The last part in that video says it all:  Castro's personal worth was $900,000,000 when he died.  Those who enforce socialism are fucking hypocrites.

The simple formula is when 50% of the SS benefits and any other income hits a certain amount you begin paying taxes on the SS benefits and the amount can range up to 85% of it being taxed.

So basically when the government said, "We'll take your money and keep it safe for you then give it back to you when you're old," they lied.

Can't comment on your specifics, but here is the background on when SS benefits became taxable:

In 1981 the National Commission on Social Security Reform (sometimes referred to as the Greenspan Commission after its Chairman) was appointed by Congress and President Reagan to work on the financing crisis in Social Security. The result of their study included several amendments that were passed by Congress, signed by President Reagan and made into law in 1983. The specific rule applying to the taxation of Social Security benefits for the first time is copied below:

If the taxpayer's combined income (total of adjusted gross income, interest on tax-exempt bonds, and 50% of Social Security benefits and Tier I Railroad Retirement Benefits) exceeds a threshold amount ($25,000 for an individual, $32,000 for a married couple filing a joint return, and zero for a married person filing separately), the amount of benefits subject to income tax is the lesser of 50% of benefits or 50% of the excess of the taxpayer's combined income over the threshold amount. The additional income tax revenues resulting from this provision are transferred to the trust funds from which the corresponding benefits were paid. Effective for taxable years beginning after 1983.

Wow, thanks. I cannot imagine what sort of twisted mind came up with that.

No, I'm saying I'd like to see Texas' gun laws catch up with a state like Arizona now that they have Constitutional carry. You no longer need a concealed weapon permit to carry concealed in the state.

Yes that would be nice.  I'm still going through the application process. You need the permit for concealed or open in Texas. In NC you don't need a permit for open.  It's all a big bother

While were at it can we stop taxing Social Security Benefits.

I was doing Mom's taxes. She is 90. I got to thinking what the HELL is she doing paying taxes on her Social Security benefits?

Your FICA "contributions" are already a forced tax. So paying tax on it when you get it back is double taxation. I don't know why I always assumed they weren't taxed.

Hope you enjoy it!  Sound great.  I miss the West.

I don't miss the East.  I love it out here.   

Legal and moral are two different things. I can agree that legally, a baby is not a person with full rights until birth. And not even then if the birth is before viability.  For example, if I miscarry at an early stage and the baby is the size of a pea and I inadvertently flush it down the toilet, I do not want to be charged with the crime of not disposing properly of a body, and I would not want to deal with the paperwork of filing a birth certificate and a death certificate. There is a point where it is unreasonable to declare a fetus, or especially an embryo, a person in every LEGAL sense.

But the unborn doesn't need to be a person with full rights in order for us to make induced abortion a crime. We have laws against animal cruelty without giving animals personhood. So the whole discussion about what point the baby is considered a person in his own right is moot as I see it.

But morally it's completely different. I believe cutting up a baby while inside is exactly the same thing as cutting him up after birth. A baby has the same thoughts and feelings and physical senses moments after birth as he did moments before.  Going back to an earlier stage of pregnancy you can argue not. A baby - fetus - embryo - needs brain cells and a nervous system to have these qualities. But all the way to conception it contains a unique set of DNA and there is no clear dividing line where morally you can be certain you aren't killing a legitimate human. And since there is no clear line, in my view, you must go all the way back to conception. But not before. You're not killing a potential human by spilling seed in the shower or using birth control. That's carrying things too far.

Personally and morally, if someone has an abortion at any stage, I feel it's a human, for example, hypothetical only, if my grown child had an abortion for convenience, I would never forgive them for killing my grandchild.

Killing is a factual term but murder is a legal term. Abortion at any stage and for any reason is to kill a human being. But whether it is murder depends on the legal status. If it is legal to have an abortion to save the mother, then that would not be murder; it would be homicide in self defense.

But legally, at what point and for what reasons someone may have an abortion is a matter too contentious and complex that I do what we should:  Look to the law.  Hence my position that constitutionally the feds should stay out of it, and on a state level, I have no place to say in 49 states, and if it were put to a vote in MY state, I'd vote with my conscience, where ever that led me considering the particulars of the bill.