Tag Archives: Social Security

Native Americans Steamed

Jodi Miller reports, “At the White House President Obama met with leaders of American Indian tribes. “But Native Americans are very upset. This country used to belong to them, now it belongs to China.” In this edition of NewsBusted, Miller also features Candy Crowley, Cher, Social Security, Eric Garner, Ferguson, Missouri, and McDonald’s McRib.

Hitting the Debt Target

President Barack Obama’s persistent refusal to acknowledge that raising the debt ceiling will raise the national debt, has at least one financial commentator in a frenzy. “The president again, is he lying or is he just a moron,” says Peter Schiff, who produces a financial show on Internet radio. “He (president) says that if we raise the debt ceiling, it doesn’t give us more debt, it just let’s us pay for things like Social Security, or veterans benefits or the greatest military in the world. How? How do we pay for all those things? With debt, by issuing debt, by borrowing money.” Schiff further explained that the debt ceiling is more of a debt target. The more you hit the target, the more you move it back, he says. Take in the rest of his rant in this edition of The Peter Schiff Show.

What’s a Government Shutdown?

What does a government shutdown really mean? It’s not all it’s cranked up to be, says political pundit Dick Morris. “We really misunderstand the concept of a government shutdown. It does not shut down the government. We just call it that,” says Morris. “What it does is shut down those activities which are governed by discretionary spending that’s voted by Congress each year. The entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, food stamps, welfare, disability all go on getting paid because they are not governed by the funds that Congress appropriates annually.”

Americans Favor Spending Cuts

Fifty-four percent of Americans say Congress should cut spending from current levels and 62 percent say Congress should forget about gun control and move on to other issues.

Social Security is widely popular, with 65 percent having a favorable view of the retirement portions of the program. But it’s also widely misunderstood as an individual retirement account rather than a transfer payment financed by current tax dollars.

A plurality – 45 percent of respondents – still dislike Obamacare and one in five Americans qualifies as libertarian based on responses to questions about the role of the government in social and economic affairs. The results come from the latest The Reason-Rupe Poll, a quarterly, national survey of 1,003 people via cell phones and landlines. More from Reason.TV.