While I tend to not be angry at any individual SS recipient, I do find myself angry at "Seniors". That ill-defined, yet powerful voting bloc that seems to have congress living in perpetual fear. Especially here in FL the group represented by AARP and the like have politics locked down, and for their own advantage. One of the reasons SS can't be reformed is there's perpetually a large well represented group proclaiming "Yes, fix it, after I get my money". This group just keeps replenishing itself like The Flood
We seem to have two choices here:
Keep going, milk everyone you can and hope you squeak by before it crashes,
or
Stop now, take your losses and move on.
Obviously I prefer number two, partly because it's the right thing to do, and partly because it's still relatively early in my personal soaking. (Nick’s observation on personal economics is correct)
I can't claim to know Monkeyleg's finances but the fact remains that he CAN forgive that debt, if forced. If the fed.gov said tomorrow that SS is insolvent, and there were going to be no more payments, he'd have to. What other choice does he have?
And eventually, someone is going to get hit with that notice. There's no more money, you lost it all, sorry. I fully understand why nobody wants to be the hot potato, but come on, we gotta stop it somewhere.
I think the best thing that could happen for everyone is a date. Give folks 10 years. If you're over 67 and drawing SS Oct16 2019, we'll finish it. If you're 66, you're screwed put you have 10 years to come up with plan B. And we'll draw down the payroll deductions as the recipients die off. Yeah it's harsh. and yeah some folks are going to lose a lot of money, but as Chester so rightly put it "Life Ain't Fair." So much for my political fantasy.
What's actually going to happen is we'll keep going until the economic collapse gets to the point that the payouts can't be supported, and one day a bunch of people will wake up and discover there's no more "free" money. It'll be fun to be a SS office clerk that day.
ETA: FWIW none of my grandparents drew SS either.