If you could stop just one government program

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Poppa_T wrote:

mandate individuals to save for retirement

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The Stoic Student wrote:

David Vitter introduced a bill last week to drug test people in government housing saying it would save the taxpayers money by finding these people and providing them with free drug rehab.
http://vitter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm...
I believe his idea would only cost us more money and not solve the problem at all.
If you were part of congress and were trying to reduce government spending by cutting out one government program which one would it be and why?

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CafeAuLife wrote:

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Vitter is just on a racial profiling witchhunt. Not EVERY recipient of public housing who fails their drug test are going to get rehabiliation services. Guess which ethnic group will get rehab? Guess which one will get jail or eviction?
Have mercy.
The government program I want to stop is Congressman and Senators getting these Sweetheart Government Pensions that are so big they can afford to set up trust funds for grandchildren that aren't even born yet.
So, boys and girls, SOME government welfare recipients frequent 1st Class on commerical airlines and the local country club. It's just not considered good form to CALL it welfare...but welfare/government benefits it certainly is.

Nittpickin wrote:

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That doesn’t sound very laissez-faire minded. In fact, it sounds like state intervention into personal liberties to me. What’s the difference in a mandated retirement fund and a FICA tax? Self Help is right, if we “Reform and eventually phase out Social Security Admin” whose responsibility is it going to be to handle tax collection and benefit payments? By the way, a payroll tax and an income tax may be in separate funds, but they aren’t “entirely” different to the average worker. Mitt doesn’t pay much in the way of a payroll tax, but he’s not your average Joe, and I’ll bet he’s not worried about retirement either. Most of us working slobs have paid into FICA for a long time, and to have it “phased out” doesn’t seam like a fair deal.

The Stoic Student wrote:

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It's my personal opinion bit I think you're off on Vitter's logic. He knows this idea is popular and also that it won't go anywhere. They call it grandstanding.
The pension plan is a little overblown. Here's a link that may be helpful. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/co...
Certainly there are many forms of government welfare but many of those at least require the recipient to do a little something in return.

Poppa_T wrote:

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Hi Nitpickin, you're right it is not laissez-faire and it is not an option I would support, I was just throwing the "mandate" in as an option because I believe Bush the younger proposed an option like that during his reign. The difference between voluntary/mandated retirement fund and the FICA tax would be that the govt. couldn't take the money out of a private account and replace it with an IOU as soon as it was deposited and place those funds in the general fund. ALTHOUGH, even that is debatable as the following links show.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/econom...
http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/how-the-us-...
The funny thing is Dems blocked Dubya's plan to allow the citizens to divert 2% of the 6.2% individuals they pay in FICA into a private retirement account but a big part of President Obama's "jobs plan" was lowering the portion of the FICA tax from 6.2% to 4.2% which defunds SS by the same amount Bush wanted to allow citizens to place in private accounts!
It may not seem "fair" to you that you would be losing all the money you have paid into SS but I can guarantee you that you will never see any of that money if SS is not reformed, right now you're just throwing good money after bad. How "fair" is that.

Poppa_T wrote:

You must understand that SS is (supposedly) not funded by the Income Tax anyway it's funded by your FICA tax, an entirely different tax than your Income Tax. The IRS deals with Income Taxes only not the FICA tax.

Self Help wrote:

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The Social Security Administration collects no taxes, not even FICA. IRS collects FICA taxes. SSA just administers the regulations regarding payment of benefits.