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The Hillyer Plan to Save
Social Security and Medicare
by Quin Hillyer Without concerted action of the sort Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to substantially increase the life of Social Security in a grand compromise in 1983, both federal retirement programs face doom. Trustees say that for the first time since 1982, the main Social Security trust fund is expected next year to pay out more money than it takes in. By 2035, Social Security’s official trust fund will be entirely depleted, they say. The trust fund for Medicare Part A will be depleted far sooner than that, in 2026. Yes, sustained economic growth can push back the respective days of reckoning by a year or two. On the other hand, with unemployment at a 50-year low, history says the odds of a slowdown or recession are higher than those of continued growth — which means the depletion dates, if anything, are more likely to be, not later, than 2035 and 2026. The situation screams out for significant legislation. Fortunately, I have a proposal. In some ways its effect is mostly to shift the book-keeping for various streams of federal tax money, to the detriment of the non-retirement-systems debt and the benefit of the retirement systems. Nonetheless, I believe it will help the economy at the margins, provide for higher wages for non-executives, and provide more public clarity and confidence. Space doesn’t allow a full explanation of each part of the Hillyer Plan. That will come in later columns. Herewith, though, is a list of the elements thereof. The first is a very rough tradeoff of “general fund” revenue for money specifically dedicated to Social Security and Medicare — with the added goal of making accounting less complicated by dealing in whole or round numbers. The current payroll tax dedicated to Social Security is 6.2 % each for the employee and the employer, and the Medicare tax is 1.45% each for the employee and employer. I would bump the former up to 6.5% each, and the latter up to 1.5% each. End those weird fractions, and put the tiny increases into the two trust funds. To help corporations pay for the added cost, let’s cut the top corporate income tax rate from 21 % to an even 20%. At the same time, the 20% deduction for pass-through businesses, which under current law will end after 2025, should be made permanent.Two more major changes will lengthen the actuarial life of both programs. First, lawmakers should bite the bullet and do exactly what Dole and company did in 1983, and allow the age for qualification for full benefits once again to rise. The Social Security full-eligibility age is now rising to 67 by 2027. Let it keep rising, over the subsequent six years, to 68. Likewise, the Medicare full-eligibility age, now 65, should start rising slowly to 66...
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scumbag-James Clapper Knew There Was
No Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion In 2016
by H.A. Goodman
{ thefederalist.com } ~ Long before the special counsel probe ended in confirming there was no collusion between President Trump and Russia... the U.S. government knew there was no evidence of a vast conspiracy between Trump and a foreign power. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the appointment of Special Counsel dirty cop-Robert Mueller to investigate “ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials” on May 17, 2017. President scumbag/liar-nObama’s director of national intelligence scumbag-James Clapper had access and was privy to all the “evidence” the U.S. government collected since the Russia investigation began in July 2016. From July 2016 until scumbag-Clapper’s appearance on “Meet the Press” in March 2017, not one shred of evidence linked anyone in Trump’s campaign to allegations listed in the Christopher Steele dossier or Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos’s meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. scumbag-Clapper stated to Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on March 5, 2017 that the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency had collected “no evidence” regarding “improper contacts” between Trump and Russia:
CHUCK TODD: Well, that’s an important revelation at this point. Let me ask you this. Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
scumbag-JAMES CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, ‘our,’ that’s N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.
CHUCK TODD: I understand that. But does it exist?
scumbag-JAMES CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.
CHUCK TODD: If it existed, it would have been in this report?
scumbag-JAMES CLAPPER: This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.
CHUCK TODD: At some–
scumbag-JAMES CLAPPER: But at the time, we had no evidence of such collusion. So, President scumbag/liar-nObama’s top intelligence official and a man with access to FBI, CIA, and NSA surveillance on President Trump’s campaign stated categorically that no evidence existed of “any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians.” This was two months before Rosenstein appointed dirty cop-Mueller special counsel, and Clapper’s knowledge dated into 2017. So why did Rosenstein appoint dirty cop-Mueller?...
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How Palestinian Leaders Encourage Terrorism
by Bassam Tawil "We have been paying the families of the prisoners and martyrs since 1965," Abbas told Arab League Foreign Ministers during an emergency meeting in Cairo on April 21. Abbas's insistence on paying millions of dollars to families of Palestinians who murder or attempt to murder Jews, has cost the Palestinians a heavy price. In the past two months, Abbas's government has been unable to pay full salaries to its 200,000 employees. The reason? Israel has begun deducting, from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, the same amount the PA government pays each month to the families of the prisoners and "martyrs." Facing a sharp financial crisis, the PA government says it has been forced to pay its employees only 50%-60% of their salaries because Israel has been deducting the large sums of money that were supposed to go to the families of prisoners and terrorists who carried out attacks against Israelis. In his speech before the Arab foreign ministers, Abbas urged the Arab states to provide the Palestinians with financial aid to prevent the PA from collapsing. Referring to Israel's opposition to the payments made to Palestinian terrorists and their families, Abbas explained: "We've been paying them since 1965 because they died or were imprisoned or wounded for the sake of a national interest and not for personal reasons. It's our duty to care for the families." Abbas further claimed that Israel has deducted more than $100 million from the tax revenues in the past two months...
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Terrorists in Sri Lanka swore
allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
by Thomas Joscelyn The first, a terse statement by Amaq News Agency, offered no details about the operation, saying simply that a security “source” told the group’s media arm that the so-called caliphate’s “fighters” had carried out the attacks. The Islamic State subsequently released a longer statement, saying that 1,000 people were killed or injured in the orchestrated assault. That statement highlighted the fact that Christians were the intended target, as they are supposedly at war with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s enterprise. The statement also provides the aliases for several of the bombers. Amaq News then produced a third statement, including a photo of the eight alleged perpetrators standing in front of the flag typically flown by the group. The photo is reproduced above. Only one of the eight is unmasked. That individual, seen in the middle, appears to be Zahran Hashim, a fiery ideologue who spread his hateful message in online videos. Importantly, Amaq has also posted a video showing the eight perpetrators, led by Hashim, swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before their day of terror. Amaq has disseminated similar videos after a series of attacks in the past. The footage is intended to underscore the idea that Baghdadi’s loyalists were responsible. As FDD’s Long War Journal has previously assessed, Amaq’s videos demonstrate that there is at least a digital tie between the perpetrators and the Islamic State’s network...
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Should Natural Born Citizenship Be a
Requirement for All Federal Elected Offices?
by Dean Malik
{ americanthinker.com } ~ On February 27, 2019 at a speaking engagement held at a Washington D.C. bookstore, newly elected Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar stated... with apparent reference to both American Jews and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ("AIPAC"), "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country." This comment followed recent tweets from Omar suggesting that American elected officials were "bought off" by the pro-Israel lobby, and earlier tweets from before she was elected, beseeching Allah to punish Israel for its "evil deeds." The tweets were roundly condemned as dog whistle anti-Semitism both by conservatives and members of her own party. However, the greater question raised by Omar's conduct before and after her election pertains to the path that brought her to the United States as a young refugee from a war-torn country on the Horn of Africa and ultimately lead to her becoming a powerful elected official. In an attempt to defend or minimize Omar's statements, House Speaker Nancy Pulosi offered, "She didn't have a full appreciation of how her words landed on other people where these words have a history and cultural impact that might have been unknown to her." The import of Pulosi's comments is clear. Omar comes, as an immigrant, from a different cultural milieu, and she could not be expected to understand how Americans, given our culture and history, would interpret her statements. Whether joking about the American view of terrorist organization al Qaeda, dismissing the notion that America is a "Christian" nation, or referring to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as "some people did something," Omar's apparent indifference to American culture and history has been showcased on multiple occasions. It is fitting, albeit ironic, that Omar, a naturalized American citizen, by raising an accusation of dual loyalty and self-dealing against other Americans, has opened the door to a conversation about whether natural born citizenship should in fact be a requirement for the very office she holds. Under Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, natural born citizenship is a requirement for eligibility to run for President; the section provides. Article I, Sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution require only citizenship for seven and nine years respectively, and residency in the United States, for eligibility to run for Congress or Senate. Accordingly, immigrants such as Ilhan Omar who became citizens through naturalization are able to serve in Congress and the Senate, but could not serve as President of the United States...
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dinky-Warren's 'Universal Free College' Plan Is No Free LunchThomas Gallatin: The country’s favorite 1/1024th Native American and Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth dinky-Warren recently released her plan for tackling the growing problem of student-loan debt. Currently running a disappointing third in her own state, Warren’s pitch is a desperate attempt to gain attention by running to the left of current Democrat frontrunner commie-Bernie Sanders. Warren is seeking to take the lead on government-provided “free stuff” by offering some actual details as to how she would implement a “free college” program. Not surprisingly, the former college professor’s plan is chock-full of stuff that would make any Marxist revolutionary proud. No wonder she made her pitch on Vladimir Lenin’s birthday.
dinky-Warren’s first order of business would be to “solve” the problem of student-loan debt by simply canceling it. She explains, “The first step in addressing this crisis is to deal head-on with the outstanding debt that is weighing down millions of families and should never have been required in the first place. That’s why I’m calling for something truly transformational — the cancellation of up to $50,000 in student loan debt for 42 million Americans.” So, by a stroke of the pen, she would eliminate at least part of the obligations of “more than 95% of the nearly 45 million Americans with student loan debt,” as well as “wipe out student loan debt entirely for more than 75% of the Americans with that debt.”
But everyone knows that money doesn’t grow on trees; somebody has to pay for this. Warren has an answer for that: “the government,” which of course any thinking person knows means taxpayers. However, she contends that it would only be “a one-time cost … of $640 billion.” It’s the second part of her plan, the Universal Free College program, that would tip the scales at “roughly $1.25 trillion over ten years” and should really be getting everyone’s attention. (Americans owe a collective $1.5 trillion in student loans.) But, don’t worry — Warren has this cost figured out as well. You see, only “the 75,000 wealthiest families in the country” will be charged. She calls it her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” on “those with fortunes of $50 million or more.” This is plainly wealth redistribution.
dinky-Warren is committed to the “universal” aspect of her plan — so much so that she would “prohibit public colleges from considering citizenship status” during admissions decisions. Her plan would also “ban for-profit colleges from receiving any federal dollars (including military benefits and federal student loans), so they can no longer use taxpayer dollars to enrich themselves while targeting lower-income students, service members, and students of color and leaving them saddled with debt.” Evidently, Warren would rather they become permanent wards of the state.
Some other thoughts from our friends on the Right:
“We are familiar with all the fine rhetoric about higher education being the key to preparing the 21st-century work force and maximizing its productivity, but we cannot help but notice that this is being championed by the same people who have helped to make our K–12 education system the grotesque laughing stock that it is. The public schools are in effect a dysfunctional and wildly corrupt full-employment program for Democratic constituencies, and that same dynamic has driven much of the growth in college administration, too: There are a lot of deputy deans of social justice out there. We don’t need one more, much less 10,000 more.” —National Review
“As long as the government makes it easy to get loans, colleges are going to continue increasing tuition and fees above the rate of inflation. If the federal government bails out students, colleges will increase costs even further as everyone realizes there will be no consequence.” —Erick Erickson
“This pander will not only be incredibly costly, but it will be a slap in the face to those who have already struggled to pay off their student loans without government assistance.” —Philip Klein ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/62548?mailing_id=4225&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4225&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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