One place to start is the rampant fraud, especially when it comes to disability. It is far far far far too easy for some to be able to get labeled disabled and start racking in the dough.

I deal with such families all the time. Often times every member of the family - children and adults are labeled disabled even though they are perfectly healthy and could work if they so chose.

Actually very oftentimes they are working under the table.

Frankly, I don't understand the big uproar that usually occurs when taxes are raised for such things. I would gladly pay more in taxes if it means an elderly person gets to live out the last years of their life happy. The same goes for universal health care. I would be more than happy to pay extra to possibly save a life.

The key part there is:
If it means an elderly person gets to live out the last years of their life happy. The same goes for universal health care. I would be more than happy to pay extra to possibly save a life.'

As I said far too much of the money is not used for such things. Far too much of it is spent on fraudulently made claims.

Very deceptive. That is NOT what he said. He said "Currently, only the first $97,500 of a person's annual income is taxed. The amount is scheduled to rise to $102,000 next year." "Obama's proposal could include a gap or "doughnut hole" to shield middle-income earners from paying more in taxes, he said."

So people making more than $97,500 would have more of their income taxed.

Oh, did you fall into that category 2many? Well, I don't think it's unfair. Sorry. You're eligible for the same benefits but you only have a portion of your income counted for that? Percentage wise I pay more of my salaray than a person who is earning substantially more. How is that fair? Please explain.

I am merely pointing out that a better way to fix social security's problems is to cut out the fraud.

Spend the money on those who are retired. I don't mind seeing the money go to helping senior citizens live a comfortable life.

The problem is too much of social security goes to disability and other fraudulent drains.

The definition of "disability" is way to lax.

Of course we should stop fraud. However, that will not fix the problem. The government will probably spend more to catch the cheats than it will save.

If the insurance companies, with their wealth and resources to hire Dracula type investigators can't stop their fraud problems our government surely won't do it efficiently either.

Raising the taxable limit is a no brainer and a simple and fair fix.

Anyone living on Social Security income alone is living near or below the poverty level.

2many: If you deal with these frauds frequently is there a setup to expose and do somethiong about them?

I will never understand the willingness of some people to accept tax increases, anymore than someone's willingness to accept fee increases of any kind.

Why does it have to go up? Why isn't it enough? Why can't we do a better job of managing the current money collected, so that we don't have to continually increase and increase and increase?!

At what point will we stop this and say, "No! Enough is enough! Stop being so damn wasteful, use the money properly!"

There are some people who view the government as a spoiled teenager... they say the need more money, so give them more money. Every week we get another story in the newspaper (and then posted here on Plime) about another government somebody who is using too much money to buy something that costs a whole hell of a lot less. And it's attitudes like this, from the "let's just raise taxes" crowd, that let them get away with it time and time again.

No more money. You already have too much. Spend it better.

It's because of the population. Now control that and we have a reason to stop a lot of things. Seriously. A lot of our issues come down to the population of humans and the resources (monetary and otherwise) that they used. And I'm not just referring to new births, our population lives longer than before. That's a good thing and a bad thing and you cannot just say "ok we'll stretch out the little resources we have".

But taxing fairly would be a good start to changing the system the way it is now. Look at the RMT, it's absurd. I do agree they could spend better. But the inmates are guarding the asylum and I don't want my parents to starve while nothing is done.

We do not tax evenly in this country, not at all. I take more tax burden than someone earning 2x as much...I want an explanation as to why.

Well, you asked.

I agree with everything you said. It is a shame and disgusting that people on social security are forced to live in poverty.

One way to stop the fraud is to change the definition of "disability".

One common method that I see is families will have every one of their children labeled with a learning disability, meaning they failed a test. This gives the family $562 for each child. Really adds up.

If social security was used exclusively to help out older retired people who worked all their lives or helped support a spouse who worked then the money would go a lot further.

If someone has bad knees, if some kid is smart enough to fail a test, heck even if he truly does have a learning disability I am not sure if the government should be helping every single one.

Obviously government can't afford to. It is the ones most vulnerable, the senior citizens who suffer.

As I said, the term "disability" is too broad. Too often even when it is claimed legitimately, it shouldn't be. Just because you are are not able to perform one job, doesn't automatically mean you can't work at all and the rest of pick up the slack.

Trying to set up the people I deal with would be problematic. In the cases of outright fraud, where the people are still working under the table, my knowledge of that could be considered privileged. Divulging it could get have me facing civil charges. Possibly, don't know.

However too often they are beating the system without actually breaking the letter of the law. It isn't too hard to find a doctor who will label you as disabled even though you are healthy.

At least he is up front about it instead of lying and then raising taxes anyway.

Damn good point

No no no, my friend... population is NOT the an acceptable reason for tax increases. If the population is increasing, the amount of taxable resources (ie: people) is increasing as well. And since people are increasing exponentially, taxes should go down... not up. If there are 100 people to tax now (for example), and they all have 2 kids... the population has grown to 300. There will a time there (on average) when all 300 are paying into social security... and by the time that original 100 gets to retirement age, it has 200 people (all those kids) supporting social security. As the population grows, so should the money.

I agree that we don't tax evenly... and while I understand your concern that we can't let those on SS starve while we reconfigure it, I don't see that as a reason why we can't also fix it. The government often operates like it can't do two things at the same time... and often we accept that. It's not true... or at least, it shouldn't be. We can maintain the current SS users, and increase their benefits, while revamping the system. I really believe there is plenty of money out there... so much so, that a lot of it gets lost going to places it shouldn't. That’s the money we need to reclaim... and if we did that, we'd find that not only do we have enough money to support our people... we'd have enough to lower taxes, while continuing to improve social and government run programs.

Vote ImNotBlue for... whoops, got caught up there for a minute.

My pet peeve of a broken program is the welfare system. Now I'm not going to say that it's not important, of that it should be discontinued all together... my folks hit some really hard time when I was younger, and as my mother tells it, we were about a week away from having to sign up. That's when my father started doing odd jobs around the neighborhood (and mostly for the teachers at my elementary school who knew me, knew that we were falling on hard times, and wanted to help).

But I digress... welfare is a broken system... with people joining the program, and then staying on it for years and years and years. They're not necessarily living the life of luxury (not counting the ones who really scam it, and collect checks for money they don't deserve at all), but they're not working for their keep either.

And the problem isn't that the government doesn't know this... they do. The problem is that nobody wants to be the one to propose to fix it... because the moment they do, the race baiters will attack them for being racist and trying to hurt the poor minorities. This won't be true, but it makes for a good story on the television, and it gives the editorials writers pushing for a more socialistic society a good platform to hoot and holler about.

Bottom line, they don't have the courage, and it's easier to ignore the problem, then actually attempt to fix it.

Actually population can and does explain a lot of it (not all). Newborns aren't paying taxes (and their parents get tax breaks). Seniors aren't paying taxes (if they're not working) and our senior population is growing because people live longer and therefore are on Social Security longer. Higher population also would mean more people in between those two extremes who could be come disabled and collect SSD. So, it can explain a lot.

Welfare is not part of SS. It's a separate fund and separate issue.

In a variant parallel universe, mankind woke up and realized how irrisponsible and ineffective big government is. They've figured out that taxing money out of the hands of hardworking citizens and throwing it at a problem doesn't solve the problem. They understand the proper roles of families and the church in society, and how all of this government suck-and-spend crap isn't remotely necessary as long as people take up responsibility for themselves rather than being completely dependent on the government to do everything for them.

Sadly, this isn't the case in our reality. We'll be just like Canada in a decade, and Soviet Russia in a century. So get back to work, citizens. Millions of able-bodied people on social security and welfare are dependent on you.

I know, we were just talking about broken government programs that lead to increased taxes.

Yes, there are a lot of systems that need fixing in the government.

Your first part is very true.

As to welfare though, here's the thing. You want to tell someone who grew up in poverty, had a horrible education (free but diminished) has no hope of becoming anything more than a store clerk making minimum wage (which would still leave her below poverty level) or a drug dealer making lots more but risking everything, and whose very existence is so bleak it would be better to not exist. This person, right or wrong sees no way out and sees a free ride (not better than being a store clerk, but hey, she can ride on the backs of people who she thinks are better off. Now, tell her not to do that, explain she can better her life, you could even show her some ways of doing that. She might even be convinced for a bit...until she turns on the news or opens the paper and sees YET ANOTHER POLITICIAN caught in graft and pork belly politics and giving themselves a fat old raise and taking more money from education and health care so that her measly salary will only diminish again.

If this system is to be fixed it needs to be fixed from the top down, not the bottom up. If our leaders don't set the shining example of how to live and prosper legally and without nepotism, crony-ism and special interest, you can be damn sure few with a public school education, living in the slums and unable to earn enough to feed themselves (nevermind children) are going to willingly give up a handout.

Time to clean house, thoroughly.

So, basically you all agree with Ron Paul.