64%...

[Cosmo]

If you truly cared about helping people and maintaining a sense of communal responsibility, you would be screaming for Social Security reform... without it, the system will collapse and no one will get anything.

Then I suppose we can all be communally screwed...

Have you any evidence for your assertion that "the system will collapse"?

 

[BigRob]

Have you any evidence for your assertion that "the system will collapse"?

Social Security Report

Social Security expenditures are expected to exceed tax receipts this year for the first time since 1983. The projected deficit of $41 billion this year (excluding interest income) is attributable to the recession and to an expected $25 billion downward adjustment to 2010 income that corrects for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink substantially for 2011 and to return to small surpluses for years 2012-2014 due to the improving economy. After 2014 deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation’s retirement causes the number of beneficiaries to grow substantially more rapidly than the number of covered workers. The annual deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets in amounts less than interest earnings through 2024, and then by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084.

There will be minor changes in these numbers are the economy changes, but the overall point remains the same...when the baby boomers all retire, we are going to have some serious problems...

Perhaps "collapse" was the wrong word..perhaps I should have said "dramatically change with a large reduction in benefits."

 

[Cosmo]

The SS trust fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus. It has paid out every nickel owed since its inception and it will already continue do so for the next 27 years. I repeat. SS is 100% solvent for the next 27 years. There is literally no reason to discuss it right now with everything else we need to address. It's just right wingers who have always hated SS bringing it up out of nowhere and demanding cuts. After that it can pay 75% of benefits for another 50 years. This talk is completely ludicrous. It can be made even more solvent by simply raising the tax cap slightly. There is no need whatsoever to make cuts now or ever or to even talk about them. It's a total red herring.

Given that we are involved in an escalated war in Afghanistan, we have untold millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed, we have healthcare costs that continue to skyrocket, we have rising levels of poverty, we have an existential crisis in climate change, we have rapidly rising food and gas prices, we have a crumbling national infrastructure, we have millions of Americans still in the midst of the foreclosure crisis, we have enormous challenges in education, etc etc etc........ is this really the time to panic over a program that is 100% solvent for the next 27 years?

 

[PLC1]

For decades, the SS system has been used as a cash cow to fund everything from welfare to wars. Now that the baby boomers are starting to retire, and SS payments are beginning to equal and soon surpass the money collected to fund it, we start hearing screams of , "end entitlement spending! SS is welfare! Socialism!" What a crock. it's time to start paying back those IUOs. The era of the free lunch is over.

 

[BigRob]

The SS trust fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus. It has paid out every nickel owed since its inception and it will already continue do so for the next 27 years. I repeat. SS is 100% solvent for the next 27 years. There is literally no reason to discuss it right now with everything else we need to address. It's just right wingers who have always hated SS bringing it up out of nowhere and demanding cuts. After that it can pay 75% of benefits for another 50 years. This talk is completely ludicrous. It can be made even more solvent by simply raising the tax cap slightly. There is no need whatsoever to make cuts now or ever or to even talk about them. It's a total red herring.

A ponzi scheme is a ponzi scheme regardless of what stage it is in.

We are going to have to address the issue at some point, why not now?

Given that we are involved in an escalated war in Afghanistan, we have untold millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed, we have healthcare costs that continue to skyrocket, we have rising levels of poverty, we have an existential crisis in climate change, we have rapidly rising food and gas prices, we have a crumbling national infrastructure, we have millions of Americans still in the midst of the foreclosure crisis, we have enormous challenges in education, etc etc etc........ is this really the time to panic over a program that is 100% solvent for the next 27 years?

We have and will always have other problems, but the existence of another problem is no reason to ignore other issues.

 

[BigRob]

For decades, the SS system has been used as a cash cow to fund everything from welfare to wars. Now that the baby boomers are starting to retire, and SS payments are beginning to equal and soon surpass the money collected to fund it, we start hearing screams of , "end entitlement spending! SS is welfare! Socialism!" What a crock. it's time to start paying back those IUOs. The era of the free lunch is over.

Social Security is not welfare...it is just a horrible investment that I want no part of.

 

[Gipper]

"As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the [Social Security] trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks. This claim is a breathtaking fraud. The pretense is that a flush trust fund will pay retirees for the next 26 years. Lovely, except for one thing: The Social Security trust fund is a fiction. If you don't believe me, listen to the OMB's own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal 2000 under then-Director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust fund 'balances' are nothing more than a 'bookkeeping' device. 'They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.' In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains -- nothing." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

Do you think Mr. K has it wrong?

 

[Dr.Who]

so getting payment for something you paid into...is a entitlement?

Definition of entitlement:

"An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation"

From wiki.


And yes social security is largely an entitlement because the benefits are guaranteed by law.

It is also a welfare program because since its inception it has been changed to pay people who have not paid in, or to pay them more than it should.

 

[Dr.Who]

Because, unfortunately for you, a long time ago people in this country decided that we would assume the task of actually caring about each other and maintaining a sense of communal responsibility.

I know that sucks and you wish it could be destroyed, but for now it still survives.

Before the government took over that role the people of this country did indeed take care of people.

Now the government as assumed that role and the people are no better cared for. What has changed is that the system "steals" money from taxpayers and redistributes it under the direction of politicians who manipulate it for votes and power.

Before it was imperfect and ethical now it is imperfect and unethical.

 

[Dr.Who]

ok so lets just act like thats the normal right?

also care to say why?

SSI and SSDI are both parts of social security that pays money to children who are disabled so that their parents can put them into an institution and not take care of them themselves and they are huge huge programs - normal.

 

[Dr.Who]

because if that was a option we would end up with lots and lots of old people with no income.....and I doubt anyone has any grand ideas how to deal with that in a ethical way...

Yes people do have grand ideas and those grand ideas been tried and worked just as well as the government programs.


Then we went and messed with something that was not broken. We took something that was ethical and turned it into "stealing" and coerced redistribution.