Instead of boring us with the democrat party line, how about employing a bit of intellectual honesty. Having retirement income for Seniors was never a bad idea, however it should never have been done by force. And it is a bit silly for you to declare SS and Medicare as one of the most successful programs ever passed by the US Government. At least since the 1960s it had been held together by bandaid fixes (figure of speech) and always under the threat of the politicians lowering the benefits or raising the retirement age in weak attempts to rescue it before it goes bankrupt. As it is now, social security checks are backed up by little more then IOUs due to the politicians pilfering the trust funds for the sake of pork barrel spending. Personally if I had been given the choice when I first entered the job market, I would have forgone SS and medicare and went with privately run financial and medical retirement plans. I simply do not trust the government to run these types of programs.
Do you seriously think there are not seniors still living in poverty? Social Security is not much of a living. A private plan would have much higher returns.
It is actually the establishment politicians in both major parties that has given to the wealthy. And the democrat party has done the majority of that. If Hillary's speechs to Wall Street bankers ever becomes completely public, you will understand.
1. I am not a Democrat.
2. I didn't say Medicare is one of the most successful programs. I said Social Security is. And it is. It was designed to do something in particular, and it succeeded. It has to be done in a pool, with all workers being contributors (except for those who participate in another govt program), because that's what makes it work. First, if it were optional, then those who end up needing it the most probably wouldn't participate because they have little expendable income. Then they would end up in poverty in their senior years, exactly what Social Security was designed to prevent. The program also needs the contributions from the employers.
Social Security also works because it benefits from the scale of operation. One account, one pool. The program is simpler to manage, and the fees are lower. There also is no profit in it to the extent that 401ks have. So most of the money goes directly into the pool.
I understand your typical Republican "I don't wanna hep nobody! Mine is mine, and it stays mine!" No one is taking money from you. You will get your Social Security benefits, like everyone else. If you contributed more, you get more in benefits.
It's a good program that does what it was designed to do, and it was designed to do a very good thing. It also doesn't take anything from any citizen w/o giving it back. It's a fair program.
Don't forget that because of our wage patterns in this country, many women were underpaid, earning pennies on the dollar that men did. This has a huge effect on their Social Security benefits. Which you would like to see ripped out from under them. Without SS, almost half of the senior women in the U.S. would fall below the poverty line (which is less than $12,000/yr).
Before Social Security, the majority of seniors were living in poverty. Now, only about 9% do. Social Security has been wildly successful. There was a problem. Our leaders got together, at the request of the citizens, and devised a plan to solve it. Their initial plan has been tweaked a few times, as most plans are, but it has been working for almost a century.
