Live&DieBillsFootball

I totally agree with you. But, they will have to trade up to get him. CP is done, and BB is not the long term answer.

I'm not a Steelers fan, but I felt that the personal foul was sufficient. He gave the ball a toss at the guys head, but there was no way that a player with a helmet and facemask is even going to feel it. I really don't like about 50% of the personal calls that I see. A player making a late hit on a qb or a hard hit out of bounds should always get the 15 yards. But I hate when a player gives a push or brushes a guy on the sideline and the team gets hit with the 15 yarder. If the "victim" is well enough to stand there and laugh at the guy getting the penalty, I would like to see a "no harm, no foul" correction. Sort of similar to the no pass interference call because the pass was over the guys head.

Medicare is in a much worse crisis than Social Security and yet the only "reform" that has been done lately is to add a multi-billion dollar prescription drug benefit. Especially when the only people signing up are the ones that are going to use it the most. They underestimated the cost when they enacted it and it will only get worse as it goes on.

Fans might not like Moulds cap number for next year, but if we cut him we end up with a cap hit. Then we still have to go out and sign a #1 receiver. I think that if we are able to restructure his contract, I would like to see Moulds back. Look at the game Moulds sat out. Are you willing to have Sam Aiken take his place for 16 games? Or Josh Reed? Git R done, new GM!

He's just pissed because he has all of the porn .com sites already bookmarked.

I remember when the US was a champion of Human Rights in the world. We used to be appalled by rogue countries that used torture and imprisoned people indefinitely without trial. Now we're the ones doing it. Maybe it was leaked by someone with a conscience who doesn't believe that we need to stoop to the level of rogue states in order to protect our national security.

I just wish that the anti-abortion crowd would put more effort into reducing the number of abortions through sex education and the use of contraceptives. Most of them oppose both. Abortions currently run about 25% of all pregnancies in the US. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 Million abortions a year! To me, the quickest way to reduce abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. If we had better sex education and better awareness of contraceptives, maybe we greatly reduce the number of abortions without having to get the Supreme Court involved in it. Imagine if we could nominate Supreme Court judges on the basis of their qualifications rather than on their views on abortion.

At first, I figured that the first object of the plan was to screw the Blue states, since it eliminates the deduction for state and local taxes. But after looking at it further I feel that it is a vast improvement over the current complex system. At least it gets rid of the dreaded AMT and cuts down on the myriad deductions and tax avoidance schemes. I also like the simplification of the Retirement & Education savings. Education savings especially has become a complex calculation to see which type of account benefits you. This simplifies all of it. There will be winners and losers under any tax reform plan, but we will just have to suck it up in the name of simplifying things. Unfortunately, I don't feel that it has much of a chance of passing once the politicians get involved.

Hey, I answered your questions, you didn't like the answers so it now becomes a personal attack. That's ok. Well moron, under my proposal the SS tax does not become progressive. It stays the same. Maybe you should look up progressive tax and see what it actually means. Although I gave you the definition it obviously hasn't gotten past the tin foil hat on your head. Secondly, Mr Shitt-for-Brains, let me know how someone can use tax avoidance for SS tax. It's withheld from your paycheck. Oh, maybe your point is that people who make over $90,000 will stop working in order to avoid the 6.2% SS tax. That might make sense in your puny mind, but since you don't seem to have the intellect needed to mop floors, that is probably not your problem. This whole thing started when I suggested an alternative to Bush's SS proposal which is dead even though the Republicans currently control both houses of Congress. I guess that they don't think much of his proposal either.

You were the one who brought up marginal rates, and as I stated the SS marginal tax rates on upper income earners is ZERO. The marginal rates of lower earners is 6.2%. Obviously, you don't seem to understand what marginal tax rates mean. Secondly, the SS tax is not a progressive tax, it is regressive. A Progressive tax is a tax that takes a larger percentage of income from high-income earners. Since the rate on high-income earners is lower than for low-income earners, it is by definition a Regressive tax. Once again, you show your stupidity.

From the SSA website: "Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) program are financed primarily by employment taxes." I've persisted because I thought that I was correct. Guess what? I was. Also: "The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program paid about $71.4 billion in benefits to about 5.3 million disabled workers and 1.6 million spouses and dependent children in calendar year 2002. Like the Social Security retirement program, SSDI is funded by an explicit payroll tax. The first 0.85 percent of the 7.65 percent Social Security tax collected from the employer and a matching amount from the employee (1.70 percent total) goes into SSDI's trust fund and is kept separate from funds used to pay retirement and survivors insurance benefits." "Social Security Survivors Benefits Who can get survivors benefits? Children under age 18 can get Social Security survivors benefits and so can a child who is under 19 but still in high school ... or a child who is age 18 or older but who becomes disabled before age 22. A widow(er) who is caring for children under age 16 or disabled may receive benefits. A widow(er) age 60 or older, or a widow(er) age 50 or older who is disabled, may receive benefits. Today, Social Security pays monthly survivors benefits to about 7 million Americans, almost 2 million of whom are children."

From the SSA website: "Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) program are financed primarily by employment taxes."

Because they currently pay 0% Social security tax on every dollar earned above the ceiling of $90,000 in 2005. Therefore, their marginal rate on any additional earnings is 0%. Anyone who earns below $90,000, has a marginal tax rate of 6.2%.

From the San Diego Chargers Team site: Cleo Lemon - "There is no bio for this player."

You're right, there are plenty of slimeballs on both sides of the aisle. I just thought that it was funny talking about who would be a good presidential candidate and that even the most likely ones have tons of baggage.

No, the role of government is to do what's best for the lobbyist who pays for Tom Delay's golf trip, or for Ted Kennedy's bar tab, or Nancy Pelosi's face lift.

Have you considered that the current marginal tax rate on these top 25% of earners is zero? Lifting the ceiling only makes their marginal tax rate the same as the marginal tax rate for the bottom 25% of earners. Did raising the ceiling on Medicare tax lead to the same dire consequences and the end of civilization as we know it? So, the rich have to pay the same rate as low income people on every dollar of earnings. Sounds fair to me.

So just another run of the mill Republican.

Bush's plan calls for 1-2% of SS tax for private accounts, and estimates the costs at $2-3 Trillion. 1-2% isn't going to amount to much for most people and the cost is astronomical. How slow will KRC's phase-in be if it only costs us a few billion that can be paid with government waste? If his plan is optional and it is so good, wouldn't you think that more people would opt in which would drive the transition costs up. What percentage is he talking about, and what will the transition costs be for it? I guess the laws of mathematics are quite different in your part of the world. I'm not the one proposing borrowing trillions of dollars. I proposed raising the ceiling on the SS tax which will lower future obligations. Maybe before you open an Accounting book, you might want to try Hooked on Phonics to work on your reading comprehension. I have no idea. But it is a part of the Social Security system in addition to SSDI that no one who talks up private accounts wants to address. I would use the same word to describe the accrued but unpaid benefits. That's why I advocate doing something about it by raising the ceiling on SS tax. Bush's plan as proposed is DOA because it is like putting a bandaid on a hole in the dike and still runs up Trillions in new debt. That's exactly my point. People are currently putting a lot more money into 401k's and 403b's,etc than the measly 1-2% that Bush proposes that people can put in private accounts. For most workers, 1-2% will end up as a pretty small nest egg especially since he wants to cut their SS benefits at the same time. Not to mention the $2-3 Trillion in new debt. Sorry, but I would rather eliminate the SS tax ceiling to raise more funds and/or institute means-testing as a way to drastically cut benefits.

And that present value of $2-$3 trillion only covers a small switch to private accounts along the lines of 1-2% of a workers SS taxes. KRC plan allows workers to checkoff their entire SS tax of 14% or so, which will cost infinitely more in present value conversion costs. They don't take away your benefits when you die. Your dependents can receive benefits until they are 18 yrs old. Also, your spouse can claim the retirement benefits when he or she turns 62. If an income provider dies young with children, the children and the surviving spouse will probably receive much more than the worker ever put into the system. I agree with you that pension plans and SS are unsustainable programs. Unfortunately, any proposal that I have seen for private accounts fails to adequately address conversion costs without skyrocketing debt. Possibly a better approach to private accounts is to let workers withhold amounts above the current SS tax rate to go towards private accounts. Let the accounts grow tax-free but reduce SS benefits as a trade-off. Start with the top earners who can grow private accounts faster and can live easier with a lower SS benefit and gradually move the program to lower paid workers. In this manner, you cut SS benefit growth but provide a means of converting to private accounts without the huge transition costs. BTW, I don't know who Paul Krugman even is.

Now that we're both awake... What do you anticipate the costs to be for converting to a full private "keep your whole 14-15%" plan would be? I just think the thinking that you can pay for it fully by cutting government waste is extremely naive. Especially when Tom Delay says that there is no fat in the budget.

SSDI payments are based on earnings records just like social security payments. I assumed that they came out of SS taxes. Are you sure?

Well if Bush's plan has a conversion cost of over a TRILLION dollars, and your plan is calling for a plan that is 7-14 times larger, then YOUR PLAN'S CONVERSION COSTS WOULD BE ABOUT $30 TRILLION DOLLARS. THAT IS A LOT OF WASTEFUL SPENDING TO REIGN IN. SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS, BUT YOU SEEM TO BE HAVING A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING ME, SO I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD TALK LOUDER. AND FURTHERMORE, YOU FAIL TO EVEN INCLUDE ANY SOLUTION TO THE OTHER PARTS OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM, DISABILITY AND DEPENDENT CHILDREN.

In the case of a primary income provider dying young, SS payments are made to his or her children until age 18. The spouse can also collect SS retirement benefits based on the deceased earning recprd. My mother-in-law was widowed twice and started collecting on one husband's SS at age 62 and switched to the other at age 65 for a larger benefit. BTW, I have no problem with private accounts. I just feel that nobody wants to adequately consider the enormous cost to convert from the present system including the other part of Social Security which pays for disabilities and early death benefits to children.

The Bush proposal converts just 1-2% of SS taxes to private accounts and will costs more than a TRILLION dollars. You advocate the whole 14% or so going to private accounts. How long will it take to gradually find the 25-30 TRILLION dollars needed to convert everyone? Of course, your proposal doesn't account for SSDI or dependent children either. Let's say, another 5 TRILLION dollars. So, we just have to gradually come up with about 35 TRILLION dollars in government savings. That's a lot of $1000 toilet seats.