Tired Of Bending Over (Social Security)

Komo1000news ^ | 2/28/04 | Ken Schram

[qam1]

SEATTLE - Get ready to bend over, baby-boomers.

In essence, that was Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's message to everyone born between 1946 and 1964.

At 78 years of age, Greenspan's too old to bend over himself, so he figures it should be my generation that grabs its ankles.

Seems Alan G. is wringing his wrinkled hands over the 77 million baby boomers that'll begin retirement in four short years.

'Yikes!' said the man who surely collects his Social Security check every month, 'We've gotta do something 'cause there's not enough Social Security money to give us any security.'

And Alan G's proposal?

Well rather than raise taxes, why not just CUT the benefits all us boomers would be getting when we retire?

The other Greenspan brain burp?

Keep pushing the age of retirement HIGHER.

That means while we could still retire at age 65, we wouldn't get those DECREASED Social Security benefits until we're, oh let's say 104!

Hey, here's an idea Alan.

Why not suggest the president spend less and get the deficit lower.

Maybe advising him to quit giving tax cuts to his rich friends.

'Cause I'll tell ya Alan, my generation is tired of bending over for yours.

Want to share your thoughts with Ken Schram? You can e-mail him at kenschram@komo4news.com

[qam1]

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1982) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details.  

[Born Conservative]

Get ready to bend over, baby-boomers

BOHICA (bend over, here it comes again)

[TomServo]

Hey, here's an idea Alan.

Here's another. Gut the program and give us our damned money back.

[GeronL]

we should all start collecting our guns for the coming TAX WAR, when we are to pay 75% of our income for social security.

[ancient_geezer]

It never has been there. You just now finding it out?

 

What Social Security Trust Fund

"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fleming v. Nestor (1960), 363 US 603; that there is no Constitutional right to Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits can legally be cut or eliminated at any time, and beneficiaries have no recourse. The Court held that, "To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustments to ever changing conditions which it demands."

HELVERING v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 619 (1937)

• Title VIII(Social Security Act), as we have said, lays two different types of tax, an 'income tax on employees,' and 'an excise tax on employers.' The income tax on employees is measured by wages paid during the calendar year. Section 801 [26 USC 3101]. The excise tax on the employer [26 USC 3111] is to be paid 'with respect to having individuals in his employ,' and, like the tax on employees, is measured by wages.
• . The proceeds of both taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not ear-marked in any way. Section 807(a)[26 USC 3501]. There are penalties for nonpayment. Section 807(c), [26 USC 7203].

 

Nothing has changed todate inspite of all the political rhertoric about "lock boxes" and "Trust Funds" for SS/Medicare funds, the tax that is supposed to be levied for SS/Medicare is indistinguishable in operation from what we normally refer to as the Income Tax, and is paid into general revenues in just the same manner.

THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND FRAUD

CRS Report for Congress (98-422 EPW)
Social Security: and the Federal Budget:

"Its taxes like all other federal funds flow into the U.S. Treasury and its benefit payments flow out of the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury Department issues federal securities to the Social Security trust funds to reflect receipt of these taxes, and redeems securities from the trust funds to reflect Social Security expenditures, but the money itself flows to and from the Treasury."

"Taking the Social Security trust funds "off budget" has not changed how Social Security funds are handled. They are treated the same way today as they were in 1937 when Social Security taxes were first levied -- the tax receipts flow into the U.S. Treasury and benefit payments flow out of the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury Department issues federal securities to the Social Security trust funds to reflect the receipt of these taxes, and redeems securities from the trust funds to reflect Social Security expenditures, but the money itself flows to and from the Treasury. "

"While the trust funds have an important role in monitoring the finances of the program and maintaining its fiscal discipline, they are basically accounting devices. The federal securities they hold are not assets for the government. When an individual buys a government bond, he or she has established a claim against the government. When the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against some other entity or person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from one of its accounts to another. It certainly establishes legal claims against the government for the Social Security system (i.e., it is a legal form of indebtedness of the government and does count as part of the federal debt; see Table 3 on the next page), but the system is part of the government. Those claims are not resources the government has at its disposal to pay for future Social Security claims. Simply put, the trust funds do not reflect an independent store of money for the program or the government, and taking Social Security "off budget" did not change this. "

[Viking2002]

My taxes have bent me over so much already, I look like a duck: beak down, ass up, and pecking for a few extra seeds.

[searchandrecovery]

Here's another idea - hang around Iraq and just pump that country DRY. Instead of transferring debt to future generations of Americans (which I have no problem with), transfer it to other COUNTRIES. We could lower gas prices, pay for Social Security & Medicare, AND have a fat welfare state. Turn that axis-of-evil into an axis-of-opportunity.

[xrp]

If Social Security were properly adjusted for increases in life expectancy, then the recipient age would be somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s.

I like that other poster's idea; LET US KEEP AND INVEST OUR OWN DAMN MONEY.

[weegee]

Ponzi scheme PING

[writer33]

As far as I'm concerned, they can just privatize the whole thing.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

The SS system is a Ponzi scheme designed to fail. It worked ok till the descovery of Penicillin allowed people to live past 55 years of age. Now it takes several people to support one retiree.
The Baby Boom generation (that's me)will swamp the system.
Thirty years ago I made the stastement to my family that there probably wouldn't be a SS security when I retired so I had better get prepared.

As long as I can grow a garden and raise a pig I should be fairly ok till I am just too old. I'll worry about it then.

[Hank Rearden]

Well, what the hell did he expect from a Ponzi scheme run by Big Stupid F'Kerryin' Government?

[MEG33]

Doing a proper COLA would be a start.It is always higher than actual COL.

[goodnesswins]

They should have let us keep our money and invest it years ago....we are going to help grandson with a Retirement Plan, NOT education. For me, one of the reasons I refused to be a career lady for the past 10 years is that I knew I would have to pay SS into a system that was broken and I never liked working for anyone THAT much. (Plus, I've been better able to support my husband at home and be politically active.)

[Cicero]

The baby boomers have gotten their way all their lives. They are unlikely to consent to any kind of cut in their perks now.

The sad fact is that the Social Security Ponzi Scheme gives back far less than you put into it. That's basically because the money was never invested, but was used for various vote-buying schemes as soon as it was paid in.

I've been making enormous forced social security payments for 40 years, and will get back very little in return. Most honest workers are in the same position.

[PGalt]

Socialism does not work...Chapter 13.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Boomers are whining because they might have to (gasp!) wait a couple of years before they get their piddly checks? And they think that's bending over?

Um, excuse me...What about the rest of us poor schmucks that will be working our cans off (3 of us for every retiree) to pay your benefits, when we in turn will get NOTHING?

I'm afraid it's the post boomers that will be getting the shaft, taking it in the backside, when this ill-conceived, fraudulent, multitrillion dollar house of cards comes crashing down. It should never have been implemented.

[Paul Atreides]

Before I saw the parenthetical statement, I thought this was a Barney Frank story.

[Congressman Billybob]

Instead of wasting my time replying to Ken Schram, I'll post my comments here. If he's a semi-bright cookie, he'll find these comments. If not, he's too slow to write to.

When a snake eats a rat, there's a bulge in the snake's body that moves downward. The same is true in demographics. The rat in that snake is the population bulge of the baby boomer generation. All it takes is a pencil and paper and the ability to do simple math to realize that Greenspan spoke the simple truth today.

When these retirees reach 65 and beyond, it will take federal taxes at the rate of upwards of 50% for EVERYBODY who still holds a job, if Social Security benefits stay both at the current levels and kick in at the same ages. Couple that with the fact that all of us are living longer and longer, and SS as we currently know it will fail grossly and totally. The problem is a no-brainer to see.

Solving the problem is much more difficult. Witness how quickly professional politicians of both parties ran screaming into the night, rather than recognize the plain, unvarnished truth that Greenspan stated today.

And it is precisely the fear of elective backlash from fools like Ken Schram that has made SS the "third rail" of American politics.

It just so happens that, when I get into Congress, I will NOT fear this or any other issue in Washington. Once you've had a couple of grandchildren and a couple of heart attacks, as I have, you lose patience with standard political bullsh*t. Whether I can successfully contribute to a solution of the SS problem, I do not know. But whether I will search out the limited number of other honest and able politicians in Washington (a minority, but maybe an effective one), have no fear. I WILL do exactly that.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Don't delay. Do it now.

[reluctantwarrior]

Does the author of the article have freep mail?

[Intolerant in NJ]

'Yikes!' said the man who surely collects his Social Security check every month, 'We've gotta do something 'cause there's not enough Social Security money to give us any security.'...this simply can't be - I remember the Social Security Commission in the mid '80's, headed by D.P. Moynihan - recommended big increases in witholding taxes, etc. but guaranteed that the changes then would keep SS solvent forever and no cut-backs or hiked taxes would ever again be needed - the more money you give government, the more it spends.......

[writer33]

Yeah. I can't blame you. My entire focus is the wife's retirement first. With so many scholarships available now, it's best to plan for the retirement. I would count that as a smart move. Don't count on SS.

[GOPJ]

Democrats have been putting ex-welfare folks on Social Security Disability. Some can collect 50 to 60 years without a social worker encouraging work.

Visit your local social security office and count the people under 40. They'll outnumber the old folks. Democrats want generational warfare.

Conservatives should separate social security from liberal social security add-ons.

'Cause I'll tell ya Alan, my generation is tired of bending over for yours.

[jolie560]

I know that for a fact. Social Security Disability and SSI are the new welfare for the under 40 bums. No further questions asked. No further re-hab and re-training required.

Just collect and collect.

[qam1]

Boomers are whining because they might have to (gasp!) wait a couple of years before they get their piddly checks? And they think that's bending over?

Of course, Notice the author doesn't even once mention keeping SS solvent for future generations or how he doesn't show any concern for how the current generation is suppose to pay for (Hey Lets raise taxes on our kids and grandkids), He doesn't care what happens afterwards as long as he gets his. The me,me,me,me generation at it's finest

[Siamese Princess]

I'm afraid it's the post boomers that will be getting the shaft, taking it in the backside, when this ill-conceived, fraudulent, multitrillion dollar house of cards comes crashing down. It should never have been implemented.

Some old bag who retired 20 years ago and is still alive has done well off the system -- she has gotten back far more than she and her late husband paid into it. Not that she appreciates this fact. Social Security originally was not a pension, but merely a little something to prevent complete destitution. It paid little but took little out a worker's paycheck, leaving him with more money to save and invest for himself. As with every government program, it expanded steadily (e.g., Disability was added in 1950) and only become a pension program in the 1970s.

People retiring now aren't profiting as much off of Social Security (they paid higher rates in SS taxes) and as for the baby boomers, such as myself, we're getting hosed. Back in the late 90s, someone (Alan Greenspan, I think) said that a person born in 1960 could expect a 1.8% return on her Social Security. She would do better sticking the money into a CD account, even with today's low interest rates.

[Edison]

"The sad fact is that the Social Security Ponzi Scheme gives back far less than you put into it"

I don't think it works that way...ex: lets say a person works 30 years with an average salary of 40K @ today's 6+% SS tax, that only comes out to approx $72,000. It only takes about 6-7.5 years to collect that money thru SS. Life expectancy is 8 years past 65 for the average man, so you are getting more than you put in UNLESS you averaged over 40k your entire working career. I seriously doubt that most baby boomers averaged 40k over a 30 career span.

Edison

[JPJones]

I was born in 63, but refuse and resent being called a 'baby boomer'. I have absolutely nothing in common, with the values, ideas, experiences, or politics that define that self-centered, lazy, pompous, well-fed generation. Please do not include those born in 1963 as a baby boomers. It just ain't right!

[hunter112]

Believe me, no more than five years of boomers will get anything, unless they're absolutely dirt poor, and completely incapable of working. And even those will get cut off after another five. Maybe when the fraud is exposed, you won't have to pay it anymore, we've had it sucked out of us our whole working lives. Most of us have been under the amount where they stop taking the tax out, so we've always paid it on whatever we earned.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if your generation, or the one following you doesn't put a bullet through our heads to avoid paying us.

[Siamese Princess]

Democrats have been putting ex-welfare folks on Social Security Disability. Some can collect 50 to 60 years without a social worker encouraging work.

Visit your local social security office and count the people under 40. They'll outnumber the old folks. Democrats want generational warfare.

Yes, I have been wondering how many welfare recipients were shifted onto Disability. I don't think that the Democrats want generational warfare -- they want as many people as possible dependent on a government check -- either as recipients of or working for the government. They tend to vote for the Democrats.

[Gunslingr3]

Gut the program and give us our damned money back.

It should be ended immediately, but it's not possible to 'give your money back', because it was collected and pooled as general revenue according to the Supreme Court, and spent without any strings attached. You enjoyed those social security benefits already in the form of services our government provides from tax revenue annually.

Greenspan is trying to head off the creation of mandatory structural deficits (social security taxes becoming less than expenses in a few years, requiring borrowing at a minimum, or the allocation of other or proposed taxes). He knows what happens when you increase the SSI taxes, because that's what was done previously when he chaired Reagan's commission on the subject. He knows Congress will blow the money and it will just end up increasing the share of GDP seized and allocated by government. He brought this up last March, he's brought it up plenty in the past. It can't be ignored much longer before it starts increasing deficit and impacts Greenspan's ability to manipulate the printing of dollars.

At the end of the day, the government can just print checks to cover those rising SSI costs, but Greenspan is trying to head off the dangerous inflationary pressure he sees from it. I think he wants the reins of money creation in the Fed's hands more tha in the hand's of Congress, but I don't know if they'll act.

We're too big to Weimar, right?

[cherry]

I can't do my job up into the 60's and in fact, I won't.....

if the govt insists that people with stressful jobs are on the same level with people with comfortable, non-challenging jobs, then the only alternative is to seek early retirment thru disability....

because its comparing apples to oranges when it comes to difficult work....

[Chewbacca]

If the Government would allow me to opt out of social security I would do it in a heart beat and they could keep all the money I have currently paid into it.

It was stolen from me without my consent, has already been spent by the Government, and I know that I will never see a cent of it anyway when I get old.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Well, those touted abotions have killed off all the would be wage earners, so now the Mexicans must be imported, just so the feds can collect FICA taxes which is near 16% of their wage earnings,(1/2 worker/ 1/2 employer) even if they never pay one cent fed or state income taxes.

Damn it is a brave new world what?

[Ferndina]

I believe your employer has a matching portion to pay into SS that goes along with your payment unless you are self employed then you pick up the full 12+ %.

[Siamese Princess]

Believe me, no more than five years of boomers will get anything, unless they're absolutely dirt poor, and completely incapable of working. And even those will get cut off after another five. Maybe when the fraud is exposed, you won't have to pay it anymore, we've had it sucked out of us our whole working lives. Most of us have been under the amount where they stop taking the tax out, so we've always paid it on whatever we earned.

It's been predicted that eventually, if Social Security exists at all, it will be only for the genuinely needy and recipients will be forced to live in old age homes. Back to the future -- this was the way it was a century ago.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if your generation, or the one following you doesn't put a bullet through our heads to avoid paying us.

I think that's likely. There will be too many people on the receiving end, for SS, Medicare, nursing home care, etc., and too few people paying the bills. It will be difficult to cut back on "the third rail," so cut back on people. It will be easy to do -- for example, even now, there are many people in nursing homes with no one to care if they live or die. The solution suggests itself.

[hunter112]

Yep, the baby boomer generation has already taught the younger generations that you shouldn't even be alive if nobody wants you, they know they're missing a lot of their peer group because of free and easy abortion.

Glad I got into something I can do till I drop over dead, and enjoy every day of it.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Gut the program and give us our damned money back.

---

Our money has already been spent. It's gone.

The notion that Boomers are getting screwed by setting back the retirement age a few years is absurd. Those who oppose such plans simply want earners who are funding their retirements to pay in, without a shred of hope of enjoying the same benefit.

[Atlas Sneezed]

When these retirees reach 65 and beyond, it will take federal taxes at the rate of upwards of 50% for EVERYBODY who still holds a job, if Social Security benefits stay both at the current levels and kick in at the same ages. Couple that with the fact that all of us are living longer and longer, and SS as we currently know it will fail grossly and totally.

---

Plan on massive inflation to deflate benefits and to inflate contributions. The gold bugs will be proven right in 10-20 years.

[Waco]

When the fedguv says you must pay the S.S. tax but you may NOT collect any pension from it,,,,,,will it be called a felony then?

[Atlas Sneezed]

I don't think it works that way...ex: lets say a person works 30 years with an average salary of 40K @ today's 6+% SS tax...

---

Whoops! You're off by a factor of 2. The tax is 13%. Whether or not your employer hides from your stub is economically irrelevant.

[Atlas Sneezed]

that only comes out to approx $72,000. It only takes about 6-7.5 years to collect that money thru SS.

---

Unless you assume that money has value over time. Lend me $100k that I will repay in 10 years. If you are reluctant, you understand the time value of money.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Logan's Run?

[Atlas Sneezed]

I can't do my job up into the 60's and in fact, I won't.....

if the govt insists that people with stressful jobs are on the same level with people with comfortable, non-challenging jobs, then the only alternative is to seek early retirment thru disability....

---

You never heard of SAVING?

[Choose Ye This Day]

"If the Government would allow me to opt out of social security I would do it in a heart beat and they could keep all the money I have currently paid into it."

You and me both. They can have it. I'll do much better with that 6% than the gov't will. And if my employer doesn't have to chip in his 6% either, maybe I can get a 6% raise!

[utahagen]

Since Social Security will never be gutted (unfortunately), the age for receiving benefits MUST be raised. With life expectancy what it is as of 2004, 65 is laughably low. Raising the age even three years would have relieve a nice chucnk of the tax burden we who wer born after 1964 are going to have to bear.

Raise the damn age! Get the word out.

[Choose Ye This Day]

My part of FICA is 7.65% of my salary (of which, I believe, 1.65% goes for Medicare and the other for Social Security).

My employer has to pony up and match another 7.65%.

[lightman]

Thanks for saying what needs to be said about the Aborted Generation. Many of our problems, not just SS, can be traced to the fact that we now have at least 2 million fewer citizens born each year. The Aborted of 1973 would have been 31 this year, and hopefully many of them would have been wage earning-tax paying citizens.
Do the math! There are at least twenty six million of the Aborted Generation (2 million per year, times 13 years from1973 to 1986) who would now be eighteen or older. Even if only half worked, that would be thirteen million.

All I can say is that their selfish elders who started this massacre deserve the turnabout that is sure to come.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind