# Veep announcement \[Romney picks Paul Ryan\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 11, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157 "2012-08-11T03:40:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/522 "2012-08-19T00:39:37Z")
Just explaining why young people like privatization. It’s the only possible way to get around either raising taxes or cutting benefits. Young people rightly believe that both solutions will fall exclusively on them. And they are right. We’ve had 30 years to hit the Baby Boomers in the pocket book to fund their own retirements. Now that they are retiring, it’s like, “Oh wait, not enough money, we’ll have to raise payroll taxes!” If you’re going to raise the payroll cap, we might as well just means test. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/523 "2012-08-19T01:17:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Making it a bad deal for those making over $100,000. Fundamentally transforming the system into a welfare program. How does the cap being at 100,000 NOT make it not fundamentally a welfare program but the cap being at 250k magically make it so? Secondly, No it would not “FUNDAMENTALLY” change a damn thing, it would change the cap…that’s it. You’re an incredibly dishonest debater. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/524 "2012-08-19T01:24:02Z")
My view is that it would change the nature of the program and that makes me dishonest? Get out of your bubble and see the world as the other side sees it. Anyway, Social Security as it is now, is a system where what you pay in directly correlates with what you get out. That is a major part of the political viability of the program. Even if you’re rich, you get out based on what you pay in. Sever that relationship and that changes the nature of the program. Now rich people pay in many times more than they get out, and we’re defining rich not as the top 1%, but more like the top 10%. Now, what happens to Social Security politically when it’s a bad deal for the top 10%? ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/525 "2012-08-19T02:00:27Z")
Who cares? The rich are ALREADY trying to naysay the viability of SS and are salivating at the thought of all that money sitting there they can steal, er, I mean “privatize”. If they are already doing whatever they can to steal, raising the cap is no added disincentive to the rich, and SS will be even more viable. Win-win for democrats if they grow a pair and defend social security as they should. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/526 "2012-08-19T02:07:35Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’m not going to judge whether revenue increases are responsible for the purposes of this discussion. If you’re going to claim that service cuts _are_, then yes, you do have to. :dubious: The underlying subject here is responsibility. If you’re conceding that point, then you’re conceding a whole fucking lot else too. > [@](#): > > The previous generations got a lot more out of the programs than they put in. Today’s young people will get less than they put in. It’s simple math and there’s no way around it. The Baby Boom generation is just too big for it to work out any other way. True, the ratio of working persons to retired persons is reducing. That’s all the more reason the system needs to be rebalanced. There are countless ways to do that, with raising or eliminating caps, graduating the rates, adding means testing, and so forth, all of them difficult to argue against on any but the most selfish grounds. > [@](#): > > The attraction of privatization is that it gives some young people a chance to do better. :p:p:p:p:p As we say around here, “How’s that workin’ out for ya?” We already have IRA’s and 401K’s and such for anyone interested in having a private supplement for SS. But SS represents a guarantee, by design, and private investment doesn’t. > [@](#): > > The guarantee was that you would pay in X amount and get out X amount. Wrong, if you mean X=X. _There is not and never has been such a thing as an SS or MC “account”_. They have always been transfer payment systems, clearinghouses if you like, with a permanent fund to buffer cash flow variations. Where the fuck do you get the idea that it’s been anything other than what you call a “welfare program”? Where? > [@](#): > > As much as Democrats try to obscure the issue, if you have a fee for service system, you cannot cut fees without also cutting services. Cut fees, less providers participate, seniors have less access. What happened to the worst 15% improving their operations to the level of the 85%? How is that not responsible or even possible? > [@](#): > > But we’re supposed to believe that all this easy to fix fraud and waste was just allowed to sit there for 40 YEARS, until Democrats decided to use it to fund a new entitlement. Yeah, that’s credible. Yes, it’s credible to believe a party hasn’t found it advantageous to support a tax increase or a service cut before the actual crisis arrives. Yes, it’s credible to believe the Democrats are a political party. Are you shocked? > [@](#): > > Social Security as it is now, is a system where what you pay in directly correlates with what you get out. Bullshit. Never has been, isn’t now. Bullshit. Again, where the fucking hell did you get that idea? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/527 "2012-08-19T02:29:06Z")
At least if our SS were privatized, then our SS fund could have been invested in Lehman Brothers. Rather than just the pension funds of a lucky few! ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/528 "2012-08-19T04:09:25Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > Who cares? The rich are ALREADY trying to naysay the viability of SS and are salivating at the thought of all that money sitting there they can steal, er, I mean “privatize”. If they are already doing whatever they can to steal, raising the cap is no added disincentive to the rich, and SS will be even more viable. Win-win for democrats if they grow a pair and defend social security as they should. Which will alienate the young, because even a tax increase on just those making above the cap will hit a pretty significant portion of them. 10-15% of workers make over the cap. Great way to tell the young that if they make it to merely well off, the government will be there to take a larger portion away compared to what previous generations did. However, Democrats aren’t actually suggesting eliminating the cap. The only proposals I’ve heard would create a huge donut hole between the cap and $250,000. do that, and you don’t raise enough revenue and have to cut benefits or raise the payroll tax on all workers. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/529 "2012-08-19T04:11:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Bullshit. Never has been, isn’t now. Bullshit. Again, where the fucking hell did you get that idea? Your benefits are based on an average of your best 20 years of earnings, right? There is a direct correlation between what you pay in and what you get out. Eliminating the cap creates a different social contract. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/530 "2012-08-19T04:28:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > My view is that it would change the nature of the program and that makes me dishonest? Get out of your bubble and see the world as the other side sees it. > > Anyway, Social Security as it is now, is a system where what you pay in directly correlates with what you get out. That is a major part of the political viability of the program. Even if you’re rich, you get out based on what you pay in. Sever that relationship and that changes the nature of the program. Now rich people pay in many times more than they get out, and we’re defining rich not as the top 1%, but more like the top 10%. > > Now, what happens to Social Security politically when it’s a bad deal for the top 10%? Cite that raising the cap amounts to a 'bad deal for the top 10%" please. I don’t see why things have to be drastic- the fund is scheduled to run dry decades from now. We have the ability to instate incremental changes that extend the viability of Social Security indefinitely. Say the cap rises (with inflation + .3%) per year for 20 years. Say benefits increase (with inflation - .3%) per year for 20 years. I bet that’d help plenty without anyone experiencing much suffering. It’s a display example; with all the data one could devise a more accurate proposal. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/531 "2012-08-19T04:45:03Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Cite that raising the cap amounts to a 'bad deal for the top 10%" please. Cite? Here’s my cite: arithmetic. If every worker making over the cap is paying more in, but getting the same out, that’s a bad deal. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/532 "2012-08-19T05:37:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Cite? Here’s my cite: arithmetic. If every worker making over the cap is paying more in, but getting the same out, that’s a bad deal. Except for the part where people with incomes higher than the cap are likely to be financially secure, whereas the people who need Social Security the very most are at risk if it is taken away. Maybe the whole concept overall is too ‘socialist’ for you, but the people aid the poor and old through government subsidies (and by no means to a collectivist degree either). Circumstances change the math, I am only suggesting adapting to it. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/533 "2012-08-19T05:54:29Z")
You can get the same result by means testing, except when you means test, the fact that the program’s nature has changed is more apparent. So whereas Warren Buffet got his full benefits, future workers making more than $150,000 or so will simply have to do with less. And you wonder why young people think they are getting the shaft here. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/534 "2012-08-19T12:06:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > So whereas Warren Buffet got his full benefits, future workers making more than $150,000 or so will simply have to do with less. And you wonder why young people think they are getting the shaft here. Yes, because in the real world, lots of young people make over $150,000. So unfair! ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/535 "2012-08-19T12:20:36Z")
One quarter of voters in 2008 made more than $100,000. That’s not a group you want to alienate: > **[Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com](https://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1)** > > Latest results, headlines and video, candidates' positions on the issues, fundraising totals, States to Watch news and analysis, and a unique side-by-side visual comparison of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Which is why democrats don’t actually support just eliminating the cap. They want a donut hole instead, where between the current cap and $250,000 would be exempt from tax. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/536 "2012-08-19T13:58:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One quarter of voters in 2008 made more than $100,000. That’s not a group you want to alienate: > > [Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1) > > Which is why democrats don’t actually support just eliminating the cap. They want a donut hole instead, where between the current cap and $250,000 would be exempt from tax. I see. A sort of political compromise, and maybe it would work. I want a solution where the numbers add up- it doesn’t have to be my personal idea. There is trouble with the trust fund long-term, but nothing that can’t be fixed if we make some simple adjustments now. Incremental changes where nobody ‘gets the shaft’. We just don’t have to do anything drastic to solve the problem AFAICT. The Ryan plan OTOH seems to want to end all entitlements based on a forced misunderstanding of the situation in a way that benefits the wealthy, at a time when we are already being taken advantage of by the wealthy. What happens when 97% of the population puts all their labor into the system and gets nothing out? You get something like the French Revolution where the remaining 3% get strung up with piano wire, that’s what. I would find that outcome unsatisfactory and believe incremental adjustments to the paperwork would be infinitely less painful. Anyway I am not so poor that I can’t take a vacation. I’m off to climb some mountains and forget about all this stuff for awhile. Please don’t think I am stomping away, I am just not going to be online for a few days. Ciao! ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/537 "2012-08-19T14:15:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One quarter of voters in 2008 made more than $100,000. That’s not a group you want to alienate: > > [Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1) I don’t think that shows what you think it shows. The reported income is probably household income. Social security tax is based on the individual employee’s (earned) income. My household is making over $100 K but neither of us is even particularly close to that. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/538 "2012-08-19T15:11:32Z")
Paul Ryan was [for government stimulus before he was against it](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/19/711051/paul-ryan-supported-economic-stimulus-under-bush-you-have-to-spend-a-little-to-grow-a-little/): > [@](#): > > In 2002, Republican President George W. Bush proposed a similar — if less ambitious — stimulus plan to the one President Obama signed in 2009. Like Obama, Bush sought to goose the economy through an influx of public sector cash. His [stimulus plan](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/19/paul-ryan-bush-stimulus_n_1803761.html) included an extension of unemployment benefits and a plan to mail checks directly to millions of Americans. Ryan took to the House floor to defend this plan, accurately noting that additional government spending would help move the economy out of a recession: > We have a lot of laid off workers, and more layoffs are occurring. And we know, as a historical fact, that even if our economy begins to slowly recover, unemployment is going to linger on and on well after that recovery takes place. What we have been trying to do starting in October and into December and now is to try and get people back to work. **The things we’re trying to pass in this bill are the time-tested, proven, bipartisan solutions to get businesses to stop laying off people, to hire people back, and to help those people who have lost their jobs**. . . . > **We’ve got to get the engine of economic growth growing again because we now know, because of recession, we don’t have the revenues that we wanted to, we don’t have the revenues we need** , to fix Medicare, to fix Social Security, to fix these issues. We’ve got to get Americans back to work. Then the surpluses come back, then the jobs come back. That is the constructive answer we’re trying to accomplish here on, yes, a bipartisan basis. Of course, that was a stimulus plan proposed by a Republican president, not a Democrat. I am looking for this video to be featured in Obama campaign ads. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/539 "2012-08-19T21:18:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The younger people have spent larger fractions of their lives and their attentions spans hearing the Republican/Fox lies about Medicare and Social Security being doomed, that they’ll never get it, etc. The older folks know better. I don’t think the argument can be dismissed so simply (I know I referred to the individuals as callow, but I’ll post my reasoning). One way of looking at it is that the prefrontal cortex of individuals is still developing up to around age 25. [One of the roles](http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/tech_assistance/etraining/adolescent_brain/Development/prefrontal_cortex/) of the prefrontal cortex is balancing short-term rewards with long term goals (in other words, hyperbolic discounting). It may be the case that these individuals would support legislation while younger that’d lower this tax burden giving them more disposable income and they feel they are rational actors capable of weighing actuary costs of not investing in retirement. However, as they get older, they realise they were not as rational as they had assumed and seek to impose the same stringent tax requirements on the other whelps that think they know best. Hell, it could be pure avarice: they wanted to spend as much as possible, realised they didn’t put enough away for retirement and then if Social Security is cut, they’d be out on their butts. In these cases, the generational shift towards supporting Social Security remains constant. In the case you mentioned, support for Social Security will eventually phase out once the older generation dies off, in much the same way the US will probably never view racial miscegenation as a serious threat (and it’d be trite to blame this consciousness shift on Star Trek or the liberal media). > [@elucidator](#): > > Where is the stern insistence on creative destruction, winnowing out the inefficient laggards, to the greater benefit of all! Always worth pointing out the [low administrative costs of the SSA](http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/admin.html) when compared to [charities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember#Controversies). There are a few differences in homology to take into account: marginal utility, in that there will probably be a greater outlay on administrative costs when dealing with smaller funding in the first place and also the subsumption of some costs into the IRS, but another major factor is that executive remuneration is not as large in the public as it is in the private sector (or secretarial pay, if you wish). ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/540 "2012-08-19T22:16:27Z")
I can guarantee you young people are not by and large wanting to opt out of SS because they want more money to party. I absolutely guarantee you if you polled young people who would opt out of SS if they could, that well over the majority want to opt out, because they don’t want to pay for old people NOW who are robbing my generation with their unpaid wars etc. I am as liberal as they come, and if I could opt out of SS I probably would…not because I don’t believe in the program, but because I don’t trust Democrats to actually fight back against the evil republicans who can’t STAND any social safety nets. I literally don’t believe in 38 years when I turn 65 that SS will be worth a damn because Democrats are willing to even negotiate SS benefits, which should be completely off of the table. You old are all robbing from your children and grandchildren and should be ashamed of yourselves, you’re selfish and short sighted. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157/541 "2012-08-19T22:39:53Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I can guarantee you young people are not by and large wanting to opt out of SS because they want more money to party. I absolutely guarantee you if you polled young people who would opt out of SS if they could, that well over the majority want to opt out, because they don’t want to pay for old people NOW who are robbing my generation with their unpaid wars etc. > > I am as liberal as they come, and if I could opt out of SS I probably would…not because I don’t believe in the program, but because I don’t trust Democrats to actually fight back against the evil republicans who can’t STAND any social safety nets. I literally don’t believe in 38 years when I turn 65 that SS will be worth a damn because Democrats are willing to even negotiate SS benefits, which should be completely off of the table. > > You old are all robbing from your children and grandchildren and should be ashamed of yourselves, you’re selfish and short sighted. Chill, **Rog**. In the long run, I think we will prevail–whether they like or not (not), the Republicans are declining, demographically and every which way–over the long run, we just get more and more socially aware (which is what they’re bitching about) and they bitch loudest when their backs are up against the wall, as now. Notice you rarely hear actual opposition to social welfare items like Medicare and Social Security nowadays. When I was your age, in the 60s and 70s, I actually heard pols like Goldwater and Reagan express their mistrust for the very concept of assisting the elderly and the sick, they wanted it all to be done by churches, local charities, families. Now that’s pure wingnut-talk, and I believe it’s fading out. You still hear it, true, but it’s only talk–they don’t actually believe it, they just say it to get the wingnut vote, but even conservative Republicans know that SS and Medicare are here to stay. Of course, it affects you materially in a way it doesn’t affect me, so I get how you’re pissed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veep-announcement-romney-picks-paul-ryan/631157.md?page=28)