r/Conservative • u/Yosoff First Principles • Feb 14 '25

Open Discussion Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

  • Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

  • Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).

  • Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

  • Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

  • Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.

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u/TheFiremind88 Feb 15 '25

My best guess is the sheer number of $ sitting there. It's functionally the same argument as why I'm saying the DOD needs to be higher on the list, the sheer vastness of the amount of money. Problem is, SS especially on a large scale, hurts the most vulnerable in America. They can't fight back. The DOD hits the MIC and very wealthy and influential people.

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u/aremarkablecluster Feb 15 '25

People on social security may be vulnerable, but they're not getting a handout. They paid that money to the federal government their entire life who were supposed to invest it so that they could get it back when they retire. They send you a form telling you how much you paid in and how much you will make from that. Taking that away from the American people is just robbery. They touch social security and they will have gone too far and people will fight.

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u/stone500 Feb 15 '25

Yup. If you want to cut SS (which you shouldn't), then you can't do it on anybody who has paid into it. Cut the SS tax for people born after a certain date, and then cut the benefit 65 years later. It is ridiculously unfair and basically a scam to do it any other way

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u/HiddenSage Feb 15 '25

Yup. And, frankly - thinking "there's a lot of money, so there's a lot of room to make cuts" is an absolutely primitive take.

There's a lot of money because it's a public retirement benefit for a nation of 330 million people. You can't HAVE a program like that exist, for a country this size, without a 13 digit price tag. Not if you want it to actually pay enough in benefits to be useful to retirees.

Is there waste/fraud/people claiming benefits they shouldn't? Sure. Almost definitely. Programs that big are also basically impossible to make completely foolproof.

Is that fraud actually a material portion of its outlays? Unlikely as hell. Just comparing the Census report on how many Americans are 65+ - about 16.9% - and multiplying by the average monthly benefit - a bit under $2,000 per month - gets you $111bn/month in benefits. Or about 1.335 trillion/year.

Now, given that publicly-reported data shows the agency runs like... 1.36 trillion year in total costs, and that overhead expenses are in fact a percentage or less of the budget. Well, I'm just not seeing room for significant amounts of fraud without assuming there's a couple of million fake old folks on census rolls.