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Social Security Fix

Your Identity and For/Against this SS Reform model

  • Total voters
    75
JoeTheEconomist said:
You are willing to throw someone else's money at the problem that you are unwilling to throw your own time at understanding.
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I'm not trying to "throw someone else's money" at anything. What I'm advocating is that there should be no "cap" on the amount of earnings that are taxed. It is unfair, unjust, and arbitrary; moreover, there's no logical reason why people making more than $118K shouldn't have to pay according to the same formulas that everybody else has to observe. Why should earnings >$118K not be taxed?

JoeTheEconomist said:
You basically want to reward the voters who have ignored the problem the longest.

Your money wasn't 'taken'. The people you voted for reformed the system and you expect the current voters to have money taken based on a promise that your politicians made to you. The terms of system haven't changed since 1960. You give and someone else might give for your retirement. Flemming V Nestor. Anything else is just revisionist twaddle.
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I'm not trying to "reward" anyone. The Social Security program has been the Law of the Land for 80 years, and nobody, including Boomers, Gen-X'ers, Millennials, or anybody else has been able to vote a "reward" for themselves. How did you manage to double-think a thing like that into existence? The whole thing is based on EARNED entitlements!

The relationship, contract, or whatever you want to call it (administered by government with the threat of punishment of the law for anyone who doesn't obey, for decades) is that YOU PAY, and then after you reach the official retirement age, YOU COLLECT. It's no more complicated than that -- very straightforward.
 
Pollycy said:
I'm not trying to "throw someone else's money" at anything. What I'm advocating is that there should be no "cap" on the amount of earnings that are taxed. It is unfair, unjust, and arbitrary; moreover, there's no logical reason why people making more than $118K shouldn't have to pay according to the same formulas that everybody else has to observe. Why should earnings >$118K not be taxed?
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It's current structure is a pension - pay more in, get more out. If you raise the cap and pay more, the effect is basically zero. If you raise the cap but don't pay more out, the program becomes a retirement welfare program. If your fix involves making it a welfare program, it should be means and asset tested (because why send welfare money to rich people?)

I'm not trying to "reward" anyone. The Social Security program has been the Law of the Land for 80 years, and nobody, including Boomers, Gen-X'ers, Millennials, or anybody else has been able to vote a "reward" for themselves.
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Not true. The longer ago you retired, the greater your "return" was from this program. The return is now negative and will remain so. Prior generations were indeed able to vote themselves a substantial benefit the nature and degree of which future retirees will not and cannot receive.

How did you manage to double-think a thing like that into existence? The whole thing is based on EARNED entitlements!

The relationship, contract, or whatever you want to call it (administered by government with the threat of punishment of the law for anyone who doesn't obey, for decades) is that YOU PAY, and then after you reach the official retirement age, YOU COLLECT. It's no more complicated than that -- very straightforward.
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When the amount collected progressively diminishes relative to the amount paid, you know it's a slowly dying program.
 
Pollycy said:
I'm not trying to "throw someone else's money" at anything. What I'm advocating is that there should be no "cap" on the amount of earnings that are taxed. It is unfair, unjust, and arbitrary; moreover, there's no logical reason why people making more than $118K shouldn't have to pay according to the same formulas that everybody else has to observe. Why should earnings >$118K not be taxed?
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You've always paid only up to a cap. Given that pre-retirement age folks make the most and will be most likely to be above the cap, why are you willing to change the deal for them to charge them more, but not to let their benefits continue to grow, but more slowly.

I'm not trying to "reward" anyone. The Social Security program has been the Law of the Land for 80 years, and nobody, including Boomers, Gen-X'ers, Millennials, or anybody else has been able to vote a "reward" for themselves. How did you manage to double-think a thing like that into existence? The whole thing is based on EARNED entitlements!
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No, its based on the next generation paying for you. You don't have an ownership or earned right to a penny - that has ALSO been the Law Of The Land for half a century.

The relationship, contract, or whatever you want to call it
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Is nonexistent, though unscrupulous politicians will tell you otherwise. You do not have a "relationship" with a redistributive organ of government.

(administered by government with the threat of punishment of the law for anyone who doesn't obey, for decades)
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Taxes usually work like that.

is that YOU PAY, and then after you reach the official retirement age, YOU COLLECT.
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Hopefully. But the government is under no obligation to give you a dime. If someone told you otherwise, ever since Fleming, they lied to you :(.
 
cpwill said:
You've always paid only up to a cap. Given that pre-retirement age folks make the most and will be most likely to be above the cap, why are you willing to change the deal for them to charge them more, but not to let their benefits continue to grow, but more slowly.



No, its based on the next generation paying for you. You don't have an ownership or earned right to a penny - that has ALSO been the Law Of The Land for half a century.



Is nonexistent, though unscrupulous politicians will tell you otherwise. You do not have a "relationship" with a redistributive organ of government.



Taxes usually work like that.



Hopefully. But the government is under no obligation to give you a dime. If someone told you otherwise, ever since Fleming, they lied to you :(.
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I haven't advocated cutting anybody's earned benefits at all! What I'm saying is that if you earn a million bucks a year, then you should pay FICA taxes on a million bucks a year -- not $118K, or some other arbitrary amount. By the same token, when it's time for this person to retire, the payout should be proportionally higher, too. You pay more into the system -- you get proportionally more back from the system. It's called fairness, and "equality before the law"!

I understand that there are those of you who think it's perfectly fine to screw people out of EARNED entitlements (what would YOU call it when a person is forced to pay into systems?) Well, "Fleming" be damned! If anybody thinks they're going to build or sustain a political power base by screwing 80,000,000 Baby Boomers out of their just entitlements is going to be committing political suicide -- especially after we've all seen the government and the Federal Reserve private bankers' cartel change and break ALL the rules governing our free market economic system in order to "rescue" a pack of stock market jackals and scheming, criminal investment bankers who CAUSED the Great Recession in the first place!

So, you advocate looking the other way when the government rescues those creep bastards, but screwing people out of their earned benefits?! You have a right to your obviously and blatantly unfair opinion. Lots of luck selling that pack of deceitful, fraudulent crap to American voters! Like I've said before -- these conniving advocates of shaving, cutting, and "means testing" are going to make Democrats out of what used to be rock-solid Conservatives... and I'm one of them!
 
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Pollycy said:
I'm not trying to "throw someone else's money" at anything. What I'm advocating is that there should be no "cap" on the amount of earnings that are taxed. It is unfair, unjust, and arbitrary; moreover, there's no logical reason why people making more than $118K shouldn't have to pay according to the same formulas that everybody else has to observe. Why should earnings >$118K not be taxed?
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First, unless you are making more than the cap you are throwing other people's money. Second if you are a boomer, it is ironic that you would be so puzzled. Up to the mid 80s, the cap insulated workers from the tax. So you are going to say that you are going back in time and pay the taxes in full?
 
Pollycy said:
I'm not trying to "reward" anyone. The Social Security program has been the Law of the Land for 80 years, and nobody, including Boomers, Gen-X'ers, Millennials, or anybody else has been able to vote a "reward" for themselves. How did you manage to double-think a thing like that into existence? The whole thing is based on EARNED entitlements!

The relationship, contract, or whatever you want to call it (administered by government with the threat of punishment of the law for anyone who doesn't obey, for decades) is that YOU PAY, and then after you reach the official retirement age, YOU COLLECT. It's no more complicated than that -- very straightforward.
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It has been the law created by people that you got to vote for. You want to pass along the cost of your choices to the next generation that had no vote. Why should someone who is 32 who wasn't even born the last time that SS was reformed be expected to fix the mess that was created by Boomers.

You are trying to rewrite history. You need to spend some time with Flemming V Nestor. Yes YOU COLLECT . The voters get to tell you how much. If current voters change SS to means test the system, you very well might get zero. If you are above said means, you are entitled to zero. You really ought to learn more about the system which you believe is EARNED.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
This is a piece that you will find interesting. He doesn't see any generational warfare. He thinks that it will be a good thing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ef1512-9392-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html
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yes good article. I especially agree with his last sentence.
I do not believe it to be the fault of the baby boomers. I mean they cannot help that they are living longer, and many do need to continue to work so they do not hafta rely on the government when they become octogenarians.
My beef with the baby boom is.. The ones who never grew out of the Leftist and hippie type ideologies that they yucked up in the 60s and 70s are running this damn country now! That is what is driving the debt and making it harder for the rest of us, and especially when they are gone.
 
Kal'Stang said:
SS is not broke. It is over drawn due to politicians using it for things that it was never designed to be used for to begin with. It was designed to be used only for retirement. That's it. Instead our politicians saw it as a free dipping money jar and started "borrowing" from it in order to pay for damn near anything that they couldn't get money for legitimately.

Want to fix SS? Make the politicians pay back all the money they "borrowed" from SS.
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Hence Bill Clinton's alleged balanced budget... which was anything but... which too many liberals still like to tout.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
It has been the law created by people that you got to vote for. You want to pass along the cost of your choices to the next generation that had no vote. Why should someone who is 32 who wasn't even born the last time that SS was reformed be expected to fix the mess that was created by Boomers.

You are trying to rewrite history. You need to spend some time with Flemming V Nestor. Yes YOU COLLECT . The voters get to tell you how much. If current voters change SS to means test the system, you very well might get zero. If you are above said means, you are entitled to zero. You really ought to learn more about the system which you believe is EARNED.
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And now, even more double-think! So, in your estimation, you can be forced to pay all your life into mandatory government entitlement systems, and be told by revisionists, most of whom haven't paid a FRACTION of what you've been forced to pay, that you must be "means-tested", and that they're perfectly willing to change this binding deal on you. You'll get whatever they think you should get, and that's FAIR?!

Yeah. I've "got" it now. Too bad we didn't legalize abortion several years earlier than we did. We'd probably have a lot fewer of these wanna-be confiscation artists in our midst, trying to use threadbare arguments to steal from people whose only crime was to be willing to obey, and pay, and pay, and pay.

Try floating this convoluted, unfair confiscation rigmarole to American voters next year -- especially to 80,000,000 Boomers. You'll bring about the biggest Democrat landslide victory in history! Hint: Boomers were the last fairly well educated generation this country has produced, and, Boomers VOTE! :congrats:
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
First, unless you are making more than the cap you are throwing other people's money. Second if you are a boomer, it is ironic that you would be so puzzled. Up to the mid 80s, the cap insulated workers from the tax. So you are going to say that you are going back in time and pay the taxes in full?
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No, Joe... (*Sigh!*)... I'm saying that we should change the policy GOING FORWARD so that people pay FICA taxes based on their actual incomes. That's it! Why do you have such difficulty grasping such a simple concept? If you make x-dollars per year, or y-dollars per year, or z-dollars per year, you pay FICA taxes on the total income that you earned. How can I possibly make it any simpler than that...? Why are FICA taxes capped at $118K per year in the first place...? Hell, I thought that at least we were in agreement on THIS. But, no, what you're interested in is confiscation and "means testing". Lotsa luck, like I've already said.... :2razz:
 
Pollycy said:
I haven't advocated cutting anybody's earned benefits at all! What I'm saying is that if you earn a million bucks a year, then you should pay FICA taxes on a million bucks a year -- not $118K, or some other arbitrary amount. By the same token, when it's time for this person to retire, the payout should be proportionally higher, too. You pay more into the system -- you get proportionally more back from the system. It's called fairness, and "equality before the law"!

I understand that there are those of you who think it's perfectly fine to screw people out of EARNED entitlements (what would YOU call it when a person is forced to pay into systems?) Well, "Fleming" be damned! If anybody thinks they're going to build or sustain a political power base by screwing 80,000,000 Baby Boomers out of their just entitlements is going to be committing political suicide -- especially after we've all seen the government and the Federal Reserve private bankers' cartel change and break ALL the rules governing our free market economic system in order to "rescue" a pack of stock market jackals and scheming, criminal investment bankers who CAUSED the Great Recession in the first place!

So, you advocate looking the other way when the government rescues those creep bastards, but screwing people out of their earned benefits?! You have a right to your obviously and blatantly unfair opinion. Lots of luck selling that pack of deceitful, fraudulent crap to American voters! Like I've said before -- these conniving advocates of shaving, cutting, and "means testing" are going to make Democrats out of what used to be rock-solid Conservatives... and I'm one of them!
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:roll: If you're just here to be angry and throw a tantrum, you aren't worth talking to.

1. I already said that I opposed the bailouts. I agree with you that people are abusing SSDI.

2. You don't get to say "SCOTUS Be Dammed" and hope to have that stick. You can't appeal to the law, and then toss the law overboard when it is inconvenient to you.

3. If you take more money from people who have yet to retire, then you are taking more money from them - you are changing the deal. If you slow the growth in their benefit -you are changing the deal. In both cases you change the deal, and less money than would have been taken in a magical world where none of this was mathematically necessary ends up in their pockets.

4. When I am forced to pay government money, it is called taxes. I don't earn anything for them, I just pay them. I earn money at work or through investing, not in giving taxes to government so that they can redistribute those funds to someone else.

5. No one is talking about screwing 80 million boomers. Chris Christie has talked about reducing benefits for seniors starting at those who earn more than $80,000 a year outside of Social Security[/i], and raising the retirement age after boomers have already retired and made it into the system. If you have any numbers I'd like to see them, but my bet is that a very small minority of boomers make more than $200K a year (at which point Christie says it goes away) outside of SS, and that a somewhat larger minority of boomers make more than $80K.

6. If boomers vote to go down with the Titanic because they paid for First Class and they aren't leaving their cabin.... :shrug: I will laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh when the check comes due, and all of you are surprised when you get a sudden cut in benefits, about 8-10 years from now. You will have successfully managed to **** over yourselves.
 
Saucey said:
yes good article. I especially agree with his last sentence.
I do not believe it to be the fault of the baby boomers. I mean they cannot help that they are living longer, and many do need to continue to work so they do not hafta rely on the government when they become octogenarians.
My beef with the baby boom is.. The ones who never grew out of the Leftist and hippie type ideologies that they yucked up in the 60s and 70s are running this damn country now! That is what is driving the debt and making it harder for the rest of us, and especially when they are gone.
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What living longer? People aren't living longer. More people are living normal lifetimes. Between the cohorts of 1935 and 1960, the life expectancy of a retiree has fallen (because the retirement age has increased). Here is the irony. Most of the increase in life expectancy has occurred at a time when we are contributing to the system rather than collecting from it. Meanwhile the cost has increased 10 fold.

The Boomers all of them could vote in 1983. That reform was the in which we made their retirement concerns a problem for their children. The maximum tax increase/largest benefit cuts fell on people who were 11 and younger at the time - now we want to go back to the same well.
 
Kal'Stang said:
SS is not broke. It is over drawn due to politicians using it for things that it was never designed to be used for to begin with. It was designed to be used only for retirement. That's it. Instead our politicians saw it as a free dipping money jar and started "borrowing" from it in order to pay for damn near anything that they couldn't get money for legitimately.

Want to fix SS? Make the politicians pay back all the money they "borrowed" from SS.
Click to expand...

The Trustees' projections assume that all the borrowed (or "borrowed") money will be repaid with interest. No one seriously questions that assumption. After the money is repaid - the system will have a shortfall of roughly 25 trillion.
 
Pollycy said:
No, Joe... (*Sigh!*)... I'm saying that we should change the policy GOING FORWARD so that people pay FICA taxes based on their actual incomes. That's it! Why do you have such difficulty grasping such a simple concept? If you make x-dollars per year, or y-dollars per year, or z-dollars per year, you pay FICA taxes on the total income that you earned. How can I possibly make it any simpler than that...? Why are FICA taxes capped at $118K per year in the first place...? Hell, I thought that at least we were in agreement on THIS. But, no, what you're interested in is confiscation and "means testing". Lotsa luck, like I've already said.... :2razz:
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You are saying that someone else should pay the taxes that you didn't. Your generation was protected by the cap that you now want to eliminate. Your generation ignored the problem, and voted for people who reformed the system in 1983. That reform was based on the idea that your kids would pay the taxes that your generation didn't. It put the maximum increase of tax/largest benefit cuts on people who were 11 and younger at the time. The problem is that those people now have a vote, and you are complaining that they may not want to live up to the deal that your politicians made. They may and they may not. But you can't seriously bitch too much if they say sorry your promise came from your politicians go get the money from them.

You think that Boomers are a large voting block. Here is the problem more than 50% of the voting public expects to retire after the system pays depleted benefits. Lotsa of luck telling them you are more entitled than they are.
 
I am not for it at all...and I am not a Democrat, not a Republican, not a socialist, not a Libertarian or libertarian...so I cannot vote.

Social Security is not broken...and your "fix" might break it.
 
Pollycy said:
And now, even more double-think! So, in your estimation, you can be forced to pay all your life into mandatory government entitlement systems, and be told by revisionists, most of whom haven't paid a FRACTION of what you've been forced to pay, that you must be "means-tested", and that they're perfectly willing to change this binding deal on you. You'll get whatever they think you should get, and that's FAIR?!

Yeah. I've "got" it now. Too bad we didn't legalize abortion several years earlier than we did. We'd probably have a lot fewer of these wanna-be confiscation artists in our midst, trying to use threadbare arguments to steal from people whose only crime was to be willing to obey, and pay, and pay, and pay.

Try floating this convoluted, unfair confiscation rigmarole to American voters next year -- especially to 80,000,000 Boomers. You'll bring about the biggest Democrat landslide victory in history! Hint: Boomers were the last fairly well educated generation this country has produced, and, Boomers VOTE! :congrats:
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You really need to read Flemming V Nestor. If you feel lied to, take it up with the politicians that you voted for.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
You are saying that someone else should pay the taxes that you didn't. Your generation was protected by the cap that you now want to eliminate. Your generation ignored the problem, and voted for people who reformed the system in 1983. That reform was based on the idea that your kids would pay the taxes that your generation didn't. It put the maximum increase of tax/largest benefit cuts on people who were 11 and younger at the time. The problem is that those people now have a vote, and you are complaining that they may not want to live up to the deal that your politicians made. They may and they may not. But you can't seriously bitch too much if they say sorry your promise came from your politicians go get the money from them.

You think that Boomers are a large voting block. Here is the problem more than 50% of the voting public expects to retire after the system pays depleted benefits. Lotsa of luck telling them you are more entitled than they are.
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Clearly, we'll never agree, and that's strange to me if only because I sense that we're both more Center-Right, and maybe Conservative by nature. Believe this if nothing else -- never one time during my long life has anyone ever come out to "we the people" (voters) with a referendum plan for the "reform" of Social Security. Elected officials of both parties cobbled all this crap together, but the BINDING understanding, and the legal specifics that threaten a worker are (and always have been) between that worker and his employer and the Federal Government! The worker MUST pay the government... then, the government MUST pay the retired worker. Anyone trying to change that bedrock understanding between workers and government after 80 freaking years is committing political suicide. Does either of us want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House? I sure as hell don't! But, keep pushing a confiscation scheme for Social Security and she'll win in the biggest landslide in history!

JoeTheEconomist said:
You really need to read Flemming V Nestor. If you feel lied to, take it up with the politicians that you voted for.
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The politicians that put Social Security and Medicare solidly in place are long since dead as a doornail. What remains is that bedrock understanding between workers and government. If Flemming v Nestor contradicts that, believe me, after the "confiscationists" have been obliterated by 80,000,000 Boomers, Flemming v Nestor can join things like Jim Crow Laws in the trash can of legal history....
 
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Pollycy said:
The politicians that put Social Security and Medicare solidly in place are long since dead as a doornail. What remains is that bedrock understanding between workers and government. If Flemming v Nestor contradicts that, believe me, after the "confiscationists" have been obliterated by 80,000,000 Boomers, Flemming v Nestor can join things like Jim Crow Laws in the trash can of legal history....
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Flemming V Nestor is not a law. It is a Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court rules that retirees had no earned interest in SS benefits. Benefit levels are what Congress says that they are. Benefit cuts are not new. There were large ones in 1977 and 1983. So the government doesn't have to pay retirees. They just change what is owed. This is how Bernie Sanders can say that SS had paid every penny of benefit due to every American since its inception. Nestor of course disagrees with him.

From the holding :

"(B) TO ENGRAFT UPON THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM A CONCEPT OF "ACCRUED PROPERTY RIGHTS" WOULD DEPRIVE IT OF THE FLEXIBILITY AND BOLDNESS IN ADJUSTMENT TO EVER-CHANGING CONDITIONS WHICH IT DEMANDS AND WHICH CONGRESS PROBABLY HAD IN MIND WHEN IT EXPRESSLY RESERVED THE RIGHT TO ALTER, AMEND OR REPEAL ANY PROVISION OF THE ACT. PP. 610-611."

https://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html

I am a boomer, and I would like Social Security to work for my kids so you have 79,999,999, less people who are under 60 that want to preserve the system as well. Whatever the figure is, it is smaller than people who are 48 and younger, who account for 50% of the voting public. The difference between today and 1983 is that changes are required for current voters. There will not be a cushion given to those 45 and older as was the case in 1983.

The math is pretty simple. The only way that you will get full benefits is if you can convince younger workers to take benefit cuts like increasing the retirement age. The sell-side of this notion is on strong, telling people that it is necessary and understandable because we are living longer. The logic is BS, but it is full on sell. You will need to find double the savings, either convincing younger workers to take more cuts or force someone to pay more in taxes. If we are going to remove the cap, let's do it retroactively and collect from all of the Boomers who used the shield while they were working.
 
JoeTheEconomist said:
Flemming V Nestor is not a law. It is a Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court rules that retirees had no earned interest in SS benefits. Benefit levels are what Congress says that they are. Benefit cuts are not new. There were large ones in 1977 and 1983. So the government doesn't have to pay retirees. They just change what is owed. This is how Bernie Sanders can say that SS had paid every penny of benefit due to every American since its inception. Nestor of course disagrees with him.

From the holding :

"(B) TO ENGRAFT UPON THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM A CONCEPT OF "ACCRUED PROPERTY RIGHTS" WOULD DEPRIVE IT OF THE FLEXIBILITY AND BOLDNESS IN ADJUSTMENT TO EVER-CHANGING CONDITIONS WHICH IT DEMANDS AND WHICH CONGRESS PROBABLY HAD IN MIND WHEN IT EXPRESSLY RESERVED THE RIGHT TO ALTER, AMEND OR REPEAL ANY PROVISION OF THE ACT. PP. 610-611."

https://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html

I am a boomer, and I would like Social Security to work for my kids so you have 79,999,999, less people who are under 60 that want to preserve the system as well. Whatever the figure is, it is smaller than people who are 48 and younger, who account for 50% of the voting public. The difference between today and 1983 is that changes are required for current voters. There will not be a cushion given to those 45 and older as was the case in 1983.

The math is pretty simple. The only way that you will get full benefits is if you can convince younger workers to take benefit cuts like increasing the retirement age. The sell-side of this notion is on strong, telling people that it is necessary and understandable because we are living longer. The logic is BS, but it is full on sell. You will need to find double the savings, either convincing younger workers to take more cuts or force someone to pay more in taxes. If we are going to remove the cap, let's do it retroactively and collect from all of the Boomers who used the shield while they were working.
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Again, I can at least partially agree... we should increase the retirement age -- but not slam people with it who are already at least, say, 55 years old. We should offer options for investment plans so that a worker can put some of that money into stocks, bonds, other annuities, gold, silver (ugh!) or whatever they want. We definitely should make no changes whatsoever to the Social Security payouts to people who are currently 62 and over. That would be execrably WRONG!

I also think that FICA taxes should be paid on a person's total income... not just the first $118K, because I don't think that "millionaires and billionaires" should get a free ride on everything they make in excess of that amount.

Lastly, I believe that IF there were, indeed, a "crisis" with Social Security in the next however-many-years (2032? 2028?), that government and the Federal Reserve combine need to "rescue" it in exactly the same way that they so urgently "rescued" Wall Street investment bankers, from summer 2007 up until this very morning. Nothing's too good for those slimebags!

Perhaps our closest point of agreement might be that neither of us wants to see another damned hyperliberal Democrat in the White House in 2016. With all my heart and mind, I tell you that if Hillary Clinton is elected in 2016, Iran will have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them with, and we'll likely be sucked into a REAL war by about the year 2025. Which may make any argument about Social Security superfluous anyway.... ;)
 
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Pollycy said:
Again, I can at least partially agree... we should increase the retirement age -- but not slam people with it who are already at least, say, 55 years old. We should offer options for investment plans so that a worker can put some of that money into stocks, bonds, other annuities, gold, silver (ugh!) or whatever they want. We definitely should make no changes whatsoever to the Social Security payouts to people who are currently 62 and over. That would be execrably WRONG!

I also think that FICA taxes should be paid on a person's total income... not just the first $118K, because I don't think that "millionaires and billionaires" should get a free ride on everything they make in excess of that amount.

Lastly, I believe that IF there were, indeed, a "crisis" with Social Security in the next however-many-years (2032? 2028?), that government and the Federal Reserve combine need to "rescue" it in exactly the same way that they so urgently "rescued" Wall Street investment bankers, from summer 2007 up until this very morning. Nothing's too good for those slimebags!

Perhaps our closest point of agreement might be that neither of us wants to see another damned hyperliberal Democrat in the White House in 2016. With all my heart and mind, I tell you that if Hillary Clinton is elected in 2016, Iran will have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them with, and we'll likely be sucked into a REAL war by about the year 2025. Which may make any argument about Social Security superfluous anyway.... ;)
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Increasing the SS retirement age hurts in two ways: it limits job opportunities for other workers and it increases the odds that one will qualify for even higher SS disability benefits. Why set the retirement age at one level for government employees (55?) or those with IRAs (59 1/2?) and establish a higher age (70?) for those relying on SS? The SS "full benefit" age is already significantly higher than for most other retirement plans.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Increasing the SS retirement age hurts in two ways: it limits job opportunities for other workers and it increases the odds that one will qualify for even higher SS disability benefits. Why set the retirement age at one level for government employees (55?) or those with IRAs (59 1/2?) and establish a higher age (70?) for those relying on SS? The SS "full benefit" age is already significantly higher than for most other retirement plans.
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It hurts in a third way. It really doesn't fix SS as much as it allocates the brokenness to the next generation. The life expectancy of today's workers is that much longer. It is no different from just cutting their benefits, or cutting the benefits of people whose last name has the letter P in it. Yes, it helps preserve the system for today's retirees, but only by making it more broken for future workers. There is a significant sell side in this story. People aren't living longer. More people are living normal lifetimes. This is a very bad thing for SS structurally. It is supposed to be insurance. Insurance works when you can concentrate the resources of the pool on those affected. It doesn't work very well when everyone is the pool. You need statistics like the 1930s when only half of workers reached retirement. In that scenario you can apply the unused contributions to support the worker who did survive. It is a problem that no one wants to talk about.
 
cpwill said:
Here is my proposal:

Allow workers to opt into a partially privatized system, where of their 7.65% FICA expenditures, 5% goes into a private TSP-style account; and the Employers match follow the same. the remaining 2.65% (or, when you count the match, 5.3%) will go straight into SS, but it will be revenue for which SS will never see a liability. the cost for opting out is that part of your pay continues to go to pay for others, but the upside is that you get a combined total of 10% of your annual income going into a retirement account that belongs to you, and grows tax-free. Social Securities' revenues will instantly drop, but nowhere near as severely as their liabilities. To ensure solvency in the adjustment period (and to make it politically palatable); lift the cap. We can lift the cap on only the worker (and not the employer) if we want to encourage job-creation; or lift it on both if we need the revenue to ensure solvency, or if that's the only way to get the thing passed; here is room for compromise wiggling. Higher paid workers will see more of their money leave in the form of taxes, but those making less than $604,000 will get back even more in the form of ownership of personalized accounts (assuming the employer cap isn't lifted, and that's not figuring for the added benefit of those accounts growing tax-free), and so they will be willing to make the trade. Perhaps another compromise point would be to raise the cap to $604K. Poorer workers can either spend their lifetime building far more wealth than they ever would have seen under Social Security if they are younger, or keep the guaranteed program benefits if they are older.

ta-da! the American people and the Government are left better off.

how much better off?
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There is no need to destroy SS to save it, and there is an easy way to increase its funding.
 
BitterPill said:
There is no need to destroy SS to save it, and there is an easy way to increase its funding.
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:) There are ways to increase its' funding. Saving the program, however, is a bit trickier than that.

Nor does this program destroy Social Security - on the contrary, it makes it a much better deal for Americans, gives financial independence to our low-income retirees, creates generational transfers of wealth, and becomes a massive net tax revenue generator downstream, allowing us to reduce the tax burden on job creation.
 
cpwill said:
:) There are ways to increase its' funding. Saving the program, however, is a bit trickier than that.

Nor does this program destroy Social Security - on the contrary, it makes it a much better deal for Americans, gives financial independence to our low-income retirees, creates generational transfers of wealth, and becomes a massive net tax revenue generator downstream, allowing us to reduce the tax burden on job creation.
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If there are ways to save SS for future generations, why kill SS?
 
cpwill said:
:) There are ways to increase its' funding. Saving the program, however, is a bit trickier than that.

Nor does this program destroy Social Security - on the contrary, it makes it a much better deal for Americans, gives financial independence to our low-income retirees, creates generational transfers of wealth, and becomes a massive net tax revenue generator downstream, allowing us to reduce the tax burden on job creation.
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Its actually one way to really differentiate us from the rest of the world, democratizing wealth accumulation and more importantly begin a cycle of saving and invest on a scale not yet seen. Its a hell of a lot better than some Ponzi scheme. Another benefit is it will start making people really look at their government and what it is doing as it would be directly affecting THEIR future and I absolutely love that idea.
 
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