He's got all the money.
And the young man?!
Ain't got nothing in the world these days!
Posted on 05/25/2005 8:42:08 AM PDT by qam1
The debate over whether to reform Social Security is full of idiosyncrasies.
Here's a big one: No matter what fix we're talking about - partial privatization, raising the retirement age, means testing so millionaires forfeit benefits, tying benefits to inflation rather than wages, etc. - the most ferocious opposition comes from the demographic that won't be affected either way by any proposal being discussed at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue: Americans already 55 and over.
If you can imagine that, you're already two steps ahead of the Bush administration. White House officials seem baffled that their biggest fight has turned out to be with a group with whom the administration went out of the way to avoid picking a fight. The polls on this issue back that up. Most show the same trend: The older the polling sample, the less support you find for tinkering with Social Security. The younger the sample, the greater the support.
The more the administration tries to reassure seniors that they'll squeak by before any rule change takes effect, and so this debate doesn't concern them, the more concerned seniors get. Here's what the White House missed: This isn't just about self-interest. It's also about sentimentality. No other generation is as passionate - and therefore as protective - about Social Security as the World War II generation, those Americans now in their 70s and 80s. For that demographic, this debate is about preserving a program that served their generation well and which they hope will be around several decades from now to serve their grandchildren.
That's interesting. If they really wanted to protect their grandchildren, they'd do everything they could to ensure some generational fair play. Unless something is done, the current system will - 10 or 20 years from now - soak taxpayers with tax rates that experts say could easily top 50 percent when you combine income taxes with the payroll taxes necessary to fund Social Security and Medicare.
But there's no reasoning with the elderly on this issue. I know. I tried.
Recently, I agreed to sit on a panel here in Coronado and discuss Social Security reform. Home to a lot of retired naval officers, the well-to-do community has a reputation for being conservative. But you wouldn't know it from the way the audience - made up almost exclusively of senior citizens - seized every opportunity to tear into President Bush and his proposal to allow young people to invest part of the money they contribute to the current system into private accounts.
The way these seniors see it, this isn't about demographics and the undeniable fact that, with every year that goes by, we have fewer workers supporting more retirees. This isn't about the fact that Americans are living longer, and so it only makes sense to push back the retirement age.
For this crowd, the whole issue of reforming Social Security comes down to trusting George Bush. For those who don't, it's tempting to buy the argument that the administration is manufacturing a crisis to gin up public support for a scheme that will make a fortune for ''Bush's friends on Wall Street.''
Judging from their questions and comments, that's what many in the Coronado audience believed. And they couldn't get past it. They insisted on making the issue political, when it's really generational.
That disappointed me. So did the fact that these seniors had convinced themselves that there was no ''crisis'' in Social Security because the best estimates are that benefits will continue to be paid out for the foreseeable future. They didn't seem to care a whit about the financial strain that future taxpayers will be put under to make that happen. This is the real crisis.
You know what else was disappointing? That many of the seniors were so openly contemptuous of the idea of letting poor and working people invest their own money in private retirement accounts. To listen to these seniors, the less well-off aren't smart enough to know what to invest where, and so need the government to provide them with a guaranteed benefit.
Putting aside the rank condescension, such comments were horribly naive. Given the demographic changes ahead - beginning with the retirement of 70 million baby boomers - don't expect the Social Security system to give out any guarantees or to honor them if it does.
That's something that older generations need to understand - and which younger generations figured out a long time ago.
Of course this is incorrect when one looks at it realistically. Those things in bold will certainly be done by lying politicians.
According to the census, the over 65 crowd is the wealthiest demographic in the country. When you start having one segment of the population hogging up a bigger and bigger chunk of federal resources, you're going to have a backlash.
Yes, I can't say I disagree with a thing that the writer says in this pro-Bush article. Thank you for posting it, its nice to see that some people understand what is going on.
The reason senior citizens are concerned about changes in SS is because the government has been lying to them for longer than younger people. If any politician would own up and tell the truth, that the "contribution" is really just a general fund tax, and that the government would have to replace the income if the system was "privitized" (2004- SS contributions of $522 billion of the 2.92 trillion budget or about 18%)and growing at an increased % rate at about 4% annually, due to be equal in 2018 leaving $26 trillion in unfunded liabilities, then and only then, will the people take a serious look at the "system", and "trust" that politician (oxy-moron) to do what is right for Americans rather than what is "self-preservationist" for himself.
However, the even the weasels of Washington cannot confiscate what they cannot find. No one **has** to keep assets in the US, right? And setting up another identity, say Australian for preference, is child's play (if one doesn't intend to live in Australia, at least).
Merely offering a thought here...
The seniors should also be honest with themselves and admit they are on welfare. SS is nothing but a welfare system by a different name.
I think he's correct in his analysis of old people in this country. I've even heard old people on the radio saying they don't give a damn whether their grandchildren have to pay 20-30-or even 40% of their pay to keep their grandparents in SS money. The funny thing is that these 75+ year olds never really contributed all of that much to the mysterious fund. Rates have pretty much stayed the same, but the income limits have risen dramatically in the last 20 years. I'm 55 years old and I've personally had over $200K taken out of may pay over the last 20 years for Social Security -- double that if you count the amount my employers have paid on my behalf. I would have been happy to have had the opportunity to invest that money in an account with my name on it.
I guess I'm in the minority with the 55 years and over crowd, because I believe that we should let younger (even older) people invest part of the funding in accounts for themselves. If it takes increasing my taxes for the next 10 years to enable this, then okay. Even if it reduces my SS some in the future, I still say okay. I've got grandchildren and I'd like them to reap some benefit from the SS money that is currently being pissed away on SS, SSI, and Medicare.
Regardless, the author of the article was dead-on accurate about the "Greatest Generation."
It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.
Plutarch
Life of Marcus Cato
"Free lunch? Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!!!!!"
Thanks for the post.
I don't know of anything stopping anyone from investing any way they want to.
I have to wonder how smart is a person who only invest a small part of what they would pay in SS.
So much for the Greatest Generation.
Stated as simply as possible, the overwhelming majority of them are functional morons. If ever there is a minimum standard required to participate in the workings of government, as in voting, most of them would be disqualified.
And they all vote.
Any wonder at the sad transformation of our country into a prosperous "third world"?
Our country continues to survive in spite of them. How, I am still mystified about.
Save your flames. I are one of them, in the clear minority.
This is one consistent thing I've noticed in trying to explain the reality to this crowd. I think it's the kind of denial a spouse often uses when they know that they're are living a lie, but have clung to it for so long, that they just won't believe it.
They often end with the phrase, " Well I won't be around, so who care s?". And I think, Well our children will, don't you care what you're leaving for them ? .
In ther interests of full disclosure, I am in the late baby boom generation. I fully expect to get nothing- and I wouldn't want it at the expense of my children anyway.
Possibly this demographic has had more experience with being affected by things that "will not affect" them.
However, the true beneficiaries were the seniors that recieved benefits without paying into the system...the start of it all. My Momo remembers the problems following the Great Depression and the war that undeiably ended it. My Uncle (84 years old) refers to things as "before the war" or "after the war".
It is going to come down to an explicit or implicit strike.
In Europe the producers just stop working or move. We should have a national strike on the 15th of April.
Example?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.