says it is a bipartisan bill.

The bill may be a product of rare bipartisanship between between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), but it’s not winning over many Democrats in the Senate, let alone the House, where it will need to find support as well.

So why the title of your thread? It isn't simply misleading, it is untrue.

Instead of a gas tax, senators went looking for loose change in the couch cushions and came up with the money by cobbling together 16 separate provisions, most of which are unrelated to transportation. One provision raises $2.3 billion by requiring the federal government to use private debt collectors to help collect taxes owed to the government. Another would retrieve $1.7 billion in unspent funds from a Treasury Department program that was supposed to help homeowners, but mostly didn't. Yet another program offsets $16.3 billion by reducing a Federal Reserve bank subsidy.
One proposal causing a stir among Senate and House Democrats, in particular, targets Social Security. The provision saves billion by eliminating retirement or disability benefits for certain recipients with outstanding felony warrants. According to a summary, the measure cuts off benefits to people who are "subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant."

I don't know what the fine details of the bill are but I do know there is an effort to stop felons who are serving time in prisons from collecting disability Social Security benefits. Kinda makes sense doesn't it---since we are already supporting them?

Didn't our well meaning government use the Social Security 'trust fund' back in the 1950's to pay for building Interstate Highway System.... and never put the money back.
The government lost all credibility long ago.

The provision saves billion by eliminating retirement or disability benefits for certain recipients with outstanding felony warrants. According to a summary, the measure cuts off benefits to people who are "subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant."

I have no problem with that,but the real question is if social security knows where to send the checks to these accused felons, why doesn`t the social security administration tell the local authorities where the felons are?
I guess in this, the age of computers, it would be too time consuming and difficult to let the computers cross reference all social security recipients with local felony warrants.

a reply to: CB328

I want to eliminate it completely, not cut it.

But then, I'm not a Republican.

a reply to: CB328

Derp thread.

Title incorrect.

Fail at partisan snipe.

By the way. There IS NO social security lockbox!

www.snopes.com...

A somewhat dated but detailed article about how the Social Security trust funds are invested can be found here.
. . . the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income
It is true that Social Security benefits were not originally considered taxable income. However, that status was not due to any promise or act on the part of President Roosevelt, nor was it specified in the Social Security Act (or any other law); it was the result of a series of rulings by the Treasury Department in 1938 and 1941 that excluded Social Security benefits from federal income taxation. Those rulings were overriden by amendments to the Social Security act enacted in 1983.

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent "Trust" fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.

As noted above, the monies paid into the Social Security trust have never been "put into the general fund." The requirements for how the Social Security Trust Fund is to be financed and invested have not changed since the fund's inception in 1939. The reference to Lyndon Johnson indicates that someone was probably confused by a change implemented at the end of the Johnson administration (1969) that altered how the fund was accounted for in the federal budget but did not change the actual operations of the fund itself:
Beginning in fiscal year 1969, Social Security and other Federal programs that operate through trust funds were counted officially in the budget. This was done administratively by President Johnson. At the time Congress did not have a budget-making process. In 1974 Congress adopted procedures for setting budget goals through passage of annual budget resolutions. Like the budgets prepared by the President, these resolutions were to reflect a "unified" budget that included trust fund programs such as Social Security in the budget totals.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Social Security faced financial problems, and over a period of time legislation was enacted to restore the financial health of the program. However, because the Federal budget deficit remained large, interest in reducing Social Security spending continued. This routine consideration of Social Security constraints led to concerns that cuts in Social Security were being proposed for budgetary purposes rather than programmatic ones.

In response to this concern, a series of measures were enacted in 1983, 1985, and 1987 making the program a more distinct part of the budget and permitting Congressional floor objections (points of order) to be raised against budget bills containing Social Security changes.
This method of accounting for the Social Security Trust Fund in the federal budget was reversed in 1990.

Read more at www.snopes.com...

Mod edit: Parsed oversized external quote.

originally posted by: diggindirt
Your source says it is a bipartisan bill.

The bill may be a product of rare bipartisanship between between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), but it’s not winning over many Democrats in the Senate, let alone the House, where it will need to find support as well.

So why the title of your thread? It isn't simply misleading, it is untrue.

Instead of a gas tax, senators went looking for loose change in the couch cushions and came up with the money by cobbling together 16 separate provisions, most of which are unrelated to transportation. One provision raises $2.3 billion by requiring the federal government to use private debt collectors to help collect taxes owed to the government. Another would retrieve $1.7 billion in unspent funds from a Treasury Department program that was supposed to help homeowners, but mostly didn't. Yet another program offsets $16.3 billion by reducing a Federal Reserve bank subsidy.
One proposal causing a stir among Senate and House Democrats, in particular, targets Social Security. The provision saves billion by eliminating retirement or disability benefits for certain recipients with outstanding felony warrants. According to a summary, the measure cuts off benefits to people who are "subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant."

I don't know what the fine details of the bill are but I do know there is an effort to stop felons who are serving time in prisons from collecting disability Social Security benefits. Kinda makes sense doesn't it---since we are already supporting them?

How about a person who has paid into SS all their lives and then gets some trumped up federal charges and goes to prison? Would they be able to denigh those benefits even though that person has paid in all their lives?

a reply to: guitarplayer

LOL,

Maybe it will be a felony for Social Security recipients to own firearms!

They can kill two birds with one stone.

Benefits after Incarceration: What You Need To Know

right from a horse's "mouth"

originally posted by: Ksihkehe
a reply to: CB328

Wait, just stop the presses.

The government is going to steal from our social security!

So they're going to dip into those vast accounts they've been holding our money in all these years and spend it!?!?

This is an outrage! They can't take the money they forced us to pay and then spend it on other stuff! How could that POSSIBLY happen in the USA?

LOL everyone paying attention knows that is what they been doing since SS was created.

originally posted by: butcherguy
Didn't our well meaning government use the Social Security 'trust fund' back in the 1950's to pay for building Interstate Highway System.... and never put the money back.
The government lost all credibility long ago.

Yeppers the monies collected are gone as soon as it is received.

Gotta love that ponzi scheme.

originally posted by: infolurker
a reply to: guitarplayer

LOL,

Maybe it will be a felony for Social Security recipients to own firearms!

They can kill two birds with one stone.

Hell I was looking to tripple my SS by not having to pay rent and food and everything else.

originally posted by: xuenchen

Horribly mis-leading title !!!!

The provision saves billion by eliminating retirement or disability benefits for certain recipients with outstanding felony warrants.

According to a summary, the measure cuts off benefits to people who are "subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant."

How *DARE* anybody insult Senator Barbara Boxer !!

Get *REAL* !!

edit on Jul-22-2015 by xuenchen because: [_all.seahorses.are.jealous !!_]

If anyone would know it would you..

The King/Queen of misleading information.

How about we take money from the actual bloated budgets of the Military and our Alphabet Agencies. That's where the money needs to come from. That and Congressional Salaries.

originally posted by: amazing
How about we take money from the actual bloated budgets of the Military and our Alphabet Agencies. That's where the money needs to come from. That and Congressional Salaries.

Actually they have a plan.

There are 22 Trillion in Retirement accounts (pensions and 401k, IRA)

They want to take that and give us "Social Security 2"

They will use that 22 Trillion to buy US bonds to finance the debt and promise you Social Security 2 (they will call it something fancy like MY IRA or "Universal Retirement" benefits)

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