Poll: The big prize

Romney can’t balance the budget without abandoning Bush tax cuts…..

Why continue to ignore the third parties?

What third parties?

Romney cares about all citizens, and is looking out for SS and Medicaid. Obama hasn’t done anything to preserve those programs. What BO has done has hurt our economy. The economy has tanked since he was elected! Just sayin.

The Ryan Roadmap is still up at http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/
It explicitly calls for ending Social Security and Medicare for those under 55. And how long will those under 55 support a program which they won’t have?

They want to steal the Social Security Trust Fund, to pay for tax cuts — the roadmap calls for eliminating them entirely for dividends, capital gains, and inheritance, so the Romneys would never need to pay taxes again.

Why do you say that. All he needs to do is reduce spending. That’s my thinkin’

President Obama has a better understanding of the needs of middle class and poor Americans. Mitt Romney does not relate to middle class and poor people. He has a top down approach to problem solving and a Wall Street perspective.

Romney is a front man for a party that has been against Social Security from its inception. Why should I believe he will protect Social Security? Read between the lines when we are told “there will be no change for today’s seniors”. How more blatant must it be that this is an attempt to placate today’s seniors (who vote) while leaving the way open to administer the shaft to up coming generations?

Definitely Prez Obama. Social security is fine if we start taxing income above 110k, which is the current cap. Does that sound more like Obama or Romney? Medicare needs more work. Primarily the cost of healthcare needs to be reduced. We Americans pay more per dollar into our healthcare system than any other developed nations with universal healthcare, and the quality of our healthcare is ranked below theirs. Who would be willing to fix that problem? I can already hear Gov. Romney screaming, “Government takeover of healthcare!” even though we are talking about government’s payout for treatment that our people recieve, and nobody’s preventing anybody from paying more to get sexual transition surgery or Botox as they please if they can pay for it.

The Federal Government was set up only to provide a military and to manage commerce. Why do people think that Government should provide all of these other programs?

Hello people. Romney’s tax plan includes no taxes on interest, dividends & LT capital gains. This is where many seniors have income in addition to social security. How is that not taking care of seniors?????

obama has taken so much money from social security.So much of what he does is hidden till after the election. Please look at what he does, not what he says he will do.

It’s OUR government. It does what we electorate collectively wants it to do. The government was set up for us to vote for and our Constitution gurantees our right to shape our own government and amend the Constiution. That’s the bottom line.

Preserving means keeping it over a longer term. It is broken now and Obama has done absolutely nothing for it….even when he had a democratic congress to help him out. Preserving it means adjusting. I’m only 45 but I know my social security age of 67 won’t end up happening. I do not prefer the age to be extended but get real. My husband who is 65 has a life expectancy of 93. Social security wasn’t originally intended to take care of people for almost the exact number of years people worked. Many on social security and medicare right now didn’t even contribute all of their working years as medicare wasn’t around when many of these people started working. I know this as I see my husband’s annual social security statement. He will get 21,000 every year and has contributed about 70,000 in total for social security. It was several years AFTER he started working before he contributed to medicare. Now do we understand why the system is broken? It wasn’t meant to cover people for 30+ years.

Seniors pay into Social Security their entire working lives, planning on this money for retirement. Their 12.4% contributions (6.2% from employees & a matching 6.2% from their employers) is their money that they are absolutely entitled to. SS is not a welfare program. SS is this country’s retirement program that seniors paid for & that the government mismanaged & now wants the recipients of the money (the seniors) to compromise. I suggest Congress figure out how to manage the money properly & stop robbing the SS fund when they can’t balance their budget. SS belongs to the seniors, not to Congress. Leave SS alone!!!

Because in that case, the seniors income would rise, but they’d be able to buy less things. The result of such tax policies would be large investors benefiting proportionately more than the regular folks. The majority of seniors’ income SHARE would go down with it, and since the cost of living is set by the avilable amount of cash in the society, your share of income in the society has a positive correlation with the affordability of things. The past 20-30 years, the share of the majoirty has shrunk as the top whatever percent gained more share, and that’s why so called the “middle class” has disappeared even though the dollar amount of their income has risen. It’s not the dollar amount that you have that matters. It’s your share of wealth that determins the quality of living you can afford. It’s a lot easier to appeal to people on raised income in dollar amounts than explaining how the share in society impacts the cost of living, in other words, the buying power of a set amount of dollars in the society. But anybody who has college education on economy should be able to understand this.

put down the koolaid, ss fund was raided long ago and is now full of i.o.u ‘s does anyone look into the truth before they post things?

Romney and Ryan don’t want to end social security for anyone. In a few years it will end itself and no one will get anything. They are trying to save it.Those under 55 won’t lose it. They will have a choice if they want to change it. There is no trust fund for social security. The government spent that many years ago. The money comes from people that are now working. We need to get jobs for more people so there are more people paying into it.
I am now 72 years old and this election is the most important one in my lifetime Don’t listen to everyone else Do a little research and find out for yourself.

this is why pbs need’s to be de-funded, it’s just stupid lib indoctrination tv. can’t belive i pay for this s***

this is why pbs need’s to be de-funded, it’s just stupid lib indoctrination tv. can’t belive i pay for this s***

Maybe someone could pay for you to complete your high school education

10k from 30 years ago is not same as 10k today. And the current system is such that the current working people support the retired seniors. Still, yes, people are living longer and that is putting a strain on the system as the baby boomers retire.
I would be for postponing the retirement age for those who are not in phsyically demanding professions. People need to stay longer in school now, so, why don’t we consider the same for staying in work force? Also, stop capping the SS tax at the first 110k income. You only pay the tax on the first 110k income whether you are making 50k a year or 3 million dollars a year right now. How illogical.

I believe the Democratic Party will protect Social Security and Medicare, and Mediaid since most these programs were started by Democrats and Republicans have been trying to destroy them or voucherize them since their creation, they are not entitlements they are earned benefits as citizens of the United States of America that Wallstreet has been trying to get their hands on the funds since the their inception. I believe President Obama will strengthen these programs and balance our tax obligations between those who paid nothing or little over the past thirty years to making America work for everyone and help all us fairly. Republicans have no sensibilities on social issues and would bring a child into the world to be born and allow it to not have food. Such cruelty is unAmerican.

Called Social Engineering……

Raise the taxable income level so everyone pays in. Incomes over $250K have SS withdrawals reduced on a % tied to the amount of capital income. Count bonuses and treat capital gains as income when they exceed a % of total income and pay SS on a % of the amount. BK,retired, lucky enough to have SS and some company pension and I could pay more income tax if it could be specified as going to the national debt only.

It has taken decades of mismanagment and deregulation to destroy the economy of this great nation. It is going to take longer than 4 years to repair It. The great trickle down economy hasn’t worked since the Reagon years, so why think that it will work now.
Everyone in this country avoids paying taxes at all costs, However we all want the freebies. Time to stop freeloading and pay the piper. No one thinks they are doing it but everyone is guilty. There are no guarantees without cost, so we all need to step up and do our part. Rich, middle income and poor people, we all need to do our part.

Hello Gringa, Many seniors have no money. People live hand to mouth. Capital gains is irrelevant to them. 30% of Americans have no savings, and 61% could cover living expenses less than 3 months. This is the real America we live in and those who we should protect. You could be one of them very easily. We are all just one sickness away from financial ruin.

They want to give it to wall street. K, where would you be today if that happened under GW. Most your age would have lost their shirts and never recoverd. I am a victim of the Romney/Bain job creation tactics. I work in health care. The hospital was taken over and is now for profit. They have cut pay and benefits drastically, outsourced majority of the jobs, have brought in transient temp workers to take care of our sickest patients and have given the 47 VP’s at the top hugh bonuses. Patient care has suffered drastically. The wealthy have done incredibly well over the last 15-30 years and the jobs have not been forthcoming. For the U.S to compete for jobs they are driving down wages and standard of living to increase profit. Giving tax advantage to those at the top, then invest or stash money to avoid paying taxes to the very society they have benefited from. That is what Romney stands for. PROFIT regardless of the consequences. It is the most important election of my life too. Bain strips the employees of benefits and pensions, leverages the hospital in incredible debt and takes off with the profit. This is not the direction I want my country to go. The Global Oligarchs won’t stop until they have it all. The radical complicit approach of the right wing is frightening. Regardless of who wins, the challenges this country face will not improve soon. It will take a generation or more for things to get better and with much social unrest.

Cant balance a budget..really. You need to stop listening to rumor and research for yourself. That is what he has done for years. Look at what obama has really done for four years..Nothing! look at grocery and gas prices..dont forget the mans lies he has told. People are supposed to run the government, not government running the people.

so we shouldn’t fight back, you suggest lying down and giving up. The 1% own 80% of the country’s wealth. They pay 60% of the taxes……… The 99% own 20% of the country’s wealth and they pay 40% in taxes. So if we reduce the taxes of the wealthy even further as proposed by Romney/Ryan, Who do you think will be making up that difference. Do the MATH DON. IT is as simple as that.

I oppose any social engineering that moves wealth from the bottom and middle to the top including the Ryan plan. We need reverse engineering in light of what happened since the Reagan era. We have this huge gap in the wealth share that is not sustainable. We need a gap but we have pushed it to an extreme that is no longer functional enough to sustain people’s lives.

definitely Pres. Obama Romney and Republicans plan only to let the rich few get richer, and the rest of us get a trickle. I want to enjoy my retirement, not have it sacrifaced before an altar of the rich. Changes in social security and medicare can be made now to keep the programs solvent for the future, which are not like the Republican plan. Obama proposed for SS funds increasing the max tax amount now around $110k. Increasing the age for full benefits again on SS and for enrolling in Medicare are sensible. Calulation of benefits could be tweaked for longer life spans, and cost of living increases revisited.

What Obama has done for 4 years is changing 800k a month job loss to creating jobs. Supporting the sick and unemployed and putting his best foot forward to pay for that by increaseing the taxes of those with higher income such as Romney who only pays 15%, while figiting against the Congress who is more interested in ideology than solving problems for the Amreican people who hire them. I would like another candaidate who moves in Obama’s direction but more forcible. The prices go up faster than people’s incomes because the income “share” of the people has been declining as a small percentage grows their income faster than the rate of inflation and the cost of goods is set by the total amount of money in the society. Obama is heading to the right direction but does not do enough. Too bad that our only alternative is furhter exacerbate the already skewed income share of our society.

We owe it to our parents if my mom didn’t have Social Security and Medicare we (her children) could not afford her cost to live in a old folks home fighting her battle with Alzheimer’s. We are the richest most powerful nation in the world yet some of us rather not spend a penny to take care of our old and young, that is shame. I lived in Germany for 6 years, sure the German people paid higher taxes but everyone had some form of coverage. Wake Up America!

I am a senior and I don’t worry over SS or medicare. I know that Romney will take care of it and get it on the right track. He is not going to stop these programs coming to the oldest seniors now. He’s going to find a better way to save the systems. It is already going to end in a few years if something is not done. Obama has done nothing but put us more in debt. Obama would just print more money-we can not keep doing that. My partner and I are two women for Mitt!

I dont want no stinkin voucher

I want my itemized deductions on my tax return. I want to keep my mortgage interest.

I’m sorry, but please check your information before you speak. Currently, the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2,1 Trillion surplus. The Trust is seperate from the Federal Gov Operating Budget, unless Romney/Ryan are elected, and the Ryan roadmap is put into place (See above comment from another viewer). The “Social Security is bankrupt” is another myth/Lie being spread by the Republicans to help their mission of getting rid of it. As someone who is 71 years old, you should be very worried what will happen if Romney/Ryan are elected. Read the Ryan roadmap as mentioned earlier. The Medicare Voucher Program Romney/Ryan are pushing will result in an average increase of $6,000 in medical costs per year for those seniors on it, as compared to regular Medicare.

SS is a welfare program, “contributions”, i.e. taxes are loosely tied to payout. There is no money without stealing that of the working populace.

You can blame monetary policy for the cost to ordinary folk. We are hurting seniors now and the future with terrible monetary policy driven by terrible fiscal policy.

“they are not entitlements they are earned benefits as citizens of the United States of America “.

SOTUS would disagree with you.

Monetary policy is a part of it but the real problem is this structure that only hurts or does nothing to help the majority whatever the govnerment does, not just monetary policy but the stimulus package and other things from the government, which is intricately tied to the increased dispairty in the past few decades. Measures like QE are done to supress the interest rate in order to stimulate the economy but since it’s done by injecting more money, the price goes up. Normally if the economy is stimulated pepople’s wage should also go up as the price goes up. But that’s NOT what happens. We have this system where no matter what the government does, the stimulous package or monetary policy, that is supposed to help all people disproportionately helps major investors and banks which reduces the wealth share of the majroity. Therefore, the result is that the people are not better off because the cost of living goes up faster than what they earn. The real problem is this structure. Either we get to the bottom of it and transform this structure, OR the excessively skewed distribution of income needs to be adjusted via tax policies (extremely progressive income taxation) which our government has failed to do.
The move to open up a part of the SS / MC system to the voucher system has one goal and only one goal in mind. Which is to cultivate a new buisness market for something so critical for people’s lives and health. Unless we fix this disparity cuasing money flow in this country, we all know what privatization leads to. Private businesses are fine for music CDs, not for food and medical care of our people.

Obama is for everyone; he doesn;t ask whether you make minimum wage or $15 million/year. Romney is for the wealthy, only the wealthy, and worse yet he wants us to make the middle class pay for the wealthy’s retirement, so that they can spew their money all over the Caribbean, north coast of the Mediterranean, or Hawii while the rest of the nation eats beans, rice, and potatoes. THAT’s THE BOTTOM LINE!

They should phase it out, find a way to fund current a near-future retirees without taxing the current workers. I would suggest they continue it as an optional program, but given the choice most people would probably rather keep the 12.4% to invest on their own, or in a 401I, or spend. It’s money they’re earning; why shouldn’t they be able to choose what to do with it?

Have you heard the saying “proud to be an american” i guarantee all of those that do and / or vote Romney wont be any longer…open your eyes and minds and really listen to what romney is saying and watch what he has done…he is republican and republicans are for corporate anything outside of that will crumble under romney…DEMOCRATS ARE FOR DEMOCRACY…PERIOD…THATS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE ITS COMMON SENSE…vote for the support of the people dont fall for romney and his lies…he “sounds” like a democrat to get your vote, dont fall for that/ his deception…just bcuz he talks religion doesnt make him religious…look at his aggression and disregard and disrespect during the second debate…that is not the person i want supporting me or us with other countries…we will no doubt be in and at war with every country bcuz he cant make a plan and act but just “reacts” without thinking…cant hide behind being catholic bcuz we have seen and heard how dirty they really are…so republicans cant hide behind that other and shows again they cant run a race with morals when they obviously dont themselves or within their religions…DEMOCRATS ARE FOR THE PEOPLE…DEMOCRATS ARE FOR DEMOCRACY! Open your eyes and ears and truly be realistic and smart…

On at least one subject, the Environment (used by all of us, of course):
The GOP has always been funded by, and in the
pocket of, Big Oil and big polluters, everyone knows this – so are the Dems these
days, but to a lesser extent. Exxon/Mobil, the world’s 2nd-largest company,
with Billions in PROFIT each year, still pays Zero US taxes, and instead is
actually subsidized, hard to believe, by you and me, the US taxpayer.

(Can you actually believe this? Me neither. However,
Romney is being paid to continue this dirty little secret, while Obama wants to
stop such subsidies and make Exxon pay their taxes, just like you and me, to
help bring down the national debt. However, because it’s his idea, it must of
course be wrong…)

Now THAT’S the direct purchase of power and special
interest, bought and paid for in Washington. Heck, the Oil Companies even put
those nasty Koch brothers to shame – you may want to look them up – you won’t
hear about them from Romney, but trust me, he knows them very, very well.

All oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz are escorted to
safety every day by the US Navy, paid for by…wait for it…. you and me; how
fun! All so they can keep charging $4.25 a gallon or more. If the GOP cares so much about the unborn, they should also care about the air and water those children – and all of your loved ones – are forced to rely on.

Romney is done here in Maine, thank God. He was my Gov.in Ma., believe me my fellow citizens, we don’t want this guy in office. He’s lying to you when he says things were good. All he did was show a character lapse, and vote-in socialized health care, which is really against his core beliefs. So now why would anyone want to vote a person in that is wishy-washy. After Bush’s era, I did not just blame Bush either, fixing the economy is going to take a hell of a lot longer than 4 years to fix. Ask any Harvard or MIT professor! We are just starting to gain momentum with the economy, and jobs, leave it alone, let it grow.

It will be there and it will be fine no matter who is in office, of that I’m confident. I may have to be 90 by the time I retire and I’m 45 now, but it will be there.

I agree. It’s going to take more than 4 years to recover recover. I’m very very worried. My husband is disabled & drawing his social security disability that he paid in all those years he worked. I still work and pay into social security. My dad is 76 & only has social security as income. If Romney wins I foresee my dad moving back in with us & my husband losing his $. I can’t support all of us on my salary. Plus my son willstart college next fall. Im very worried

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-09-21/medicare-drug-savings/57815820/1?csp=YahooModule_News $4.5 billions saved by seniors on medicare because of Obama’s health care plan.

My aunt’s medicare, which is thru Humana, recently sent her a notification that her co-pays will be smaller and more services, etc. will be added beginning Jan. 2013

One solution to saving social security would be to change the rules governing who can get SSI. My oldest daughter’s ex-husband and father to 3 of her and her second husband’s 5 children recently got approved for SS,I at 37, for having COPD.

He still smokes cigerettes and was working just fine for a hotel doing indoor and outdoor remodeling work for a year until this past July when the owners sold it. COPD is often not an inhibitor to being able to work, especially at John’s age. And maybe if he had not been smoking meth for 3 years before that he might not have even ended up with COPD.

SSI should be dependent on whether or not a person can work with their disability. If a physical or mental health issue can be treated effectively enough to allow a person to work part or full time, then they should not be approved for SSI or spousal social security disability benefits.

Yes, and we are supposed to take care of our own. Especially a gentlemen like your Dad who contributed into the system faithfully his whole life and was a good citizen. Unfortunately, the American voter is not patient, and listens to the media too much to realize that the Right Wing party is greedy, and only worries about how they can avoid taxes and keep as much of their wealth to themselves as they can. They have no concern at all for the greater good of all people.

The fact that we take SS payments ignores the fact that we don’t magically appear at age 65 + one day. The years our payments and those of our employers have been deposited are somehow dismissed by those who have using the fund as a piggy bank.