Tag: Government Programs

Last Week At The Sh*t Show–16Mar25

Another week passes and the Sh*t Show keeps crapping along.

Clueless leader continues to circumvent the Congress with his magic Sharpie and EOs. over 50 in less than 2 months, his newest is to create another ‘reserve’….

President Donald Trump’s decision to establish official government cryptocurrency reserves in the US has drawn criticism from industry watchers.

He has signed an executive order creating what he calls a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as well as a Digital Asset Stockpile, which will consist of other forms of digital currency.

The funds will be stocked with coins forfeited to the federal government as part of criminal or civil proceedings.

White House AI and crypto tsar David Sacks likened them to a “a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency”, drawing comparison to the Kentucky military base that stores a significant portion of US gold assets.

However, some crypto enthusiasts have criticised the government for not being bolder, while others have raised question marks about the lack of transparency over the process.

Sacks has ordered a full accounting of the federal government’s existing crypto reserves, which he estimated at 200,000 Bitcoin alone. That’s worth $17.5bn (£13.6bn) at today’s prices.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx0g1py5v0o

If you are truly interested in the BS then go to the White House link…..https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-u-s-digital-asset-stockpile/

Was this truly a necessary move at this point in his administration?  Would it have anything to do with his crypto holdings?

Those ‘amazing’ deportations that the Trump Administration is carrying out around the country….it has been in the news nightly but how are they doing number wise?

ICE arrests spiked to around 800-1,200 per day during Trump’s first week in office, then fell off as detention centers filled up and officers surged to target cities returned home.
“It’s going to be like turning a supertanker for the first few months,” Isacson said. “The civilian part of the U.S. government can only do so much.”
During Trump’s first month in office, ICE doubled arrests of people with criminal charges or convictions compared with the same period a year ago, according to data provided by DHS.
While arrests have risen, ICE detention space remains a limiting factor. The agency currently holds around 41,100 detainees, with funding to hold 41,500.
About 19,000 of those detainees were arrested by ICE while about 22,000 were picked up by U.S. border authorities, according to agency data published in mid-February.
Of the 19,000 arrested by ICE, around 2,800 had no criminal record, according to the same agency data. The figure was up from 858 in mid-January, before Trump took office.
The Republican-led U.S. Senate on Friday passed a bill to provide $340 billion over four years for border security, deportations, energy deregulation and additional military spending. But the party remains divided on how to move forward with the funding plan, with Trump pressing for the funding to be combined with tax cuts.
I am sure that these numbers will make some very happy….personally I had rather see the resources being used to help eliminate some of the problems that face our seniors and poor.
Trump accuses a Jewish lawmakers as being a ‘Palestinian”….

President Trump on Wednesday called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a “Palestinian” while criticizing the Democrats for not supporting the GOP’s spending plan.

“Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said in the Oval Office while hosting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. “He’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore.”

Trump began using “Palestinian” as an insult while on the campaign trail and even called President Biden a “bad Palestinian” during their debate. Trump first labeled Schumer a “Palestinian” while campaigning, apparently criticizing the Jewish senator for calling for elections in Israel

Trump recently referred to Schumer as a Palestinian when discussing his plans for the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip.

(antiwar.com)

I wish this garden slug would put that same energy into solving pressing problems instead of insulting anyone he has a problem with….

Does Israel control our government?

To answer that question I offer up one of their hit pieces….

Jewish Insider magazine ran a story saying that the White House tapped retired Lt. Col. Danny Davis for Deputy Director of National Intelligence, working under the newly confirmed DNI Tulsi Gabbard. It was a hit piece by a pro-Israel platform that primarily focused on Davis’s critical views — published only in articles and on his popular podcast — on Gaza and Iran.

Within hours, he was informed there would be no job, Responsible Statecraft has confirmed. “Investigative journalist” Laura Loomer celebrated. We are sure neoconservative radio jock Mark Levin, who helped spread the Insider story to his 4.9 million followers on Wednesday, celebrated. We should not. President Trump should not.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/daniel-davis/

Trump is pilling out all stops even tom,use an act from 1798….

President Trump on Saturday invoked the seldom-used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law giving the president broad power to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation in wartime. Trump said the US is being invaded by a Venezuelan gang in a proclamation on using the law to order the deportation of five men, the AP reports. Legal scholars said the administration could use the authority against immigrants in the US legally, as well, per the Washington Post, as it carries out Trump’s promise of mass deportations. Use of the law “may be the administration’s most extreme measure yet,” an ACLU lawyer said.

Trump said during his campaign that he would invoke the act, which has not been used since World War II. The law allows for deportations with little due process, per the New York Times. Legal experts said any use of the law is likely to face more court challenges, since the US is not at war. Only Congress can declare war.

That does it for this Sunday….I hope everyone has a great day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

UFOs And Schumer

Ask yourself why!

The big news is that a bi-partisan group will push for the government to make UFO information public (except when national security would prevent it)….

This is not a joke!

I am serious!

Over the last six years, the entire UFO topics has shifted from conspiracy theory to suddenly the U.S. Government accepting the objects in the sky are real but they don’t know what they are. On Thursday, the New York Times finally addressed the latest developments in the story with a breaking news update that could send this issue to a whole new level. Before this update, there were already a number of U.S. Senators who kept on appearing in news shows and pushed for public hearings after the recent whistleblower claims from David Grusch. But the highest-ranking senator just turned this story on its head by tweeting the New York Times Story on his official Twitter account. According to the report, Schumer is officially going to push legislation that will attempt to declassify UFO documents.

In the legislation, the Senate Majority Leader will also force private companies to present every bit of important information that deals with “extraterrestrial matters”. That phrase was written by the article author in the New York Times, making it the first time that terms is coined by one of the highest authority news organizations in the world. Here’s what Chuck Schumer wrote on his official Twitter account: “I’m introducing new legislation to declassify government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena and UFOs as an amendment to the NDAA, modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.” This legislation will have bipartisan support, according to the New York Times.

Seriously?

What are the chances that this will pass?

Slim to none…..

Sorry but if this is the best we can do for bi-partisanship then all is lost.

You telling me these slugs could not find something more important than is ET stopping by for a joy ride?

This country is circling the drain and we are going to waste time and resources worrying about something that holds no importance to the grand scheme of things.

We have national hunger…..a failing infrastructure….a government that cannot function without the cash of lobbyists….rights are being eroded away…..and finally lazy politicians who can be bought and sold.

And you think this country can be saved from itself….I have my doubts.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Poverty–Oh SNAP!

There are a few programs that try to help the poor with their struggle with hunger….one of those programs is the SNAP.

SNAP provides nutrition benefits to supplement the food budget of needy families so they can purchase healthy food and move towards self-sufficiency.

Now that the Repubs are in control of most state houses there is a movement to end this program….

Republicans in the Iowa House introduced legislation this month that would impose a slew of fresh restrictions on the kinds of food people can purchase using SNAP benefits, sparking outrage among local groups who say the measure would exacerbate hunger in the GOP-dominated state.

The Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC), an interfaith group that operates the largest food pantry network in Iowa, noted in a statement earlier this week that if the bill passes, “Iowans could no longer use their SNAP benefits to purchase meat, nuts, and seeds; flour, butter, cooking oil, soup, canned fruits, and vegetables; frozen prepared foods, snack foods, herbs, spices—not even salt or pepper.”

“This is a punitive policy that will do nothing to improve the health and nutrition of Iowans, but rather be a detriment,” the group said.

The Iowa Hunger Coalition (IHC) also condemned the bill, voicing opposition to its proposed food restrictions as well as new asset limits that would make it more difficult for families to qualify for SNAP, a program funded by the federal government and administered by states.

According to Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the U.S., roughly 229,500 people—including 80,160 children—are facing food insecurity in Iowa.

The details of the new legislation—which is sponsored by 39 Iowa House Republicans, including Speaker Pat Grassley—were met with national anger.

“This is so profoundly cruel and petty,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible.

Sarah Bowen, a sociologist who studies food and inequality, noted in a tweet on Thursday that “Republicans have tried to destroy SNAP for years,” animated by the lie that “SNAP recipients are all stocking up on lobster and steak.”

“This is the most ridiculous proposal I’ve seen though,” Bowen added. “No chicken or ground beef. No chili beans. No American cheese?!”

SNAP recipients are already limited in what they can purchase at the grocery store using their benefits, but Iowa Republicans are seeking to dramatically expand those restrictions.

As Todd Dorman of the Iowa Gazetteexplained in a column on Thursday, the legislation “would require the Department of Health and Human Services to seek a federal waiver allowing Iowa to scrap an already restrictive federal list of approved foods and replace it with a list of food available to recipients of aid to Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.”

“The bill would also, for the first time, create an asset test, limiting household assets to $2,750 or $4,250 if one member of the household is over 60. It exempts just one vehicle, potentially making households with two cars ineligible,” Dorman wrote. “Beyond all of that draconian wisdom, the bill would force recipients to jump through far more regulatory hoops to become eligible and stay on SNAP, wrapping recipients tightly in red tape and likely costing the state millions more to administer the program.”

“Only two groups support the bill,” Dorman added. “One is the Florida-based Opportunity Solutions Project, which sends its minions across the country to cut holes in the social safety net and oppose policies such as Medicaid expansion. The group is part of a web of conservative think tanks and bill mills bankrolled by rich donors who think if you just make poor people hungry and sick enough, they’ll utilize their bootstraps.”

(commondreams.org.

Read on….https://www.businessinsider.com/iowa-republicans-bill-ban-snap-recipients-meat-sliced-cheese-2023-1

How long will it be before this kind of cruelty expands into other red controlled Houses?

And yet they get votes from the very people they are screwing….where’s the logic in that?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Means Testing

The buzzword used by GOPers and conserv Dems to stop people from getting the help they need.

What is this policy to prevents people from assistance?

A means test is a method for determining whether someone qualifies for financial assistance to obtain a service or good, for instance, welfare payments. It looks at the means, or monetary resources, a person has available to them to pay for a particular service or good, then determines that person’s access to financial assistance based on their ability to pay for it.

The Senate is in the middle of reconciliation which means that conserv Dems will screw the rest of us….hard and steady.

Personally I am against such programs….and I am not alone……

As Democrats weigh what to include — and what to cut — in their budget reconciliation bill, lawmakers are grappling with an existential question: who should qualify for vastly expanded social services.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is among the moderate Democrats who have pushed to prevent the well-off and wealthy from receiving benefits like universal pre-K or free community college, as lawmakers try to get the $3.5 trillion bill closer to $2 trillion. “I cannot accept our economy or basically our society moving to an entitlement mentality,” Manchin said in late September.

But this call for means testing, policy parlance for limiting eligibility for social programs based on income, overlooks a few problems, experts say. Means-tested benefits can actually be more expensive to provide, harder to sell politically, and less effective than universal social programs, and they can place both a social stigma and discouraging bureaucratic requirements on Americans in need.

Means testing have also long been associated with a moral argument that some segments of the population are deserving of government benefits, while others are not. This idea undercuts the belief that a social safety net is intended to help support those broadly in need, and shifts the burden onto individuals to prove that they’re worthy of getting basic help.

https://www.vox.com/2021/10/15/22722418/means-testing-social-spending-reconciliation-bill

I have a hard time with this burden of proof thing…..we do not seem to demand such proof from our representatives….we just roll over and play dead as they go about screwing your neighbors.

We need Medicare For All….

Time for the American people to learn to get involved with the government beyond some beauty contest ever 2 to 4 years.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is COINTELPRO Reborn?

First some may ask….what the Hell is COINTELPRO?

Between 1956 and 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a campaign of domestic counterintelligence. The agency’s Domestic Intelligence Division did more than simply spy on U.S. citizens and their organizations; its ultimate goal was to disrupt, discredit, and destroy certain political groups. The division’s operations were formally known within the bureau as COINTELPRO (the Counterintelligence Program). The brainchild of former FBI director j. edgar hoover, the first COINTELPRO campaign targeted the U.S. Communist party in the mid-1950s. More organizations came under attack in the 1960s. FBI agents worked to subvert Civil Rights groups, radical organizations, and white supremacists. COINTELPRO existed primarily because of Director Hoover’s extreme politics and ended only when he feared its exposure by his critics. A public uproar followed revelations in the news media in the early 1970s, and congressional hearings criticized COINTELPRO campaigns in 1976.

In their scope and tactics, these FBI operations occasionally went much further than the original anti-Communist COINTELPRO effort. They involved at least twenty documented burglaries of the offices of the SCLC, an organization headed by martin luther king jr. Hoover detested King, whom he called “one of the most reprehensible … individuals on the American scene today,” and urged his agents to use “imaginative and aggressive tactics” against King and the SCLC. To this end, agents bugged King’s hotel rooms; tape-recorded his infidelities; and mailed a recording, along with a note urging King to commit suicide, to the civil rights leader’s wife. The COINTELPRO operation against the radical Black Panther party, which Hoover considered a black nationalist hate group, tried to pit the party’s leaders against each other while also fomenting violence between the Panthers and an urban gang. In at least one instance, FBI activities did lead to violence. In 1969, an FBI informant’s tip culminated in a police raid that killed Illinois Panther chairman Fred Hampton and others; more than a decade later, the federal government agreed to pay restitution to the victims’ survivors, and a federal judge sanctioned the bureau for covering up the facts in the case.

More info available here……https://lobotero.com/2016/03/10/cointelpro-the-ghosts-of-protests-past/

The reason I ask the question and defined the government program for good reasons……it seems that the feds are doing similar tactics against the BLM….

As Black Lives Matter protests grew across the U.S. following the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, so did the federal government’s persecution of activists who marched in support of racial justice.

That’s according to a new report released Wednesday by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) clinic at the City University of New York School of Law.

“This is not the first or the last time the federal government has utilized coordinated attacks on Black activists as a means to suppress our right to protest,” Amara Enyia, policy and research coordinator for M4BL, said in a statement. “Historically, Black protestors have more often than not been met with governmental oppression and accompanying police violence as a result of our unwillingness to accept the systemic disregard for and mistreatment of Black lives.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/19/feds-targeted-blm-activists-foil-racial-justice-protests-report

In case you were too damn lazy to click on the report…. click here report do it now!

As someone who had his life scrutinized in the 70s I can feel for the tactics being used against the BLM and others.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump Hold-Over Policies

Biden is having to deal with a whole array of policies that are hold-overs from the Trump admin……policies like the border situation……the Afghan peace deal…….etc etc……

For those that depend on Medicare there ism a policy leftover that could further raise your costs when using the program…..

A little-noticed scheme hatched in the late stages of the Trump presidency has consumer advocates and universal healthcare proponents warning about a creeping attempt to further privatize Medicare—an effort the Biden administration is being urged to stop in its tracks.

On December 3, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)—then under the leadership of Seema Verma—unveiled an innocuous-sounding proposal titled the Geographic Direct Contracting Model (Geo) with the purported goal of delivering “Medicare beneficiaries value through better care and improved quality.”

But a look beyond the plan’s technocratic exterior reveals what Center for Health Journalismreporter and editor Trudy Lieberman described earlier this week as a privatization model that could “take root and potentially turn every senior into a customer of a privately-run managed care organization.”

“Perhaps due to the wonky nature of the discussion,” Lieberman added, “the proposed change has generated almost no media coverage although it would upend the health insurance for millions of Americans.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/13/advocates-sound-alarm-over-quiet-trump-era-move-could-further-privatize-medicare

This is something that needs watching and reporting…..the MSM has neglected this in favor of Beyonce, mundane Covid coverage and such mind numbing BS….this issue is important to millions of retired Americans and it should be treated like it is important.

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I Read, I Write, you Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The Era Of Reaganism Ending?

God I do hope so!

I have often stated that I was no fan of Reagan and his policies……to me he was the founder of what is happening in DC these days……he did not want the government to do anything for this country….instead he blamed it for all our ills.

Now look at the disruptive BS coming from the GOP these days…..Reagan was the father of this disruption.

Biden has said that the government needs to act to try and repair all the ills in this society……could this be a new stage of American government?

A common theme is emerging in coverage about President Biden from political observers on the left and right: His plans to dramatically expand the scope of the government—witness his $1.9 trillion COVID package and his $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal—might just mark the definitive end of the Ronald Reagan era of small-government politics. But that’s assuming, of course, that Biden can get his infrastructure package and other measures through Congress. Examples:

  • Ronald Reagan famously declared that “government is not the solution to our problem” but the problem itself, notes David E. Sanger in an analysis at the New York Times. Biden’s “gamble” is “that the country is ready to dispense with one of the main tenets of the Reagan revolution, and show that for some tasks the government can jump-start the economy more efficiently than market forces.” The president is of the mind that the nation’s “political center of gravity” has been shifted by the pandemic and by a new focus on social and racial inequities.
  • In the New Yorker, Susan Glasser writes that the Biden administration is making a “real historical gamble.” Essentially, they are “advancing the proposition that the politics of the Reagan era—of endless tax cuts embraced by Republicans and of Democrats trying and failing to escape the label of big-government liberals—is finally over.” Lots of comparisons to FDR and LBJ are being tossed around, but Glasser says they should wait until we see what Biden actually gets passed.
  • Biden’s early moves suggest he is “eager and prepared to seize the opportunity to define the end of the Reagan era and shape the one to come,” writes Damon Linker at the Week. Linker thinks a comparison to FDR is more appropriate than to LBJ. The latter president expanded but mainly continued already existing policies. “What Biden is attempting now is something very different—a major leftward change of orientation from the preceding 40 years. That kind of swing hasn’t happened since 1933.”
  • All of this has conservative Matt Lewis pondering some big questions in the Daily Beast. “What if Biden turns out to be the liberal answer to Reagan?” he asks. Unlike Reagan, Biden’s party actually controls both houses of Congress, he notes. “What if Biden, who was often seen as a ‘transitional’ caretaker who was tolerable to get rid of Donald Trump, turns out to be a truly transformational president who brings about a new political consensus? Imagine the irony if Obama turns out to have been the John the Baptist to Joe Biden’s Jesus Christ.”

Yes the Reaganism of old is dead….even the GOP has abandoned most of his policies….the only thing that remains of Reaganism is the racist bigoted rhetoric.

It is beyond time for the government to do its part to uphold that social contract…..that social issue that so many have ignored for too long.

The US needs progress….without it we are a stagnant cesspool of political BS….it has begun and needs to be brought to a halt as quickly as possible.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–19Mar21

How many times have you heard what a draw those Blue States on the government…..all those programs that are draining the treasury with their liberal BS?  How many times?

The problem with that accusation is that it is pure bullsh*t…a “big lie”…..

States run by Republicans are far more dependent upon the help of the federal government than their Democratic-run counterparts, based on the latest annual study from Wallethub.com.

In ranking the 50 states, the financial website listed 11 red states among the 12 most dependent upon Washington D.C. No fewer than 19 of the 25 of the most-dependent states were Republican dominated. Conversely, 12 of the 14 states least dependent on the federal government were run by Democrats.

“Blue states are less dependent on federal government than red states,” the site observed, noting that in its 50-state ranking, red states ranked 20.68 in dependency to Washington DC, versus a much lower average ranking of 30.32 for blue states.

https://www.rawstory.com/federal-mooching/

I live in deep red Mississippi and the residents for the most part hate government programs that gives free money to those that they feel do not deserve it.

And yet Mississippi is in the top ten states that depend on government funds to continue their existence.

In 2020 Mississippi was number 4….in 2021 we are still the fourth highest recipient of federal funds….

The U.S. is a federal republic, meaning that power is held by both the central federal government, located in Washington, D.C., and by the governments of every state and territory that make up the union. But the “division of powers” isn’t as simple as it seems — and neither is the division of finances, since states rely on the federal government for money and various programs to help them operate. With all this in mind, SmartAsset crunched the numbers to see which states are the most dependent on the federal government.

To do this, we considered data on all 50 states across the following metrics: the federal share of state government revenue, the ratio of federal funding to income taxes paid, the percentage of workers employed by the federal government and the ratio of median earnings for federal workers to median earnings for private for-profit workers. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section at the end.

This is SmartAsset’s 2021 study on states most dependent on the federal government. Check out the 2020 version here.

https://www.moneytalksnews.com/slideshows/the-10-states-most-dependent-on-the-federal-government/

It always amazes me just how damn ignorant people can be……even when federal handouts benefit them and they still hate those that receive them…..

The voter in Mississippi has always voted against their best interests….just how stupid can they be.

Is your state cited?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Blame Privatization

It is absolutely NO mistake about it…I think the idea of privatization is and was a colossus brain fart.

In case anyone doubts my words of condemnation of the idea of privatization…..

https://lobotero.com/2016/06/22/the-history-of-privatization/

https://lobotero.com/2019/06/17/privatization-sucks/

Now that I have filled in a few blanks…..a little personal history…..

in 2005 after Katrina I fell off a ladder a broke my right leg in 4 places—two surgeries and 13 screws and I had my leg back….not mas good as it was but I could walk with a limp…..I was prescribed 2 opioids to help with the pain…morphine and oxycodone…..so I have an interest in the whole opioid abuse thingy that the president and the country is so involved in these days.

Let me say here….Blame Privatization!

The opioid abuse epidemic is one of the worst public-health crises in American history. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 1999 and 2017, almost 400,000 people died in the U.S. from an overdose of either prescription or illicit opioids. In 2017 alone, opioids, more than one-third involving prescriptions, killed more than 47,000 individuals. And today, on average 130 people die each day from opioid overdoses.

The root cause of most cases of opioid addiction, particularly prescription-initiated addiction, is pain, a devastating but sometimes overlooked symptom. As a recent American Industrial Hygiene Association paper argues, “the opioid crisis should be seen primarily as a pain crisis, much of which is related to work.” Addressing that crisis precipitated another: treatment regimes that relied heavily on opioids. Today there’s little awareness that almost two decades ago, conservative members of Congress, in a burst of anti-regulatory zeal, championed the fight to eliminate the very ergonomics standard that was designed to reduce the high incidence of a number of common workplace injuries.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/01/how-deregulation-led-opioid-epidemic

Let us be honest!

Privatization and deregulation has caused more problems than it has cured…….and yet the GOP and some Dems keep pushing the for more of both

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“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Social Security 2100

As an old fart I am always watching to see what measures are proposed then taken by this government that would effect us elderly people.

Social Security has been a battlefield for generations…..the big lie that seems to surface with every election is that SS is going bankrupt…..

Arguably the biggest Social Security lie is the idea that the program will soon be bankrupt and not able to provide a benefit to future retirees. This lie is perpetuated by the latest annual report from the Social Security Board of Trustees, which calls for a major shift come 2022. In four years, the program will begin paying out more in benefits than it’s generating in income for the first time in 40 years. This shift is a result of a growing number of baby boomers entering retirement and thus lowering the worker-to-beneficiary ratio, an increase in longevity over many decades, and growing income inequality that has allowed the rich to live substantially longer (and collect a bigger Social Security check) than lower-income folks.

By 2034, a dozen years later, Social Security’s approximately $3 trillion in asset reserves is expected to be completely exhausted. It’s this excess cash depletion that has 51% of Americans, according to a 2015 Gallup survey, confident that they won’t receive a dime from the program by the time they retire. Thankfully, more than half of all Americans are wrong. 

Social Security has three funding mechanisms, and one of those funding sources ensures that the program is incapable of going bankrupt. Social Security’s lesser funding sources are the interest earned on its asset reserves ($88.4 billion in 2016) and the taxation of Social Security benefits ($32.8 billion in 2016).

(The Motley Fool)

Rep. John Larson has put forth a plan to strengthen Social Security…..it is called Social Security 2100 Act…..
Bill Text  | Full Press Release | Fact Sheet

For millions of workers, Social Security is all they have to keep them from destitution in old age. Even with Social Security’s guaranteed benefits, they struggle to make ends meet. Fortunately, Congress can easily strengthen retirement security by expanding Social Security. Congressman John Larson (D-CT) has a bill to do just that: The Social Security 2100 Act, which is supported by 90 percent of Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Nearly four in five Americans live paycheck to paycheck. In 2018, the Federal Reserve Board found that four in ten Americans could not afford $400 for an emergency expense. Low wages combined with the high cost of health care, housing and education prevent people from putting aside funds for retirement. The Government Accountability Office reported earlier this year that almost half of households headed by Americans aged 55 and older have no retirement savings.

Equally concerning, most companies no longer offer pensions to their workers—a guaranteed monthly income. Instead, if they are lucky, workers get small financial contributions toward their retirement that do not amount to a whole lot. 401k plans and other so-called “defined contribution” plans do little good if workers are forced to spend their income on basic needs and have no money to save.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/13/social-security-2100-path-protecting-americas-elderly-communities

A good plan but as long as Moscow Mitch has a strangle hold on the Senate this will probably go no where.

Read the act over and if you like what you see then let your representative and senators know…..

Be Smart!

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VOTE!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”