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Idea To Help Toward The Solvency Of Social Security

Moderate Right

Moderate Right

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I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
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Assuming that one is likely going to live until age 80, it makes no sense to opt to wait for an 8% annual SS benefit increase when every year (after age 70) represents (at least) 10% of your reamining life expectancy.

SS benefits are already "means tested" since the more income one has the more of their SS is treated as taxable income (owed back to the US treasury at the top marginal tax rate).
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
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Moderate Right, due to ill health and/or poverty, most elderly could find no advantage within this proposal. (Although life spans have increased, other factors of elderly lives have not been improved to similar extents). I'm opposed to reducing retirees' benefits or mandatory extending their retirements' commencing ages.

In principal, I'm in agreement with your proposal to reward those who delay their retirement.

If the U.S. Congress drafting of the proposed law would heed U.S. Congressional Budget Office’s console based upon predicted demographics and U.S. Treasury bonds’ interest rates, The law would not likely reduce net federal annual budgets’ tax revenues or harm to any retirees, while being of increased benefit to those retirees that could avail themselves of the proposal’s benefits.
I would suppose the effective proportional increase of future benefits per year of additional delay to commencing retirement, would increase progressively with the ages of retirement commencements.

Additionally, retirees paying income taxes upon prior year’s Social Security retirement benefits, should receive a refund of their prior year’s FICA payments.
Respectfully, Supposn
 
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I'm Supposn said:
Moderate Right, due to ill health and/or poverty, most elderly could find no advantage within this proposal. (Although life spans have increased, other factors of elderly lives have not been improved to similar extents). I'm opposed to reducing retirees' benefits or mandatory extending their retirements' commencing ages.

In principal, I'm in agreement with your proposal to reward those who delay their retirement.

If the U.S. Congress drafting of the proposed law would heed U.S. Congressional Budget Office’s console based upon predicted demographics and U.S. Treasury bonds’ interest rates, The law would not likely reduce net federal annual budgets’ tax revenues or harm to any retirees, while being of increased benefit to those retirees that could avail themselves of the proposal’s benefits.
I would suppose the effective proportional increase of future benefits per year of additional delay to commencing retirement, would increase progressively with the ages of retirement commencements.

Additionally, retirees paying income taxes upon prior year’s Social Security retirement benefits, should receive a refund of their prior year’s FICA payments.
Respectfully, Supposn
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In most cases it wouldn't benefit the average Joe or Jane, but the idea is that richer people who are more well off might roll the dice and delay collecting in hopes of getting a bigger and bigger SS check and then some of those would die earlier than they thought and the SS system would come out ahead in decreased payments, helping keep the system afloat longer.
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
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I got another idea. How about if the U.S. government paid back the 2.5 trillion dollars it 'borrowed' from social security?
 
RAMOSS said:
I got another idea. How about if the U.S. government paid back the 2.5 trillion dollars it 'borrowed' from social security?
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RAMOSS, the treasury Department pays interest to the Social Security fund. If additional funds are required to operate the social Security retirement system, those funds are made available to the Social Security system. Where do you believe those U.S. monthly deposits into beneficiaries bank accounts came from?

You shouldn't believe what you read on Twitter or Facebook. Respectfully, Supposn
 
RAMOSS said:
I got another idea. How about if the U.S. government paid back the 2.5 trillion dollars it 'borrowed' from social security?
Click to expand...

It is paying it back, the SS surplus was converted to T-bills. They are legal tender and earns interest.
 
RAMOSS said:
I got another idea. How about if the U.S. government paid back the 2.5 trillion dollars it 'borrowed' from social security?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what side of the fence you are on with that reply but I don't believe the money you refer to is actually part of the formula. SS is going insolvent even if you had the 2.5 trillion. That is already taken into account as the others have basically said.
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
Click to expand...

The economic problem with Social Security is that when it was designed life expectancy was age 64, today it is nearly 80. Based on this fact I think it is fair to assume the program was not designed to provide a life of retirement from the workforce for 20 to 30 years. The only fix would be to bump up the retirement age by at least ten years. The problem with that is that would be political suicide for any politician to do so.
 
Cynical said:
The economic problem with Social Security is that when it was designed life expectancy was age 64, today it is nearly 80. Based on this fact I think it is fair to assume the program was not designed to provide a life of retirement from the workforce for 20 to 30 years. The only fix would be to bump up the retirement age by at least ten years. The problem with that is that would be political suicide for any politician to do so.
Click to expand...

Well, that is, on the surface, an easy argument. However, it is much more complex than that. The fact is, in many cases, our increased life expectancy doesn't have many working years involved in it. Yes, we live longer but we live longer in years that pretty much aren't very workable and there is a wider range of workable living years per individual today than there was back when SS first started. Some people may be able to work on into their 70's and 80's but we also have more health conditions as a whole (such as obesity) where many others can't even work into their 60's anymore.
 
Moderate Right said:
Well, that is, on the surface, an easy argument. However, it is much more complex than that. The fact is, in many cases, our increased life expectancy doesn't have many working years involved in it. Yes, we live longer but we live longer in years that pretty much aren't very workable and there is a wider range of workable living years per individual today than there was back when SS first started. Some people may be able to work on into their 70's and 80's but we also have more health conditions as a whole (such as obesity) where many others can't even work into their 60's anymore.
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I fully get what you are saying and completely understand that there are many people who won't be able to work much past their 60's. My main point though was to highlight that those who formulated Social Security ostensibly did not consider that life expectancy would increase by over 15 years. Nonetheless the current system is not sustainable. We have a very good economy but are running nearly trillion dollar deficits much of it due to the costs of Social Security and Medicare. Unless something changes I foresee Social Security becoming a means tested program at least up until a certain age.
 
Cynical said:
I fully get what you are saying and completely understand that there are many people who won't be able to work much past their 60's. My main point though was to highlight that those who formulated Social Security ostensibly did not consider that life expectancy would increase by over 15 years. Nonetheless the current system is not sustainable. We have a very good economy but are running nearly trillion dollar deficits much of it due to the costs of Social Security and Medicare. Unless something changes I foresee Social Security becoming a means tested program at least up until a certain age.
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I'm actually for means testing. Millionaires and billionaires getting social security checks is just absurd. I don't care that they paid into the system.
 
I'm Supposn said:
RAMOSS, the treasury Department pays interest to the Social Security fund. If additional funds are required to operate the social Security retirement system, those funds are made available to the Social Security system. Where do you believe those U.S. monthly deposits into beneficiaries bank accounts came from?

You shouldn't believe what you read on Twitter or Facebook. Respectfully, Supposn
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The problem is that the funds going into SS to keep it afloat are coming from the general fund effectively at this point. As these numbers continue to grow there will simply not be enough money to make it keep up.

iguanaman said:
It is paying it back, the SS surplus was converted to T-bills. They are legal tender and earns interest.
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This is inaccurate.

The SS surplus was, at one time, in a laddered portfolio of T-Notes/Bonds (never bills). However back in the 70's and 80's those treasury securities were converted to special issue notes. They are still treasury bonds, however they are no longer marketable, meaning they have no collateral value. In other words, there were originally US bonds in the trust fund, that could be sold to anyone around the world. Those were converted into IOUs which could only be cashed in with the treasury department and could not be resold to anyone else. Hence the "lockbox was raided" comments are pretty accurate.

It would be akin to breaking into a bank, stealing $1MM and leaving an IOU from "Bob the Bank Robber" in it's place. Sure, maybe Bob the Bank Robber replaces the money, but it isn't the same as having the money.

Moderate Right said:
Well, that is, on the surface, an easy argument. However, it is much more complex than that. The fact is, in many cases, our increased life expectancy doesn't have many working years involved in it. Yes, we live longer but we live longer in years that pretty much aren't very workable and there is a wider range of workable living years per individual today than there was back when SS first started. Some people may be able to work on into their 70's and 80's but we also have more health conditions as a whole (such as obesity) where many others can't even work into their 60's anymore.
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There is some truth here, however it seems to me the reasonable response is to raise the FICA rate and not try to make it a more progressive system. If you want to provide more benefits for everyone, then everyone should pay the same proportional amount. The problem is the left wants more and more (on everything) but they want the same 5% of society to pay for it all.
 
bave said:
The problem is that the funds going into SS to keep it afloat are coming from the general fund effectively at this point. As these numbers continue to grow there will simply not be enough money to make it keep up.



This is inaccurate.

The SS surplus was, at one time, in a laddered portfolio of T-Notes/Bonds (never bills). However back in the 70's and 80's those treasury securities were converted to special issue notes. They are still treasury bonds, however they are no longer marketable, meaning they have no collateral value. In other words, there were originally US bonds in the trust fund, that could be sold to anyone around the world. Those were converted into IOUs which could only be cashed in with the treasury department and could not be resold to anyone else. Hence the "lockbox was raided" comments are pretty accurate.

It would be akin to breaking into a bank, stealing $1MM and leaving an IOU from "Bob the Bank Robber" in it's place. Sure, maybe Bob the Bank Robber replaces the money, but it isn't the same as having the money.



There is some truth here, however it seems to me the reasonable response is to raise the FICA rate and not try to make it a more progressive system. If you want to provide more benefits for everyone, then everyone should pay the same proportional amount. The problem is the left wants more and more (on everything) but they want the same 5% of society to pay for it all.
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The SS trust fund is still as secure as it ever was no matter what the semantics. It also earns the same interest as T-bills which is the whole point of the exercise. I did get a chuckle at you calling the U.S Govt a "bank robber" though.
 
iguanaman said:
The SS trust fund is still as secure as it ever was no matter what the semantics. It also earns the same interest as T-bills which is the whole point of the exercise. I did get a chuckle at you calling the U.S Govt a "bank robber" though.
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This is also false. You can call it semantics all you want, but prior to the "lock box" robbery, the trust fund held marketable securities, meaning something that can easily be sold to any buyer at fair market value. That is no longer the case, there is now a promise there, but without the collateral. Try asking a bank to give you a mortgage on that premise.

You don't seem to understand what a T-Bill is. They don't use bill benchmarks, they use bond marks.

I would point out, that if *any* public or private institutional pension fund did this very same thing, people would go to jail.
 
bave said:
This is also false. You can call it semantics all you want, but prior to the "lock box" robbery, the trust fund held marketable securities, meaning something that can easily be sold to any buyer at fair market value. That is no longer the case, there is now a promise there, but without the collateral. Try asking a bank to give you a mortgage on that premise.

You don't seem to understand what a T-Bill is. They don't use bill benchmarks, they use bond marks.

I would point out, that if *any* public or private institutional pension fund did this very same thing, people would go to jail.
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The U.S. govt. has no "collateral"? :lol: The SS Trust fund is fully backed by the U.S. govt. and it is immaterial whether they can be sold to other parties. Why should the U.S Govt borrow from other parties when they can use the trust fund money and pay SS interest on that loan?
 
iguanaman said:
The U.S. govt. has no "collateral"? :lol: The SS Trust fund is fully backed by the U.S. govt. and it is immaterial whether they can be sold to other parties. Why should the U.S Govt borrow from other parties when they can use the trust fund money and pay SS interest on that loan?
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No, the SS trust fund has no collateral. There used to be collateral in the trust fund but it was replaced with unmarketable IOUs by the government which are effectively worthless. It doesn't matter if they are marketable to third parties? Then I should start paying all my employees with BaveBucks? That's not how it works. In order for something to have value it needs to be marketable. The government intentionally took a security that could be sold to a third party or forcibly redeemed and replaced it with something which was solely at the borrower's discretion. Point me to any other lending instrument that works like that.

I am not saying the SSTF needs to borrow from third parties, I am however saying it is a scummy move to take a solid piece of marketable collateral like a US T-Bond and replace it with a worthless IOU. One is as protected asset, the other is nothing at all.
 
bave said:
No, the SS trust fund has no collateral. There used to be collateral in the trust fund but it was replaced with unmarketable IOUs by the government which are effectively worthless. It doesn't matter if they are marketable to third parties? Then I should start paying all my employees with BaveBucks? That's not how it works. In order for something to have value it needs to be marketable. The government intentionally took a security that could be sold to a third party or forcibly redeemed and replaced it with something which was solely at the borrower's discretion. Point me to any other lending instrument that works like that.

I am not saying the SSTF needs to borrow from third parties, I am however saying it is a scummy move to take a solid piece of marketable collateral like a US T-Bond and replace it with a worthless IOU. One is as protected asset, the other is nothing at all.
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Tell me again how the Federal Govt. is going to renege on its promise to American workers who paid into that fund with their sweat and blood. If they ever do that it will be the least of our worries. I'll be waiting.
 
iguanaman said:
Tell me again how the Federal Govt. is going to renege on its promise to American workers who paid into that fund with their sweat and blood. If they ever do that it will be the least of our worries. I'll be waiting.
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Means testing it, taxing it more, raising the age requirement....

Oh wait, they already did all of those things.
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
Click to expand...

Not a bad set of ideas, give or take a few minor deets here and there but I would also recommend doing away with the income cap or loosening up the barriers to raising it when necessary. Adjusting the income cap is straight up insurance actuary stuff which is done all the time, so no reason to brick wall it the way we seem to right now.
If SS needs to lift the income cap from what it is right now (What is it, something like $137k per year?) to $230k, then let them do it.
And yes, means tests sound cruel but if someone is sitting on a thirteen million dollar nest egg, for example, is it really cruel or is it just the price one pays for civilization and the general welfare?

But on the whole I like your ideas for the most part.
I think I still would set a hard upper age limit though, a 75 year old guy who is hale and hearty and well set financially might be destitute and in horrible shape two years later.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Not a bad set of ideas, give or take a few minor deets here and there but I would also recommend doing away with the income cap or loosening up the barriers to raising it when necessary. Adjusting the income cap is straight up insurance actuary stuff which is done all the time, so no reason to brick wall it the way we seem to right now.
If SS needs to lift the income cap from what it is right now (What is it, something like $137k per year?) to $230k, then let them do it.
And yes, means tests sound cruel but if someone is sitting on a thirteen million dollar nest egg, for example, is it really cruel or is it just the price one pays for civilization and the general welfare?

But on the whole I like your ideas for the most part.
I think I still would set a hard upper age limit though, a 75 year old guy who is hale and hearty and well set financially might be destitute and in horrible shape two years later.
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So you want to force someone to contribute more money to a pension program that is then going to steal it? Think about what you just said...

You want to raise taxes on people an additional 12.4%, so that the "insurance" can then be revoked by a means testing, which reinforces not saving for yourself?

That's the dumbest f'n idea I have ever heard. Let me pay another $15k into a program that is going to earn me zero real return on investment, tax me on the return of my dollars, reduce my benefit amount if I have income, and then later just means test it away from me?

What's next, apply OASDI to unearned income?
 
bave said:
So you want to force someone to contribute more money to a pension program that is then going to steal it? Think about what you just said...

You want to raise taxes on people an additional 12.4%, so that the "insurance" can then be revoked by a means testing, which reinforces not saving for yourself?

That's the dumbest f'n idea I have ever heard. Let me pay another $15k into a program that is going to earn me zero real return on investment, tax me on the return of my dollars, reduce my benefit amount if I have income, and then later just means test it away from me?

What's next, apply OASDI to unearned income?
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People are forced to pay taxes with a zero rate of return. SS doesn't have to be any different for the mega rich. The money you seem to be complaining about doesn't even effect the supermajority of Americans.
 
Moderate Right said:
I'm actually for means testing. Millionaires and billionaires getting social security checks is just absurd. I don't care that they paid into the system.
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I don't think there are enough billionaires and millionaires (although it will depend on how they define millionaire) getting SS that if removed it would make much of a difference. One way or another middle class American retirees will be impacted. Being the cynical person I am and in my mid fifties, personally I have my doubts that I will be getting SS.
 
Moderate Right said:
I had an idea spring into my mind today to help make social security more solvent into the future. I realize that this may not be the entire solution but just a part. It goes like this. Currently, you can retire at 62 and get X amount of benefits or you can wait until your full retirement age to get 100% of your calculated benefits. If you hold off on retirement you get an increase in yearly benefits for every year you delay collecting, up to age 70. After your full retirement age I believe it works out to about an 8% per year increase for every year you delay collecting after that full retirement age. After age 70 there are no further increases for delaying. I say we don't stop that process but continue it past age 70, with maybe even no time limit whatsoever. Every year you delay collecting, the percentage goes up by that same 8% and never stops.

What this does is encourage more people to delay collecting and they wouldn't delay collecting if they really needed the money. So, anyone who really needed the money (as 97% apparently do) would have their money. But, for the others who would have enough income to live on without collecting, they would get closer and closer to their death age with more actually dying before they even collected and several others not living long enough to make up for what their increases would have added up to over the years they collect. In other words, the government would save money by paying out less to these people because they had delayed collecting and they wouldn't have really been hurt from the process because if they really had needed the money they would have collected.

As I said, this is but one part of a possible solution. As we live longer the retirement age will have to be raised and we also may need to implement tiny increases in the Social Security tax rates. I've also been in favor of means testing benefits, even if you have paid in. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and the like really don't need SS checks. In any event, I am more interested in people's opinions and thoughts on the main topic I brought up.
Click to expand...

Trump is blowing the dough already it would be better to take it now since he is draining the bank.
 
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