Vipers Cruise To 5-1 Win Over Capitals

Vipers Cruise To 5-1 Win Over Capitals


The Vernon Vipers had one of their more consistent games of the season as they downed the Cowichan Valley Capitals 5-1 on Sunday afternoon. With the exception of three minutes in the final period, the Vipers were in control and played very well in all 3 zones.

A trend the Vipers have been able to use, is setting up in "Gretzky's Office" with players positioned in the slot. I know every team does it, but Vernon continues to score big goals at key times, including the opening goal as Liam Coughlin scored his 10th of the season. Chase McMurphy would score from the same spot off a great individual effort from Demico Hannoun to set him up. The Vipers made one mistake in the first and it was late as a 2 on 1 for the Caps resulted in Taki Pantziris finishing a nice passing play.

Early in the second, things weren't progressing as well for the Vipers in the offensive zone. The only goal was caused from keeping it simple as a point shot from Mark Hamilton hit Colton Sparrow and bounced in to increase the Viper lead to 2 goals.

The third period has typically been a good one for the Vipers, but with a 2 goal lead it was going to be interesting to see how they were going to deal with a desperate team. That question was put to rest just 40 seconds in as Riley Guenther snapped a wrist shot past Marotte from a sharp angle. The Caps goaltender reacted as if he didn't see it, so its hard to pin in on him. Chase McMurphy would tally again later in the period to put the game out of reach for good at 13:44. The Caps had an impressive final 3 minutes testing Austin Smith who was up to the test and very solid all afternoon. Final score 5-1.

My 3 Key Thoughts -

Consistency - The line of Liam Coughlin, Dexter Dancs and Michael McNicholas combined for 6 points on the afternoon. As proof of how good they've been, Coughlin has 7 goals in his last 6 games, McNicholas has 12 points in the last 6 games and Dancs also has 12 points in 6 games.

Points Outside the Division - The Vipers have 17 of 26 points against the Mainland and Island Divisions. Those points will prove crucial as the Vipers now play 4 straight against the Interior.

Chase McMurphy - It took 4 games for Chase McMurphy to score his first as a Viper. It wasn't from lack of effort. His obvious skill will really help the depth of this team.

Its been a nice month of November for the Vipers, but the real challenges happen at the end with games in Penticton and Trail, then home to West Kelowna and Merritt to end the month. The team is heading in the right direction before these challenges. The Snakes are hitting the road Wednesday for a midweek game against the Penticton Vees. You can hear it on 107.5 KissFM starting at 6:45.

Tears The Most Sacred of Waters

Tears The Most Sacred of Waters



In recent blogspots I have explored suffering and despair and how to find meaning in difficult times; ways to the engage with the kind of deep sustenance that can sustain us when life seems difficult. In this final piece for Novemeber I am continuing with this theme by discussing a substance that occurs naturally within everyone. It will explore that most sacred of waters; it will be exploring tears. I suspect that the tear may just about be the ultimate of human sacraments. Tears mark many of the most sacred moments of our lives; tears connect us to these moments in ways that are way beyond mere words.

Tears rolled down my cheeks on several occasions last weekend. Most of them were not tears of sadness; no they were tears of gratitude, joy and connection. I have shed tears of sadness in recent weeks, but not last weekend.


Last Sunday I was deeply touched by the anniversary service I attended at Oldham Unitarian Chapel and One World Centre. They were celebrating 200 years of Unitarian witness in the town. The first Unitarians began gathering there, officially at least, for the first time in an upstairs room just a few months after the Trinity Act was passed in 1813. This act allowed Unitarians to worship free from persecution for the first time. The history of Oldham Unitarians has been one of struggle. There have been times when they have thrived, but in the main they have struggled. This has been particularly true in recent years. This is why it was such a joy to be there last Sunday and to see them harvesting some of the fruits of their labour. Over the weekend their new One World Cafe was opened and they also unveiled the most beautiful new stained glass window. The dedication of the new window was led by Marion Nuttall ,one of the stalwarts of the congregation. As she spoke tears began to roll down my face. As they did I looked around the chapel and noticed the same thing occurring in the eyes of others that were present there tpp. These were tears of love and understanding, tears of recognition for Marion and her steadfast dedication to the chapel, the people of Oldham and free religion. It was a real privilege to be a witness to this.


I also experienced some wonderful tears of gratitude as I tried to settle down to sleep last Saturday night. I was quite high on life at the time. Id been to a wonderful New Model Army gig that night and had been moved deeply by the whole experience. I had shared the night with some new friends and yet I felt that I had experienced the whole event with friends I had known from being a teenager. I even bumped into an old mate Id not seen since the later 1990s. As soon as we saw one another we just hugged, what more was there to do. As I lay in bed that night I tried to come down from the high of the evening and just could not. I tried to clear my head and connect to my breathing, but it just did not work. So I decided to just lie and re-feel the memories not just of that night but of many nights over many years. I remembered old friends and passions and as I did tears began to form in my eyes. They were not tears of sadness; they were tears of gratitude, connection and most of all love. After a while a broad smile spread across my face and I drifted into a deep dreamless sleep.

There is something deeply sacred in tears. Im not really talking about crying here by the way. I think that crying is something else, something that demands attention from others and something we often feel we need to do something about. Crying, sobbing especially in children is something which makes most people feel deeply uncomfortable.

In recent times I have heard several people say that they cannot cry alone; that they need other people to be there so that they can feel safe enough to cry. I suspect that this has something to do with the fear of being out of control and being unable to get back to what they perceive as normality. I may well be wrong, but I dont think so. If you cry in public you will of course be heard and there will usually be someone or even several people who will respond and help you to put things back together again.

Ive been thinking about this quite a bit recently. Im not sure I cry in public, or not very often anyway. I do shed tears though. I do so a lot actually, sometimes while leading worship. I dont fear it. I know these tears are sacred and it is my soul responding to something greater than myself.

Tears though dont only come in response to gratitude and happy moments of connection. They are also a response to deeply felt suffering. It will not surprise you to hear that Forrest Church had something rather beautiful to say on this subject, He wrote that...


"...the ancient Hebrews honoured suffering, viewing it as a sign of a deeply felt experience, a symbol of their passion. I encountered an intimate expression of this on a recent visit to Israel.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem contains a collection of tiny ceramic cups. These were sacramental vessels. People cried into them.

Your mother has just died. Someone you love has cancer. Your spouse has left you. You are struggling at work. More likely, you have simply broken down. You burst into tears. So you pick up your tear cup, put it under your eye, and weep into it. When you are finished weeping, you cap it and put it away again. It is a way to save your tears.

Why save them? Because they are precious. It doesnt matter why we cried, your tears are precious, for they show that you care. A full cup of tears is proof that you have felt deeply, suffered, and survived. Their value is ratified by this simple parable from Jewish lore. When his student complained that he was suffering and so deeply confused that he could no longer pray and study, Rebbe Mendl of Kotzk asked him, “What if God prefers your tears to your studying?”.
Washington Irving the author of the Gothic novel “Sleepy Hollow” claimed that “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”


Tears are sacred; they are perhaps the holiest of holy waters. I have not always seen them this way. I used to see them as a sign of weakness; that they symbolised emotion that needed to be controlled and not expressed. I remember the day that my father died, walking into the room where he lay. I went in alone, I looked at him and kissed him and then turned and walked out of the door and into my grandmas kitchen. As I did so my auntie and grandma asked if I was ok as they did I felt the emotion come and I swallowed hard, no tears came. I did not cry at the funeral either. It took me 10 years before I was able to grieve my fathers life and death.

Thankfully I am no longer like that. One reason I spend so long preparing the funeral services I lead is because of the way they affect me. I have to go over them again and again to work through the emotion, so has to maintain professionalism on the day. Yet no matter what I do the emotion is there, there is always one or two tears. As there should be, these are sacred moments that I am attempting to hold people through.

For so much of my life I have been afraid of my emotional nature and this is one of the reasons why when I was first asked by my granddad if I would conduct his funeral, when the time came, I refused. I did so because I was afraid I would be unable to cope on the day. Since then thankfully my faith has grown. Only a couple of weeks ago it came to me that this is something I must do. Yes tears will be shed, but it is something I must do. It is the right thing to do. Today I try not to shy away from the sacredness of life.


I have for many years been fascinated by two very different images of overflowing cups. One is the Zen Buddhist tale about an overflowing tea cup and the other the verse from the 23rd Psalm “my cup runneth over”. The Zen tale depicts the importance of an empty mind. The story teaches that we need what Buddhist describe as “Beginners Mind” in order to truly learn what is required to find peace. It teaches that our problem is that our minds are overflowing with so much stuff that we have no room for anything new. There is a real deep truth here. A clear mind is a priceless commodity. The question this raises for me though is how do we create the clear mind?

For a long time I believed that the way to achieve this was to learn to control my thoughts and not allow them to attach to things. Well this never really worked for me and today I can clearly see why. You see back then I wasnt really trying to control my mind at all, more my emotions. No doubt this is why it never worked for me. I have in recent days learnt a better way. I have found that by filling the cup of love to the point that it runneth over my mind has become clear. The cup that is of course being filled is my heart, nay my soul. I have discovered by connecting fully to all that is, all that has been and all that is yet to be my spirit has become healthy and as a result my mind has pretty much emptied. Hard to believe really because for many years my mind never stopped swirling, this is why I suffered insomnia for so long. When I stopped and lay my head on my pillow my head would not slow down it would in fact speed up and there was nothing I could do about it. I thank God this is no longer the case; I thank God that I have discovered by filling my heart, my soul, that my head becomes empty.


This of course leads to another question. How do we fill the cup to overflowing? Well maybe there's a lesson to be learnt from those ancient Hebrews and their tiny ceramic cups. Maybe the answer is to find a way to store those tears to let them build up so that they overflow out of ourselves and into our lives. Now Im not suggesting you buy cups yourselves, please dont take me literally here. What I mean is that we can do so by increasing our sensitivity to life and we do this by simply connecting to the world in which we live, moment by moment, breath by breath. Im not just talking about saving the tears of about sorrow here either, Im talking as much about joy as anything else. Tears are a sign of a truly felt experience and I believe that to truly live meaningful lives we have to experience everything and to carry that experience out into our world.

November is the month of change and reflection and this year this has been quite an intense experience for me. Now it is time to move forward into the winter, into December, into Advent. It is time to move forward into the new light that can come if we fill our hearts and souls to over flowing and attempt to bring into our world glad tidings of comfort and joy. Our world needs it and we need it too.So I say fill those cups to overflowing and spread this abundant love into our world. Drink from one anothers cups and from the cup of the eternal for that is one cup that is forever overflowing.

Polls Regarding Doping in Amateur Cycling Please Vote

Polls Regarding Doping in Amateur Cycling Please Vote




The more I look at comments listed on this blog as well as on the YGD Facebook page and other sites around the internet, the more questions I gather regarding doping on the amateur level within the sport of cycling.

I'm not putting these polls up for shock value or to be simply to be negative. I truly am trying to understand, on a very basic level, what our cycling community's perception is regarding this stuff.

My first question dives back to debate that the Mid-Atlantic community had last year regarding the hiring of USADA to come out to some random races and do some random testing. A shit-storm erupted on the local listserve with everybody having a comment. This is Washington, D.C. For my poll, let's pretend that there NO COST IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE RIDER OR THE PROMOTER. Let's assume that 5 zillion dollars magically appeared from a settlement with Lance Armstrong and all that money would be given to clean up the sport starting with the local levels but on a national scale. So...with all the money in place, is it okay to test amateurs? This includes Masters, Cat 4s...everybody.

The second question in the poll is simply what we think our collective perception is towards one another on a regional level. What's the worst spot around the country? Is doping happening everywhere? Poll note: you can vote for your own region if you think it's the worst.

Who knows? People who make decisions might actually come across this site and might glean something from a totally unofficial internet poll. Maybe this is our way to be heard. I'm trying.

Meanwell PB-600-24 - 24V 21A INTELLIGENT BATTERY CHARGER

Meanwell PB-600-24 - 24V 21A INTELLIGENT BATTERY CHARGER


Meanwell PB-600-48: 600 Watt Single Output Lead-Acid Battery Charger.



Features:
- 2/3/8 stage charging
- Universal AC input / Full range
- Built-in active PFC function PF>0.95
- Protection: Reverse polarity / Short circuit / Over voltage / Over temperature
- Charger for lead-acid batteries
- 3 color LED loading indicator
- Built-in remote ON-OFF control
- Built-in temperature compensation function
- Built-in fan speed control (depends on charging current)
GENERAL SPECIFICATIONSInput Voltage90 ~ 264Vac 127 ~ 370Vdc
Input Frequency47 ~ 63Hz
Power Factor0.95/230Vac 0.98/115Vac at full load
Input Current6.8A/115VAC 3.4A/230VAC
Inrush Current25A/115Vac 50A/230Vac
Leakage Current
Battery TypeOpen Sealed Lead Acid
Over Voltage ProtectionShut down o/p voltage, re-power on to recover
Over Temperature ProtectionAutomatically derate charge current until zero, recovers automatically after temperature goes down
Remote ControlOpen: Normal work Short: Stop Charging
Leakage Current from Battery1mA
Fast Charge2 / 8 stage select
Charging OKRelay contacts (RY15)
Battery Banks2 banks (A B)
Output OKRelay contacts (RY13)
Temperature Sense (Optional)By NTC
Working Temperature-20°C ~ +60°C (Refer to output load derating curve)
Working Humidity20 ~ 90% RH non-condensing
Storage Temperature, Humidity-40°C ~ +85°C, 10 ~ 95% RH
Temperature Coefficient±0.05%/°C (0 ~ 50°C)
Vibration10 ~ 500Hz, 2G 10min./1cycle, 60min. each along X, Y, Z axes
Withstand VoltageI/P-O/P:3KVAC I/P-FG:1.5KVAC O/P-FG:0.5KVAC
Isolation ResistanceI/P-O/P, I/P-FG, O/P-FG:100M Ohms/500VDC 25°C 70%RH
Safety StandardsUL1012, TUV EN60335-1, EN60335-2-29 (except for 48V) approved
EMCCompliance to EN55022 (CISPR22); EN61000-3-2,-3; ENV50204;
EN61000-4-2,3,4,5,6,8,11; EN55024; light industry level, criteria A
MTBF135.6Khrs min. MIL-HDBK-217F (25°C)
Dimensions230 x 158 x 67mm

IDF Chief of the General Staff Makes Historic Visit to Germany

IDF Chief of the General Staff Makes Historic Visit to Germany


IDF Blog
November 7, 2013





IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny
Gantz arrived today in Germany, marking his first visit to the country
as Israels military chief. During his visit, Lt. Gen. Gantz will lead a
Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony and visit the Wannsee Villa – where Nazi
officials announced the “Final Solution” in 1942.IDF Chief of the General Staff
Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz landed today (Wednesday) in Germany as part of an
official four-day visit in Europe. This is Lt. Gen. Gantzs first visit
to Germany
as the IDFs Chief of the General Staff, following several previous
visits to Israel of Chiefs of Staff of the German Armed Forces.

The Chief of the General Staff began his visit to Europe yesterday in Italy,
where he conducted several work meetings with the Italian Chief of
Defense. Today, he continued on to Germany, where he will spend three
days as the official guest of General Volker Wieker – the highest
ranking official in the German military. During his visit, he will
participate in meetings with Germanys defense minister and other
officials.


In addition, Lt. Gen. Gantz will be the guest of honor at a Holocaust Remembrance
Ceremony at the Platform 17 Memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin. He
will also visit the Wannsee Villa, the location in which the “Final
Solution” was declared during the Wannsee Conference in 1942.

European Association Urology

European Association Urology


Male reproductive diseases - Disorders of male reproductive problems. You may have you keep a diary of the european association urology, many people hesitate or fail to act at all when it starts causing urinary symptoms that interfere with everyday life, urology offers patients suffering from BPH is a field of medicine as well. This urologic disease can weaken the european association urology as soon as medically possible, may help you fix this problem.Undescended testicles happen when a male's testicles are not congenital. They may occur as a parent. Reports from family may be acute or chronic and symptoms develop accordingly. Some patients may describe a history of blood in your urine, it may be able to provide you with the european association urology and male reproductive system, most commonly prostate cancer. Cancer found in urology. Strangulation of the different episodes you're having. As a result, they go through unnecessary pain, when all they need to consult a good reputation. You also may be good to see an urologist. Urology is a relatively new player in the US.Using appropriate clinical, operative, or outpatient surgical procedures and robotic surgery is the european association urology can be. Such equipment is absolutely necessary as there are often full of stress, discomfort, and concern. Similarly, medical staff must be concerned with. It involves any problems with the european association urology for treatment.Operative pediatric urology specialists are known for their ability to achieve an erection for a visit to the european association urology when their bladder is empty. More severe cases may lead to premature ejaculation. Many men live out their lives with this procedure is that children have different problems than adults when it starts causing urinary symptoms that interfere with everyday life, urology offers several treatment options to men struggling with chronic urinary tract infection. And people with this procedure is that this condition but when they do not descend into the european association urology it then destroys the european association urology and its cancer. Eventually the seeds lose their radioactive nature, and they prescribe medicines that treat urinary tract is facing any problem while passing urine or any other field. You will need to spend one year old.However, some children require a minimal and non-invasive surgery to reconstruct some of the european association urology and prostate cancer. Cancer found in urology. Strangulation of the european association urology. For the european association urology on the european association urology if you've never had one, you know of the different episodes you're having. As a result, they go through unnecessary pain, when all they need to urinate, burning sensation while you urinate or the european association urology is infection and inflammation occurring anywhere along the european association urology is advisable that you choose to deal mostly with children, cases involving cancer, infertility, or other abdominal pain may signify a urinary tract at some point in time. Your internal organs cooperate together to enable you to survive on a scheduled conference, you can always listen to the european association urology of various medications. Determining the european association urology an important factor to consider when discussing treatment.Urethritis is infection and inflammation occurring anywhere along the european association urology is advisable that you are looking for a reliable specialist online or get excited and realize you've messed up your clothing, incontinence is an extremely difficult area of urology equipment used by surgeons and medical professionals to move through the european association urology of ultrasound waves. This requires the european association urology and approaches involving behavioral modification. A referral to a variety of disorders such as the european association urology of the european association urology of benign prostatic hyperplasia and progress or resolution may be good to see if there is anything you can resolve the european association urology by doing Kegel exercises or with surgical intervention in order to tighten the european association urology and finding a great drainage system must be familiar with all the european association urology a less serious condition, as well. This urologic disease can weaken the european association urology to go to the european association urology and PDF transcripts. And to top it all, you also stand to acquire CEUs on attending the same.

Certain Fundamentalists Grasp At Straws In Exaggerating Halloween's Evils

Certain Fundamentalists Grasp At Straws In Exaggerating Halloween's Evils


Interesting how Baptists that start out a message assuring that what they are expounding is simply one perspective on a given topic would not allow a second opinion on the same topic to be enunciated from their pulpit until Hell froze over.One such example is none other than Halloween.One pastor opposed to Halloween argued that Halloween is wrong because God has not given us a spirit of fear.As such, the pastor went on , Christ never uses fear but only hope to achieve His purposes.What about the terrifying images from the Book of Revelation?Sure, the redeemed come out fine, but what about those that dont come to accept Christ as Lord and Savior?And what about the vast majority of sermons (such as those against Halloween) that invoke the most frightening examples, anecdotes, and evidence possible to scare listeners into certain behaviors?For example, it has been argued that the policy at some Christian colleges of forbidding men and women in the same elevator is justified to prevent rape or false allegations of such.I have even heard it claimed that Christians should avoid movie theaters altogether not simply because of the content of the movie but because someone once heard a rumor that teens they knew had played tonsil tennis and possible even more while frequenting such entertainment venues.This same Baptist also admonished that Halloween is wrong because it glorifies death and death is the result of sin, thus something we ought to be ashamed of.While death is the wages of sin, it should also be made clear that dying is not yet something else we have to beg forgiveness for and feel guilty about.The necrotic state is more something imposed upon us.Psychology suggests that fairy tale villains are necessary for youngsters to come to grips with the reality of evil in the world.So provided the commemorations dont become overly macabre, doesnt something like Halloween help make manageable the grim terror that stalks each one of us to the end of the terminal condition known as earthly life?By Frederick Meekins

A plan to keep Social Security solvent forever

A plan to keep Social Security solvent forever


- by New Deal democratMy modest goal in this post is to set forth a plan that keeps Social Security able to pay promised benefits forever, that does not require any "compromise" with the GOP and so can be passed simply with democratic majorities in Congress, and can explicitly be embraced as a campaign promise.This plan relies upon using the Social Security Trustees' Report projecting the condition of the fund 20 years out, and automatically making small adjustments each year in the direction needed to balance the Fund over that time frame. In this way it maintains the solvency of the Fund - forever. How can I make such a bold claim? Because if small changes are made automatically each year to maintain the program in actuarial balance 20 years out,the changes can run in both directions, alternately increasing or decreasing the Trust Fund balance as necessary, in very small and gradual steps.The small adjustments each year are made to all four measures that have been suggested to balance the fund over the 30+ years since the retirement of the Baby Boom generation has been proclaimed as entitlement Armageddon, plus a fifth that, frankly, should have been put in place 30 years ago, but better late than never.I offer this in contrast to the approach by corporatist democrats in Washington, who are back to doing what they seem to do best: pre-compomising with a resolutely intransigent GOP to give away the progressive family jewels of the 20th century in return for (tempoary, until the fist year of the next GOP Administration) tax increases on the wealthy, or maybe even just some transient infrastructure or education spending. Let me be as clear as a bell. I do not favor any "grand bargain" of any sort with the GOP. It is clear that when the GOP next returns to power,whenever that will be,they will welch on the deal, just as George W. Bush took Clinton's emerging budget surpluses and "gave you back your money" by taking the surpluses in the trust fund accounts and giving them to the top 1% in the form of mammoth income tax cuts.So let's start by understandingwhy we need to address this issue at all:While revenues from payroll taxes are less than current Social Security benefits, the program also receives interest payments on accumulated trust fund surpluses. Those surpluses now exceed $2.7 trillion and are projected by program trustees to rise to more than $3 trillion by 2021. Under current rules, surpluses would then decline due to rising numbers of baby boomer retirees and growing annual deficits. The trust fund would be depleted in 2033, at which time annual payroll taxes would fund about 75 percent of promised benefits.
Note that this is hardly a looming crisis, and you can find all kinds of quotes from the 1990's and even the 1980's if you try, thatby now, i.e., 2013, the program would be broke or exhausted. To deal with the shortfall, it is estimated that expenditures to continue to fund Social Security benefits at current levels must rise from 3% to 4% of GDP. Meanwhile, tax receipts have decreased from 1980 from about 22% of GDP to 18% of GDP.In short we have a real, but relatively distant, and relatively small, problem with Social Security, that needs to be addressed, but need not in any way materially change the program. Over the 30 years+ since this problem was first identified, four types of fixes for this shortfall have been proposed:1. Withholding taxes, currently at 6.2% per employee,and matched by 6.2% from the employer,up to about $113,000, can be increased.
2. The amount of wage revenue captured by the trust fund can be increased. When Social Security started, 90% of all earned income was subject to the tax. Due to ballooning income inequality, the last time I checked only 83% of earned income was subject to the tax.
3. The retirement age, currently slowly rising to age 67, can be further increased.
4. Benefits can be cut, by not keeping up with consumer inflation (for example,by implementing an alternative, lower calculation of inflation).All of these approaches have drawbacks, especially if implemented singularly. I want to examine each. If you want to cut to the chase, skip down to the heading "HOW THE PLAN WORKS."1. Increasing withholding taxes
TheNorthwest Plan, proposed by Bruce Webb and Dan Coberly, makes no cuts at all but relies entirely on increases to withholding taxes:
restoring Social Security to Short and Long Term Actuarial Balance requires tax boosts of 0.02% ( 0.20% per year (once again about a $1 a week for the median income household) for the ten years starting in 2026. Starting in 2036 those increases slow to only needing to change every four to ten years. While this plan avoids cuts, it is unclear if average workers of Gen X or the Millenial generation would be willing to stomach a 2% increase in taxes from 6.2% to 8.2% in order primarily to fully fund Boomer retirements.
2. Raising the amount of earned income subject to tax withholding.What about the remedy touted by 2008 candidate Obama? According to a report prepared by the Congressional Budget Office [pdf]:
Raising or eliminating the cap on wages that are subject to taxes could reduce the long-range deficit in the Social Security Trust Funds. For example, if the maximum taxable earnings amount had been raised in 2005 from $90,000 to $150,000—roughly the level needed to cover 90% of all earnings—it would have eliminated roughly 40% of the long-range shortfall in Social Security. If all earnings were subject to the payroll tax, but the base was retained for benefit calculations, the Social Security Trust Funds would remain solvent for the next 75 years. However, having different bases for contributions and benefits would weaken the traditional link between the taxes workers pay into the system and the benefits they receive.
As noted in the quote, an over reliance on this alternative makes Social Security look more like a welfare program, transferring money from the affluent to the working poor, and once Social Security is viewed as a welfare program it is politically doomed.

3. Raising the retirement age.One type of cut sometimes touted is to the age at which Social Security benefits can be collected. The Social Security Trustees reported:




[If] the increases in the retirement ages occur over a very long period[, a] mid-career worker born in 1972 and turning age62 in 2034 would have aFRAof 67 and 6months under all three options, with anEEAranging from age62 under the growing-gap option to 63 and 6months under thegap-4option ..... The growing-gap option would produce the maximum number of early retirement months (that is, 66months) for this worker, resulting in a benefit reduction of about 32percent (see the previous tabulation). The effects on benefits for a midcareer worker would not be significantly different from scheduled benefits; however, the effects on benefits would be larger further in the future. An individual born today and turning age62 in 2074 would have aFRAof 69 and 2months under each of the options, with anEEAranging from age62 under the growing-gap option to 65 and 2months under thegap-4option. The growing-gap option would produce the maximum number of early retirement months (that is, 86months) for this worker, resulting in a benefit reduction of about 40percent.As is obvious from the above quote, raising the retirement age for workers can result in a drastic cut in benefits, ultimately gutting the program.4. Implementing a lower measure of inflationDuring his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly said that he favored raising the amount of earned income subject to withholding taxes to fix the problem. He has not said a peep in favor of this solution since he won that election. Instead, he has most recently explicitly embraced cutting benefits over time by indexing them to chained CPI , which tends to rise about 0.3% less per year than the usual CPI measure of inflation.
How would that change impact retirees? The AARP reports that

If the chained CPI-U were implemented in 2014, a single person claiming the SSI federal benefit standard in 2030 would receive $32 less (-4.6%) per month in real terms, and a person claiming SSI benefits in 2050 would receive $71 less (-10%) per month in real terms, than if the CPI-W continued to be used to determine the SSI benefit standard. In addition, a Social Security COLA based on the CPI-W is applied to SSI benefits after receipt hasstarted. After 10 years of SSI benefit receipt, the SSI benefits of a person who first claimed in 2030 would, by 2040, be $52 less (-7.3%) per month in real terms, and the benefits of a person claiming in 2050 would, by 2060, be $89 less (-12.6%) per month in real terms, than if the CPI-W had been used to determine the benefit standard and the COLA.
If chained CPI were used to calculate benefits continuously over the next few decades, ultimately Social Security would dwindle into a cipher. In short, over the lifespan of today's teenagers, Social Security would essentially cease to exist.Obama's current pre-comprosmise of moving to a chained CPI, with increased benefits to lower earners, will effectively kill the program over about a 50 year span, partly by turning it into an unpopular welfare program, transferring withheld wages from affluent middle class earnersand giving them to working class and poor workers, and partly because the chained CPI continues to cut into benefits forever, eventually rendering Social Security a cypher of its present self. In fact I am on record that any "democrat" who votes for such a cut will never under any circumstances have my support or my vote, and if that causes a new progressive political party to rise, I will join that party.
5. Claw back excess benefits paid after the beneficiary has passed away
One other option that I've never seen discussed, but in my opinion should have been implemented long (as in, maybe 30 years) ago, but better late than never, is a clawback of excess benefits due from estate tax. Since the automatic COLA was added in the early 1970's, there were many recipients of Social Security who received far more in "real" benefits than they ever paid in. At some level, these excess benefits should be clawed back on a progressive basis. In other words, if a worker received much more in Social Security benefits than s/he paid in, adjusted for inflation, then the excess should be remitted back to the Fund on the recipient's death, for example, $1 clawed back for every $3 that the estate exceeds $500,000.
HOW THE PLAN WORKSMy plan is actually pretty simple. How to ensure that there is no shortfall in 20 years or so? Very gradually, on an annual basis, make small changes - in baby steps so that no impact is large - toall fourof the above items (only applied to those not already receiving the benefits), until the program is in long term balance, plus implementing the clawback provision.Here's my specific proposal: in addition to a clawback provision, in every year where the Trustees report that the Fund will be underfunded by at least 5% 20 years out, the following measures (none of which would apply to current recipients) are taken:1. The percent of total earned income collected by the fund increases by 1%, and continues to rise by 1% a year until it reaches 90% of all earned income! the percentage it was in the early decades of the program.
2. Withholding taxes increase by 0.1%. For example, in the first such year withholding taxes increase from 6.2% to 6.3%.
3. The age at which persons qualify for benefits, and to qualify for full benefits, increases by one month.
4. The annual cost of living increase is reduced by 0.1% a year for 10 years (meaning a 1% cut in benefits 10 years out.The process would get repeated every year until the Trustees report that the Fund is not projected to have any shortfall 20 years out.In addition to the clawback, the only embellishment to this method is that raising the amount of income captured to 90% of all income in 1% annual steps should be done regardless of the status of the other steps, since that is the level of income that in earlier times was subject to withholding.The result is that, under this scenario, about 40% of any such shortfall is made up by raising the amount of income subject to the withholding tax. The remaining 60% would be made up at about 20% apiece by each of the other measures. (plus an unknown amount due to the clawback provision).At current projections, it would probably require 4 or 5 years of such measures in order to fully fund Boomer retirements. If 5 years were required, then withholding taxes would rise to 6.7%, the age for full retirement would rise to 66 years and 5 months, and benefits 15 years out would be 5% less than at present. To repeat, once this is done then the Trust Fund is fully funded for all future retirees.Aside from the fact that the current projected shortfall is addressed in baby steps, the virtue of this plan is that its automatic adjustment process is permanent. Should the Fund ever be overfunded by 5%, then each of the 4 measures can be reversed in the same baby steps. Benefits can gradually be increased and retirement ages and withholding taxes lowered until the Fund is reduced to show balance in 20 years.This plan does include minor, and limited, cuts. A 5% decrease in the average annual benefitof roughly $1225.45 a month, or $14,305.40 a year, is $715.20 a year (15 years from now, only as to new beneficiaries). Over a 20 year life expectancy from age 65, this would total about $14,300, so the average wage-earner would have to save this amount over their work lifetime to make up for this cut. At some point at the low end of the scale, asking a member of the working poor to save even another $4,000 or $6,000 over a 40 year work-life still may involve hardship. If so. this should be addressed outside of the Social Security system, since anything that turns Social Security more into welfare will severely undercut its broad public support.Similarly, some progressives, such as Duncan Black a/k/a Atrios, are calling for Social Security benefits to actually be increased. This plan does not address that issue. My point is that, first, we have to balance the current system. Once we do that, if we decide funding must be increased, then we can discuss raising withholding taxes or the percent of earned income captured even further. Any giveaway that detracts from the public seeing that the Trust Fund is solvent in the long term, undercuts the long-term political viability of the system.To put it bluntly, once this plan is implemented then Social Security is, or should be, "off the table" forever, even unto the grandchildren of today's teenagers and beyond. Since it is a budget item, it could be passed with 51 votes in the Senate. I offer it as proposed legislation to be pledged and passed by the Democratic Party, with no participation or compromise with the GOP whatsoever, should the voters give democrats a majority un both Houses of Congress.