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social security

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macavada:
The Bush plan does nothing to address the solvency issue.

Monkeyleg:
I posted a reply on this topic a few hours ago. It hasn't shown up. Why, I don't know.

My father is 87. He started paying into SS in the 1930's when his "contribution" was maybe ten cents a week.

Even in the 1960's, when he was at the peak of his earning years as a computer engineer, he was "contributing" 2.5% of his pay.

Since he began drawing benefits more than twenty years ago, he's gotten roughly $400,000 out of the system. There is absolutely no way that my father put enough into the SS system to warrant that amount of money.

My father figures he's gotten about a 500% return on his "contributions." He's an extremely intelligent man. He knows that this is a scheme.

Yet, he defends it. He defends it because he's an FDR Democrat. He defends it because Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and all the other opponents of Bush oppose any changes: any positive change to the system drains the Democrat's "scare base."

The Social Security system is going to go broke. It doesn't matter whether it does in 40 years or 70 years. Believe me, forty years goes by like a blink of the eye.

The alternatives to the current situation are thus:

1. Raise the FICA and CO-FICA taxes from the current 12.5% to higher levels.
2. Reduce the "benefit" for people either on SS or those who are factored into the current equation.
3. Raise the retirement age, and significantly so.
4. Raise the FICA ceiling from $90,000 to who-knows-what. My father, and many others, want to see no ceiling at all; Bill Gates, George Soros and other billionaires pay 12.5% as well.
5. Establish "means testing," whereby those who have saved enough on their own receive a lesser--or no--amount of benefits.
6. Gradually introduce privatization accounts over the course of generations, with each being able to put increasingly more of their FICA taxes into personal accounts.

For younger workers, option #1 is not an option.

For those of us who have paid 1/8th of our pay into this system, option #2 is not an option.

For those of us who will continue to work until we no longer can do so, option #3 is not exactly an option.

For those making more than $90,000 a year, option #4 is not an option. For most of my working years, the FICA ceiling chased me; everytime I thought I didn't have to pay in any more, they raised it.

What's more, raising the FICA ceiling to obscene levels is not fair. Of all of the options, it is the least fair. It is forced welfare payments, and exorbitant ones at that.

Option #5 is also completely unfair. It punishes those who planned properly, and rewards those who either didn't plan, or just had things go wrong.

I fall into the last category. I planned properly, but had things just go haywire, many of which were outside my control.

You'd think that, given what's happened to me, I'd favor raising the FICA ceiling, or establishing means-testing. After all, those plans keep my "benefits" the same without any pain, right?

Wrong. It's just wrong to seize more of a person's money as that person earns more. It defeats self-initiative. If we didn't learn anything from the collapse of Communism, we should have learned that much.

The only option that even approaches being "fair" is privatization. At my age, it does little or nothing for me. But it gives my great-nieces and nephews in their 20's a better shot at a better life when they're in their 60's.

As for the solvency question, the answer is a question itself: solvency when? Thirteen years from now, forty years from now, or seventy years from now. Or somewhere in between?

We've gone from 42 workers for every benefiary in the 1930's to 12:1 to 3:1, and we're coming up on just 2:1.

If we stay on the current course, "solvency" will either mean huge tax hikes for younger workers, or drastic benefit cuts for those of us who have had 1/8th of our pay taken to pay into a scheme many of us didn't want a part of.

GW has put SS on the front burner as an issue. He didn't have to do so, and could have let it slide just as other presidents did.

He does these sorts of things, though, and gets a large chunk of what he wants. Prior to raising the issue, it wasn't discussed at all. Now the issue isn't whether Bush's proposals are the right strategy, it's what the alternatives might be.

I suspect that GW is going to get a good portion of what he wants. And, considering the system we have now, that can only be good.

grampster:
What Monkeyleg said.

Fly320s:
Monkeyleg has some good ideas, but I like mine better.

Cut off Social Security.

No new enrollments, no more deductions from the people's paychecks.  Yep, lots of folks are gonna get screwed, me included.  But the short term pain sure beats the long term pain.

Let me decide where my money goes.  If I spend it all on guns and ammo and end up broke, but a good shot, then that is my problem.  I don't want you to pay for my retirement and I certainly do not want to pay for yours.

wmenorr67:
What most people forget is that SS was only there to supliment any retirement income people may have.  Also FDR also said something about 4% could go into "private" accounts.  I would love to have the right to say where my money is invested.
Also think about congress.  They nor the President pay into SS.  When they "retire" they receive what they were making when they did so.  Not a bad gig.

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