The majority of Americans oppose additional spending on the war in Ukraine, according to a CNN poll that was released on Friday.
The poll was conducted by SRSR from July 1-31, with a sample size of 1,279 respondents. It found that 55% of the respondents say Congress should not authorize more spending on the war in Ukraine, while 45% say more funds should be authorized.
When asked if the US has done enough to support Ukraine, 51% said yes, and 48% said more should be done. The results show how support for the policy of backing Ukraine against Russia has waned as the conflict has dragged on. A poll conducted when Russia first invaded in February 2022 found 62% of respondents thought the US wasn’t doing enough.
When asked about what type of support the US should provide Ukraine, only 17% of respondents favored sending in US troops for direct combat operations against Russia, which could quickly spiral into a nuclear war. The most popular type of support was assistance with intelligence gathering (63%), followed by military training (53%) and providing weapons (43%).
More Republicans oppose additional aid for Ukraine than Democrats, as has been the theme in polls throughout the war. The poll found that 71% of Republicans are against Congress authorizing more spending on the war, and 59% believe the US has done enough. The majority of Democrats want the US to provide more support for Ukraine, with 62% in favor of new funding and 61% saying the US hasn’t done enough.
So far, Congress has authorized $113 billion in spending on the war in Ukraine. The poll comes as the White House is expected to ask Congress this month to approve another spending package for Ukraine. According to Financial Times, President Biden wants to include military aid for Taiwan in the new Ukraine aid bill as the US is increasingly focused on preparing for a future conflict with China.
Support wanes as the conflict drags on; where have I heard this one before? (Like, maybe, every other mess the USA has created since I can remember).
Those that believe more aid should be sent to Ukraine should go ahead and send their own money and leave the rest of us out of it.
I do believe Julio should look through his cardboard box home and see if he can’t find a few pennies to send to Zelensky, with love.
Americans didn’t want this bs to begin with, all this “poll” does is try to tell you to go along with the Washington consensus.
As if it matters. Most Americans wanted to get the hell out of Afghanistan for more than a decade before it happened. Almost 3/4 of Americans want Medicare for all but there’s no way that will occur. Any agreement between govt decisions and majority opinion is entirely accidental.
For an example of the split in American opinion, compare the comments of New York Post readers to that of the NY Times, regarding Ukraine.. The difference couldn’t be more obvious
‘Russia has arrested nearly 20,000 people for protesting Ukraine war’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-arrested-nearly-20000-people-for-protesting-ukraine-war/ar-AA1eRNdF
So much for ‘blanket’ Russian support for the war.
71% of Republicans oppose funding Biden’s war against Russian Donbass, while 62% of Democrats are eager to go along with their corrupt leader. They don’t care at all that he was paid by Ukraine’s Burisma. That he does this out of corruption simply shows that he’s a good socialist, taking taxpayers’ money whenever he can. He’s their rolemodel!
Talk about biased question. There’s no option for saying giving aid is BAD, only if it’s “enough” already. This is against the normal rules for writing poll questions.
There are no normal rules. Push polling is rampant.
I don’t disagree overall, but before I enjoy feeling fat and happy, some of those “71% of Republicans” may just be upset the war wasn’t the Republicans’ idea. (Sarcasm)
If you switch between Fox News and any other cable news, they are all warhawks.
And most just think it’s the wrong war and we should be concentrating on China.
Wars, you completely complete me! LOL
If it wasn’t China, Russia or Iran, there would be another target. These people are addicted to war.
That is what greed does to people, wars are profitable for certain people.
If those 71% were interested in ending the conflict so that we could substantially reduce our defense budget, then your post would ring true. Unfortunately, republicans and democrats are united in at least maintaining it, and both find creative ways to increase it even further.
IMO, it’s odd for those who insist the US remain in NATO and support adding Ukraine to NATO to then oppose sending US troops to join the defense of Ukraine. Like, isn’t that the entire stated point of the defensive alliance.
Erm, yes … and this is the thing the jokers in the Baltics and Poland and the rest of new-nato needs to keep in mind. We’re great for sunshine times but we’ll be far far behind you when things get rough.
The CATO people in July let the government know not to make Ukraine a NATO member, it would not be cost effective.
They did not say it but it implies that Sweden and Finland are welcome because they can help fund NATO wars like the Ukrainian war.
CNN? Not the most reliable outfit for polling (the internals/samples lean progressive as well college grads are usually overrepresented plus this is a registered voter not a likely voter poll which usually makes a several point difference in results) and they show this?
If you are underwater in a CNN poll with a (almost) religious activity for the progressives like fighting a war against Putin (or Trump) this shows a turn against Joe and his Party’s war by the public that will impact ’24.
CNN has always been anti-progressive. The left wing of the corporate war party? Sure.
I believe we might have a different view of the progressive movement.
Perhaps you are still what they were back when neocons were starting wars in Iraq and they were antiwar but today’s DC progressives?
Those Cheney-loving war mongers who love their global corporations?
Those progressives neocon warmongers like Bernie and AOC are what that movement is today.
Bernie and AOC got crushed by Biden. I have heard silence and mild (very mild) disapproval from them about Ukraine.
In their own way, they are telling people like me to stay away from the democratic party. That seems useful in its own way.
The progressive movement has been wiped out. Considering how much momentum we had at the end of the Trump administration, this was a tremendous accomplishment by Biden.
And now that the left is dead, people are on the right are complaining bitterly that the tactics used to silence the left are being focused on them.
You may lose, but I guess you can rejoice that at least you hurt lefties like myself even more,
I’m more of the belief the Progressives are in some way returning to their love of Facism as it was prior to WW2 and the populists are once again their opposition.
You have those like Greenwald, Napolitano, and Paul agreeing with labor more and more.
The Swami has been using “manajorial class” in his campaign as a way to describe DC and there has been quite a bit of writing about that phrase over a few years (he did not come up with it) that kind of describes how the Progressives have become a movement of college educated managers who see themselves as those who know better and those who toil need to be led to become complient efficient laborers for society.
I think you’re on to something. Some conveniently forget that Woodrow Wilson was a leading progressive. Warmonger. Best friend to the banksters. Propagandist par excellence. Censorship kingpin. And, of course, a racist.
The Nazis picked up a lot of Wilson’s ideas and tactics.
Classical Italian Fascism of the sort that got, “the trains to run on time” was really big prior to WW2 with the Progressives.
Mussolini’s “Doctrine of Fascism” has quite a few areas that you can recognize in today’s Progressive’s especially in DC as well their “spouses” (marriage of business and the government is a quick definition) in global corporations.
Here’s a good one that you can “modernize” quite easily to almost mirror DC. but to get a full picture you kind of need to read the whole thing, ponder, research; the whole boring “nerd” thing but I will put the link at the end if you are interested to go down a rabbit hole…lol (this ain’t a class, just a comment section;-)
Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11). It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual (12). And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State (13). The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people (14).
No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State (15). Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16).
Grouped according to their several interests, individuals form classes; they form trade-unions when organized according to their several economic activities; but first and foremost they form the State, which is no mere matter of numbers, the suns of the individuals forming the majority. Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number (17); but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/reading/germany/mussolini.htm
Let’s not forget how enthusiastic that bunch was on authoritarian power grabs during the Covid 19 scaredemic.
The near-right wing, distinguishable, somewhat, from the far-right wing.
Most Americans oppose . Agreed. Who are these “Most Americans”? Who cares if most Americans oppose. The decision will be taken by Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken,Sam Bank -Man Freed, Black rock, Goldman Sachs,Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Zelensky et al. They will prosecute the war. Of course for themselves.”Most Americans” better shut up
If Beta Boy Blinken was on fire I would not throw anything on him.
If Victoria Nuland was on fire I would throw gasoline on her.
And if I was walking past, I wouldn’t piss on either of them to put it out.
I’m stumped as to why not Blinken too? Do her after she gets his job.
I try to get it off my mind, but I keep thinking the Nuland Vampire would run for president and the establishment would put her in the Oval Office too, they did it with Biden and Trump why not Nuland too?
The political class only cares about what people think around election time. Even then, they only pretend to care.
Read Joe’s lips. He doesn’t care what American’s want if it’s not profitible for him.
“Poll: Most Americans Oppose More Spending on the Ukraine War The poll comes as the White House is preparing to ask Congress to authorize more Ukraine aid”
Joey Biden will lose any election next year. It will be like pistol whipping a blind kid or maybe pistol whipping a senile old idiot!
But Biden wants more money for Taiwan too, or am I mistaken? The people in his administration are even bigger idiots than even he is.
He is too demented to know what is happening to him, but who ever would replace him would be controlled by the neocons, Trump is out, he is too difficult to manage, Harris would do, she can’t be worse than Biden.
This shows at least 45% of US citizens are brainwashed…!
I can’t believe that they are still sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine still while we are in the midst of this inflation problem. Also they are talking about Medicare cuts and social security cuts because of how much it costs. These politicians have forked tongues. They should cut their own benefits first. They have made politicians a special wealthy class above the citizens which is not what the founders of our nation intended the ruling class to be. TERM LIMITS!!!
If the Democrats cared about their constituents they would point out, that SS is a private not for profit insurance, payroll deductions are premiums paid in addition to federal and local taxes. The system also pays for survivor and disability and also contributes to the SSTF which has about 2 or 3 trillion USD invested in treasury bonds as the law demands. No tax $$$ were ever used to fund benefits to my knowledge. But some 40 years of stagnating wages and zero increase in minimum wage since 2009 and meager increases before hurts the funding. Benefits have been reduced, the trust fund was never touched, it is being used to reduce the national debt, using working people’s INSURANCE PREMIUMS to make up for the tax cuts for the millionaires in congress, our employees, WHILE many SS beneficiaries relying on SS live below the poverty line.
And the government billionaires have no problem with that, the transgender issue is much more important.
“SS is a private not for profit insurance, payroll deductions are premiums paid in addition to federal and local taxes”
Nope. The Supreme Court ruled in 1960 (Flemming v. Nestor) that it is just a particular welfare program linked to a particular tax, and that Congress can modify it in any way it chooses any time it wants.
I did not know, but to be honest it does not surprise me, we have a political SC. It changes nothing , SS IS NOT A WELFARE PROGAM. It is paid for with premiums in form of payroll deductions.
The constitution was written by big landowners for big landowners, over time it changed the landowners to corporations. Justice has a price tag, the more money the more justice.
The law and justice are just NOT the same.
Strictly speaking, you’re correct: Social Security isn’t a “welfare program.” It’s a Ponzi scheme.
How does it compare to private insurance, the real Ponzi scheme. The SS system is not the problem, our politicians are the problem. We need honorable people in government, which we don’t have. Compare SS with private for profit insurance, the real Ponzi schemes. Private health insurance is a Ponzi scheme funny that no one uses the term in connection with private for huge profits insurance?
Why do we have SS in the first place, how would we replace it, there was nothing like retirement for working people, what about disabled people and family survivors, military families for example? SS does cover them, true the benefits are modest, you could not live depending on SS only, but in future many private funds went bankrupt and SS will be all people have.
I believe the term Ponzi scheme is really public manipulation term used by the industry which would like to privatize SS because they can make big profits with a mandated insurance by reducing benefits and increasing the premiums. Like insurance companies operate, see your homeowners policy, high premiums, deductions and co payments, that is what I call a Ponzi scheme with million $$$ executive salaries.
You seem to not know what a “Ponzi scheme” is. Perhaps you should look it up.
Maybe you can explain why SS is a Ponzi scheme and private health insurance is not? What about private retirement funds?
The employee is not a shareholder investing in SS, it is an insurance not an investment like a 401 account. The 401 account is more likely to turn into a Ponzi scheme, Reagans retirement savings accounts were Ponzi schemes, the finance industry made the profits. They were nothing but savings accounts with taxes delayed on interest earned.
A Ponzi scheme is a con game where the initial investors make out like bandits, because instead of the money being productively invested, the people running the scheme are just getting rich and paying out to those initial investors from NEW investors. Eventually new investors catch on and stop showing up.
Since the inception of Social Security, the ratio of working people to retired people has gone from around 6 workers “investing” for each one retiree getting benefits to, by 2034, around 2.3 workers to retirees. Absent changes in the program, the only way to keep paying out at current rates plus COLAs to the retirees is to massively jack up taxes on the people still working. Which the politicians are unwilling to do because they’d like to live. But benefits can’t be cut for the same reason.
There are lots of things wrong with “private health insurance,” among them that it is neither private nor insurance. It’s heavily government-regulated pre-paid care. But it’s not a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is.
Thomas, SS has no investors, it was pay-go until Reagan with Democrats to help changed it with an increase of the payroll deductions and a deposit in the SSTF INVESTED IN treasury bonds. There are bout 2 or 3 Trillion USD in the SSTF which our corrupt officials use to keep the federal debt lower. The government is cheating the working people to protect their own wealth and their donors wealth. The elected members of congress are the criminals, characterless, with no integrity they walk over dead bodies to get the money and power. Trump is no worse than they are, they are evil people, scum.
Private insurance is not well regulated it is a brutal neoliberal product, it is all about money and not health care. Look how little the Obama ACA accomplished. Our system does not function , it includes the Hospitals, Pharma industry and medical equipment supply. Almost 50 % of medical care is paid for by the government, now add all the private insurance money. This is the land of avarice and gluttony, it is a system based on extortion of the customers. The CEOs of hospital chains are earning millions of $$$ salaries.
Well, it is a big subject on its own. Medicare is expensive because it covers the high risk older population, people the private industry does not insure because it would reduce the profits.
In other words, in an ideal world, Thomas L. Knapp believes that Ya Friendly Local Loanshark Services, owned by Thomas himself, would be a preferable solution to address social insecurity.
Making shit up doesn’t magically become not making shit up just by putting “in other words” in front of it. I was describing the “is” of Social Security, not arguing for any particular alternative “ought.”
Making shit up doesn’t magically become not making shit up just by putting “in other words” in front of it. I was describing the “is” of Social Security, not arguing for any particular alternative “ought.”
How very illuminating, thank you.
Any other habitually sordid, not to mention outstandingly sophisticated observations, Thomas?
I’m here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waiter.
Would Boi de Justice do nicely?
Until Reagan SS was a pay-go insurance system. Republicans campaigned on tax cuts and intent to privatize and demolish SS as we know it, starting the day it was initiated. They got a step closer when they made it a Ponzi scheme by adding the savings account AKA SSTF.
ACTUALLY YOU STARTED THE DISCLOSURE by making us think about it.
Thank you, and I mean it. It was a fruitful give and take, for me anyway. You made me think.
Social Security was never a “pay-go insurance system.” Its first recipient, Ida May Fuller, paid in about $25 in Social Security taxes and drew out about $22,000 in checks. Its primary function these days is to have low-income black men subsidize the retirements of upper middle class white women.
SS was a pay go insurance program. It was never an investment, the same as no premium paying insurance client is investing in health insurance, car or home policies. Private insurers do have shareholders SS does not. It is not sold on the open market while the 401K retirement accounts invest in stock.
Health insurance is not much regulated the government protects the profit margin, it is a Ponzi scheme. How else can you explain the huge profits in the business. The CEOs earn million $$$ salaries. Premiums and deductibles are high, you need additional insurance to cover prescriptions, dental care, prenatal care, co payments and on and on. You have to pay in thousands before the company pays a dime. Only in America do families have to file for bankruptcies because of medical bills. Neoliberal economics stands for privatization, deregulation and big profits. Private insurance can deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, it could cut in the profit margin. You must be insured for several month and pay high deductibles before the insurer pays anything.
Social Security is a social way all working people pay in in order to have support in cases of need, like old age or disability or losing the bread winner. Private insurance has to make a profit, if you can’t pay the premiums you are just out of luck. Pay-go is not a Ponzi game private insurance is, just like all the bad mortgages the banks made before 2008 knowing the people could not really afford them and when they came crashing down the bankers made money Obama bailed them out and the home buyers were left holding the bag, they had to file for bankruptcy, the banks played the real Ponzi game. They knew the people did not really qualify for the loans, but they knew they risked nothing, they made big profits,
that was a the real Ponzi scheme.
Not to forget, jobs are being turned into part time jobs without health care benefits or retirement.
Thomas, I know you know that too.
Reagan and Moynihan a democrat changed the pay-go system, claiming to create the SSTF invested in treasury bonds bonds for the baby boomers, and here the Ponzi game starts, the government funds the federal deficit with the trillions of premium $$ paid by working American people, the scum millionaires in congress took care of themselves and their donors. They write the laws to cut their taxes and take it from the working people instead.
One big problem you ignore is the fact of decades of stagnating wages when increased productivity ended up at the top and almost nothing in paychecks. Minimum wages in todays $$$ value are :
“When adjusted for inflation, the 2023 federal minimum wage in the United States is around 40 percent lower than the minimum wage in 1970. Although the real dollar minimum wage in 1970 was only 1.60 U.S. dollars, when expressed in nominal 2023 dollars this increases to 12.04 U.S. dollars.”
That does affect SS revenue big time. Insurance premiums are not investments, they are not savings either. Our corrupt government made it a Ponzi scheme, the working people are the nations creditor, the nation is in debt to the working people, the government is using the SSTF to fund the wars and pay the MIC.
Less than one in 50 workers earns minimum wage or less, which tells us nothing about “stagnating wages” in general.
Far from “stagnating wages,” real median personal income in the US grew from (in 2021 dollars) $24,938 in 1980 to $29,314 in 1989 (covering those Reagan years you like to make stuff up about — it had been going down through the ’70s) and is now approaching $40,000.
Thomas, buying power is what counts. ” which tells us nothing about “stagnating wages” in general.” Then why did you mention it?
But seriously, statistics tell us that the working middle class is shrinking because of stagnating wages and poverty went up. Part time jobs and losing benefits result in ” stagnating wages.”
The economy lost good paying union jobs, that is a big factor, and keeping the minimum wage low keeps wages in general low also. But it did not prevent the high inflation rate.
The nation can’t deal with the issues if we can’t face the real facts.
Affordable health care is a big part of working peoples’ standard of living and quality of life. Many working people don’t have it. The nation just can’t admit it and is not ready to make an effort to deal with the problems. All the politicians care about is transgender and related issues which affects relatively few people and is a medical issue not a political issue. But for the politicians it is a wonderful welcome wedge issue to run an election on.
“Thomas, buying power is what counts. ”
Yes, it is. Which is why it’s useful to show wages in constant dollars, as the stat I offered did.
But really, the difference in buying power is even greater than the irrefutable non-stagnation of real wages, because at the same time those wages were going up, most prices were coming down.
Were you even alive in 1980? Do you remember what a working class or lower middle class family could afford back then versus now? It’s not even close, even setting aside the modern conveniences available now that didn’t exist back then.
Our way of life changed, true enough. But our QUALITY of life changed too. And not just for the better. They had no credit cards back then, they use to pay by check or cash before 1980. Now they make minimum CC payments. People used to work for decades in the same company. Now the companies don’t get that old. The quality of goods was better, build in obsolescence came later. People used to live in real buildings. And yes, I remember Vietnam and the civil rights movement. Are you old enough to remember the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, MALCOLM X, and the writers of the time and the music ?
Yes, the quality of life has changed (although the modern credit card has been around since the 1950s — my parents started keeping one active, but not abusing it or digging into debt, in the 1960s). In some ways the changes have been for the worse, in other ways for the better, and in some cases the same changes have had both positive and negative effects.
But materially, we’re simply far more prosperous today than in 1970. Our real incomes have increased dramatically, and the real costs of most things we buy has dropped dramatically, and the quality of many things we used has advanced hugely.
A few items on that last front:
When I first moved out on my own, in the 1980s, I paid more every month to have a telephone attached to the wall of my home — with extra charges for any long-distance calls — than I pay today for a phone that can go everywhere with me, has unlimited long distance, and is also a far more powerful computer than anything available to consumers at any price back then.
My first computer cost $200 in 1982 ($632 in 2023 dollars). It had 4.5 kilobytes of RAM and a 3Mhz CPU. My current computer cost less than $100 (about $32 in 1982 dollars). It has 8Gb of RAM and a 2.4Ghz CPU.
I remember the hubbub when my mom and dad bought their first color TV in the 1970s. The price was probably $400-500 (more than $3000 in 2023 dollars) for a bulky, but small-screen (19″), set. The last television I bought was a 65″ flat screen, and it cost me less than $300 (on sale, but still). That’s less than 40 bucks in 1970 dollars.
I was born between the JFK/Malcolm X assassinations and the MLK/RFK assassinations.
That is all true, technology has improved our lives no doubt about it, but it does come with a price. Cars made the suburbs possible and overseas phone calls used to cost an arm and a leg, and polio was with us too. Our society has become more mobile and rootless and where families used to be able to provide support, as with child care and illness, is often not possible. Loneliness is more common. APROPOS CC , they can be tempting and expensive and/or a life saver. Our economy would collapse without them. I recall, a TV was a piece of furniture with rabbit ears and snowy black and white movies. Yes, Thomas, times do change for the better and sometimes not. Technological advances are a big part of it, but only a part. There used to be just three networks and people watched the same TV programs and talked about them, now people don’t talk to each other they are concentrating on their Cell Phones.
The government stole the SSTF and lowered the benefits, by raising the retirement age, and skipping cola increases, and keeping the minimum wage low.
Reagan had to finance his tax cuts, the way to do it was to mandate a SSTF, our government officials are the bandits, they regulate only for their own benefits. Democracy is a Ponzi scheme. They use their government power to legalize their Ponzi scheme.
If it were a private not for profit insurance the CEOs would clean up with million $$$$ salaries. More donor money for politicians.
Your example doesn’t at all describe a Ponzi scheme, it describes an aging population. Huge difference.
A Ponzi scheme is a con that pays off old investors with revenue from new investors, rather than from productive activity.
“An aging population,” and more specifically retirement increasing relative to workforce participation, is what will cause the Social Security Ponzi to fail. Most Ponzis fail more quickly because the new investors aren’t compelled to invest as they are in Social Security.
Can you name a private insurance that is not a PONZI scheme.
Private Health insurance is the biggest PONZI scheme I know of. Why does no one call it that? I know, because it is private and free to rob the consumer in a way no other insurance can. When people are sick, they will pay any price to get medical care, there is no consumer protection where it is needed most. Health care bankrupts families, that is the REAL PONZI scheme,
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE TAKES THE CAKE.
So what if it is? Your argument here reeks of ruling class attitude, as in “let them eat cake.” People should be cared for in their old age, not thrown out like garbage. Additionally, we’ve contributed our whole working lives to Social Security, we should get benefits adequate to live on when we get old.
My argument is about fact, not attitude.
I happen to believe that people SHOULD be cared for in their old age, not thrown out like garbage.
Which is why it kind of pisses me off that people got conned into a janky-ass Ponzi scheme instead of being offered honest and sustainable retirement options.
Then you should advocate for Social Security being adequately funded, for removal of the income cap so that the rich pay their fair share, and for adequate benefits. Any shortfall can come out of the damn military budget, which would be an infinitely better use of the money. That wouldn’t be Ponzi scheme by any definition.
I’m in favor of cutting the military budget by 100%. Since I try to be a moderate when possible, I’d settle for 90%. But I would not support throwing that savings down the Ponzi scheme rathole.
That’s not what the Court ruled in Flemming. The opinion is much more nuanced than that. I suggest reading it again.
It’s the gravamen of the ruling. The act of paying taxes as “premiums” does not create any legal obligation on the part of Congress to authorize benefits.
No. The court specifically held that contributions paid into the program (by employees and employers) are not analogous to premiums, as paid, e.g., by a holder of an annuity pursuant to a contract.
Nor does the opinion find that there is “no legal obligation on the part of Congress to authorize benefits.” It finds, rather, as the 1935 Act provides, that Congress is empowered to “alter, amend or repeal any provision” of the Act. It is, of course, but that’s not the same as being able to do those things arbitrarily. Congress is bound by the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment and must, at a minimum, make such decisions on a rational basis. There’s a lot of leeway there, but it’s a long way from being able to act arbitrarily.
Further, if we want to keep this discussion anchored in the real world, Congress would have to have much more than a bare “rational basis” for an act that substantially impacted Social Security benefits in a negative way. SS is, famously, a political third rail. It is a third rail for very good reasons.
Those who don’t know need to know, and those who do or did know should be reminded: 40% of older Americans rely only on Social Security in retirement. Many more rely substantially on SS.
Representatives or senators who threaten that essential life support should begin planning their post-Congress lives, and they should be aware that opportunities will be limited for many of them and quite a few will be unable to afford the personal security they would need.
Also: The Ponzi scheme argument is nonsense, and disingenuous. There are endless ways that Congress could “amend or alter” the Act other than increasing contributions for workers generally. That’s so obvious that it isn’t even worth arguing in detail. It’s certainly true that Congress has been reluctant to take the steps that will ultimately be necessary due to demographic changes, but that reluctance is almost sure to wane as the consequences of not taking such steps be come clear (and present).
Right. Another government mandated Ponzi scheme.
Not private, but the rest of your post is on target.
Biden IS taking care of his constituents. He is calculating how much he can get away with cutting from Social Security and Medicare, and how soon he can convert these savings into tax breaks and incentives for his preferred corporate business associates.
We need honorable people to govern, where can we find them? Maybe there is a handful of honorable elected or appointed officials.
There are not many, no honorable people in our three branches of government last long before they get kicked out.
What is left is motivated by avarice and power, not to serve the nation with honor. Diana Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell, and Biden, and others, what a disgrace they are.
Most NATO member governments are just as bad. How is this possible?
Honorable people don’t ordinarily become politicians. And corruption in DC is more contagious than Covid 19.
Let us all hope and pray that corruption in DC does not kill more then Covid.
Honorable people that do well in politics get smeared by the MSM.
Back in the 1980s, each party would have 1 or even 2 candidates that were honest and decent running for President. Americans just refused to vote for them. Both parties. Bad press or no press was a contributing feature.
When Trump became President, Kasich I think it was was running in the primaries. He was doing OK until democrats destroyed his candidacy by ruthlessly calling him seemingly honest, decent, and someone democrats could work with.
Americans do not believe that decent people can be effective in office, and that honesty is another word for weak. Changing this mindset, and making corruption harder to get away with and more costly overall, would be a worthy 10 year American project.
I remember Kasich as the funniest one in the GOP primary debates. At a point when they were all trying to top each other on how anti-Russia they were, he literally jumped in the air, swung a fist, and yelled that as president he would “punch Russia in the nose.” I remember thinking someone should take him by the hand, lead him away for an ice cream cone, and put him to bed.
😂
Wish I hadn’t missed that one , Mr. T!
but, but his Daddy was a mailman!!!!!
Politicians are people who can’t get real jobs.
Can you imagine one of them working in a factory, as a stevedore, a farmer?
How about on a road crew patching potholes? A roofer? A sanitation worker?
Those are REAL jobs, and the ones who perform them are the ones ( arguably) keeping this godforsaken country afloat via their tax dollars.
Your idealism is in conflict with reality.
I vote for revolution.
French-style; no quarter.
Yeah, CNN paid for that poll, but NEVER featured that linked article about it at the top of their Ukraine war coverage, it was only linked to from another axe-grinding “analysis”. I checked just now and couldn’t find it linked at all. I guess Americans gave the “wrong” answer, just not compatible with CNNs narrative. The only reference to popular opinion in today’s only featured analysis is this: “Assessing public opinion in Russia is notoriously difficult.”
It’s easy here, CNN just doesn’t care what we want.
Since then today CNN took it on directly. To them, it’s always “the worst possible time” for the public to be antiwar. Any straws available to grasp that Ukraine is suddenly about to win shall be crushed in the author’s desperate grip on permanent war. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/07/opinions/ukraine-aid-republican-support-kinzinger/index.html
It’s worth reading this entire editorial:
Mainstream Journalists
It’s not just the obscenely wealthy owners of the mass media who are protecting their class interests — it’s the reporters, editors and pundits as well.
These are typically fairly wealthy people from fairly wealthy families, who become more and more wealthy the more their careers are elevated. As insiders of the mainstream press have attested, it’s widely understood by employees of the mainstream media that the way to elevate your career is to toe the establishment line and refrain from spotlighting issues that are inconvenient to the powerful….These are the people they want to be sharing drinks with and going to parties with and invited to the weddings of; the “us vs them” dynamic which used to exist between the press and politicians switched, and now the press see themselves and the politicians they fraternize with as “us” and the general public as “them”….
Universities themselves tend to play a status quo-serving, conformity-manufacturing role when churning out journalists, as wealth won’t flow into an academic environment that is offensive to the wealthy.
Moneyed interests are unlikely to make large donations to universities which teach their students that moneyed interests are a plague upon the nation, and they are certainly not going to send their kids there.
“The whole intellectual culture has a filtering system, starting as a child in school,” Noam Chomsky once wrote…
All the most widely amplified voices in our society are the celebrities, journalists, pundits and politicians who’ve proven themselves to be reliable stewards of the matrix of narrative control which keeps the public jacked in to the mainstream worldview.
Is it any wonder, then, that all the sources we’ve been taught to look to for information continually feed us stories which give the impression that the status quo is working fine and this is the only way things can possibly be?
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/04/caitlin-johnstone-mainstream-journalists/
“When asked if the US has done enough to support Ukraine…?” Was that an appropriately worded question? Should they have asked, “if the US has done enough to
support(destroy) Ukraine?” I know… We may still have the same result. (Sarcasm)Still doesn’t get old 😉
As Doug Macgregor has said, the politicians listen to their donors and not the voters. Their biggest donors are from the MIC.
Good News, but still not nearly enough. Let’s hope this wokeness spreads. I saw a Betrayus Petraeus clip on youtube, and the rancid disreputable liar is back at it again; it’s all he knows. My sense is that anyone who watches the spittle and bile that flows from that annoying chicken-neck automatically becomes an advocate for the other side.
Fingers Crossed.
About time!