If they cut social security and medicare

[iris lilies]

I had an up close and personal experience with the government taking away my Social Security participation. The experience only cemented my deep rooted distrust of government programs because today they’re here and gone tomorrow. I wrote about it a dozen years ago here, but here’s the first post I made about it back in June 2012:

iris Lily wrote in 2012:
One of these days I'll give a detailed saga of my interactions with the Social Security Administration concerning the strange problem of my workplace's participation in SS. One day we are in and the next day we are not, according to the SS. Just because you (the generic you) have paid in doesn't mean that you are part of the Social Security system. Who knew!!!?? I sure didn't. Our President doesn't really seem to intend to take care of everyone after all. He must have driven by my house and seen my McCain sign in the yard.

All these years later I have the same level of respect for those who administer the SS system, those who carry it out, make policy, create rules and regulations, are in charge all the way to the top of the government. Which is to say that’s not a lot of respect.

perhaps some here really do not understand how tenuous these government programs are. Here’s what happened to me:

* In a routine audit, our state government official who administers Social Security found the foundational document for my workplace was missing from his/her files

* this meant we were not officially members of the Social Security system

* I work for a city agency, a public library

* My library’s attorneys worked on this for a year and got nowhere with these government officials

* the state official deemed we would have to go through the process of becoming members of the Social Security system

* this was quite—- interesting —-since I had paid into this system for nearly 25 years (!) But too bad, so sad according to the State official

* I was not alone in this of course, all of my 150+ colleagues were in the same boat

*The state official came to our workplace and set up a vote for all employees to vote on whether we should join the Social Security system or not

what do you think so far? Think this is untrue or outrageous? I can assure you every bit of this is true.

The vote was held with much campaigning by oldsters. By the way, I was three years from retirement, although was several years from drawing upon SS income. I was not surprised when some of the younger employees who could think for themselves, and they tended to be the IT folks, were skeptical about joining. God knows I probably would’ve been skeptical about voting YES back when I was their age and knowing what I know now.

The vote to join SS passed with a big majority. Whoosh, what a relief, my Social Security participation that had been a fantasy in my head for 25 years became reality.

[iris lilies]

I’m sure the above post was very long and boring to read, but I do like to point out The bullshit of our large government bodies when it directly impacts my life. I also have a huge beef with Housing and .urban Development which you poor folks have heard over and over. Anyway.

What I learned in this insane SS situation was that a tiny technicality can blow everything up. The “foundational document “that my library mailed to the Social Security office in the 1950s was perhaps not received by them. Or perhaps they lost it after receiving it. But you know what is magical? My boss opened his safe of materials that had been accumulating there since 1912* and pulled out a copy of that document. Can you believe it? I thought ”Good show!”

Yet our copy was not good enough for the SS people, they wanted the post office receipt record of our mailing in order for it to count.

oy vey. We did not have that Post Office receipt from the 1950’s.

if the vote had NOT passed, the bureaucrats told us the money we had sent Social Security would remain there and would be paid out on schedule when we met retirement age requirements. But we would not be able to add any to our Social Security accounts and of course those would’ve been the higher earning years for all of us, downgrading our payouts.

A final insult from the Social Security bureaucrats was a quip by the state’s employee who walked into our administrative meeting that prefaced voting and said “I’m here from the government and I’m here to help you.” She was joking. I was not amused.



* Among the pile of papers in the safe was a handwritten note from Andrew Carnegie on Skibo Castle stationery congratulating the citizens of St. Louis for the funding of their new library circa 1912. That was very cool.

[bae]

Sometime in the past few years, the Social Security folks decided on their own to misspell my last name by swapping two letters within it. Producing a last name that is unique on this planet. They changed it on some internal database record that wasn't directly visible from my SS accounts page, where all looked good.

The only immediate impact was that I could no longer E-File with the IRS, as the IRS pulls the name/SS #s directly from the Social Security database when they verify your filing. They pulled from the internal non-visible record, of course.

The IRS spent some months tracking down the source of the error internally before they figured out it was the SS folks causing the issue. The SS folks could not resolve the problem over phone, mail, email, or fax. To fix it, I was told to go into a physical office with all sorts of documentation that I was an actual human being. This visit requires a 1-2 day time expenditure to accomplish, from where I live.

So, I decided to take care of it this year, when I start taking SS payments.

However, last year, the IRS decided that perhaps I was a Bad Person, Who Knows, Maybe Even A Terrorist, because some security/fraud/Homeland Security thing got triggered by the name/SSID mismatch. So they subjected *all* of my investment activity to a 24% backup withholding. Of the transaction amount....

Say, for the sake of argument, I had a share of stock I had bought for $200 a share, and sold it last year for $100. For a $100 loss. The IRS grabbed, before it even hit my hands, $24 of the $100.... (You might imagine if you live off your investments, this might throw a wrench into your life.)

In the 5 quarters it took to get this fixed, they kept *an amazing amount* of money of mine. Stole it...

I did get it back, once the Social Security folks did their thing, and I filed the proper forms/returns with the IRS. After sending in the paperwork, it took them ~6 months to get my funds into my hands.

And they also paid me a "small" amount of interest on the money.

Last week, I received in the mail a 1099-INT, from the IRS, reporting to themselves the $~3221 in interest they paid me. On the amount they stole.

Maddening.

[iris lilies]

Good Lord bae, what a giant PITA. Jeez.

well, we all know it is best to stay out of the clutches of any of the “systems “and this means certainly government systems but other systems as well. The welfare system. The Social Security system. The legal system. The health services system.

Sometimes the systems designed to help us help us do not.

one of my friends has rather a lot of money from both family wealth, and then her own entrepreneurial efforts, and is adamant about avoiding the “system “when it comes to health. She has had many major health problems that include cancer, being hit by a car as a pedestrian, appendicitis, etc. and refuses to get health insurance. She negotiates her health bills and pays cash for them.

I was so amused when the hospital social worker visited her at her house after she was hit by a car as a pedestrian and was at home recovering from many broken limbs. The social work earnestly provided her with social welfare options. My friend lives in an extremely modest one bedroom apartment and the social worker had absolutely no idea of the demographic she was dealing with.

some people manage to avoid the systems whenever possible, but most do not, cannot.

[flowerseverywhere]

I am fearful for cuts in Social security. My friend is disabled from a chronic disease and worked u til she could. Forced to leave work at 55 she was granted SS disability. Her husband has a 20 year military pension and 20 year government pension plus they get tri-care. They both worked middle class paying jobs, so their income is middle of the scale. it certainly enough to have a middle class life in a modest home. They have been very happy, but now they are very concerned about cuts to any of these sources. They will be OK but with inflation and the price of necessities such as food continuing to rise, they are cutting their spending to the bone in preparation. They were never big spenders, so should be OK. But I can imagine many people are going to have the rug pulled out underneath them. Many people don’t realize how much they depend on federal services in their schools, healthcare, and programs like FEMA.

and guess what? Some of them will have voted for Trump and will wonder what happened.

[flowerseverywhere]

Time to buckle up

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/ne...-fiscal-agenda

from Fox News. Howard Lutnick, new commerce secretary, talks about getting rid of the tax scams, like social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

[Tybee]

Quote from Lutnick:
""You know Social Security is wrong. You know Medicaid and Medicare are wrong. So he's going to cut a trillion, and then we'll get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we're going to raise $1 trillion of revenue." "

We will have to sell our house if we lose social security because we can't afford the mortgage and upkeep.

[flowerseverywhere]

Quote from Lutnick:
""You know Social Security is wrong. You know Medicaid and Medicare are wrong. So he's going to cut a trillion, and then we'll get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we're going to raise $1 trillion of revenue." "

We will have to sell our house if we lose social security because we can't afford the mortgage and upkeep.

It would be horrible. People who work to the best of their ability, are citizens, are law abiding shouldn’t become victims of tax cuts for the richest man in the world and his cronies. Why do they need even more money? What could they possibly need? This is so unamerican and cruel.

[iris lilies]

here’s a random article I ran into and looking up something else. Please notice which president was ready to “cut “Social Security


“…At that time, Obama reportedly offered House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a similar deal: Reduce Social Security spending from a revised method of calculating cost-of-living increases.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallp...security-offer

[Tybee]

It would be horrible. People who work to the best of their ability, are citizens, are law abiding shouldn’t become victims of tax cuts for the richest man in the world and his cronies. Why do they need even more money? What could they possibly need? This is so unamerican and cruel.

Yes, the cruelty of these people is what strikes me the most--Trump had a truly sadistic post on his social media platform mocking the federal workers he has fired. There have already been suicides.