volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@servelan

It's that whole separation of powers thing, though.

The design of the US government, in order to provide checks and balances, has co-equal branches, so it's pretty much unconstitutional for one branch to order another to do anything.

They can certainly request things of each other, but if one branch could order another branch to do something it would make the other branch not an equal but subservient to the first.

So this idea is just stupid.

@Zee@social.coop

Sounds like a different label on the old term designed by committee.

Sounds like a rebranding because that term rightfully is now a slur.

@jf_718

So I was specifically asking what you have experienced, not what headlines have been squawking about.

I don't know how much of that would have actually impacted you as a user, depending on who you are following and such.

@joeinwynnewood @stopgopfox@libretooth.gr

If you didn't know, the DOJ is a law enforcement agency.

@GJGreenlea

How you do politics: Make a statement that has been roundly rebuked as misleading at best, roll it up in a false dichotomy, present it as divisive rhetoric right alongside a call for coming together, and stammer out an excuse to try to save the moment as the moment collapses around you?

Biden really lost it here. I don't think people elected him to turn this moment of traditional pump and circumstance into Reality TV.

And conservatives had a field day with this ammunition.

@TwistedEagle

Nah, seems like progress, that she is apparently recognizing it as half real!

@jf_718

What specific changes have you experienced over at Twitter that keep you away?

@dsacer

Part of the complication is that we've had generation after generation of politician outright misleading, or I would say lying, to the public about what the program is and how it works. So we have this really big perception problem to deal with now.

For example, one of the really big lies is that people pay into the program to fund their own retirements. That's not how Social Security works by law. The money people put in is required by law to be spent just like any other tax revenue, so that money is already gone, even though politicians have flat out told people otherwise their whole working lives.

That makes it tricky to do something like raise the payroll taxes since a lot of people will consider that a breaking of the agreement they thought they had. They thought they had already paid to fund the program, so the increase in taxation sounds unjustified and unfair.

Anyway, it's all a huge mess now, and everyday all of the problems are being kicked farther down the road as politicians continue to be dishonest about the history and current status of the program.

@dsacer keep in mind that raising the cap on income covered by the SS tax also raises benefit payouts. That's why the cap is there in the first place, to avoid paying more benefits to people who don't need it.

Anyway, I'd say either path, automatic benefit cuts or revamp to make the program sustainable, would effectively be killing the program, either as people understand it or as it is implemented.

The end result is the same: if nothing is done, the program ends, technically or perceptively.
We're already working with a sunsetting program, and the question is whether to do something about that.

@MatthiasSchmelzer

Right, but that does confirm that it is good for us all.

Even if some people find it extra good, while some people find it just simply good, that's good for us all!

@joeinwynnewood @stopgopfox@libretooth.gr

Wow, I don't know what kinds of companies you're familiar with, but yeah companies do tend to stick their noses into plant operations to make sure the plants aren't going way off track and doing bad things.

And by analogy, I would say it's REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT to keep law enforcement from going off track and doing bad things.

I don't know why you seem so trusting in law enforcement agencies, but history tells us bad things happen when they're allowed to operate without such oversight.

@ZuriBella

Something of a dumpster fire, that is...

From repeating talking points that have been long debunked through a presentation that looks like it can barely get the words out through inconsistent proposals for coming together over divisive topics... this is a train wreck.

@dsacer

The thing is, if Republicans really did want Social Security to end, or whatever the actual claim is, they wouldn't have to do anything.

The program is mathematically unsustainable as the administrators of the program have been warning for years. If Republicans wanted to cut Social Security they wouldn't have to face the public blowback of acting against it. They could just sit back and let it cut itself.

The whole story about Republicans wanting to cut Social Security is just really out there fear-mongering. It doesn't match the reality of how federal finances are working out.

And we really need to call out the politicians trying to sell that, well, conspiracy theory.

@SrRochardBunson @atomicpoet

When I read a post like that, the thing that jumps out at me is that it kind of overlooks the actual human journalists participating in the journalism.

It focuses on this abstract notion of journalism, but that's just what we call humans engaging in that enterprise.

We do need journalists to step up and do better. I'd rather focus on that because I think it's a better way to find a solution to the problems we see than get lost in these abstractions of what journalism does or what the news does.

Journalists, be better.