Posted on 05/02/2006 8:30:41 AM PDT by upchuck
Congress will "fix" this crisis when it becomes an actual crisis, and it will.
Kinda like drilling in ANWR, perhaps the pols will have the will when gas is $5/gallon and they start getting voted out of office.
I have a proposal for a "pay back". I say, those of us who will never see Social Security, we stop paying our taxes, and put that money into our own retirement accounts...equal to the amounts that have been extorted from our checks over the years.
And in the meantime, let those in the Gov't trough (are you listening Congress-critters?) contribute to those who depend on Social Security (and have earned it) today. They have stolen from it for decades.
When we are even and clear, we can resume our taxes.
Come to think of it, we will never break even.
One quick bandaid would be to increase the retirement age and not force people in to retirement at 65. When SS was first established, the average life expectancy was around 62.
He did?
Yes he did. He said enacting the so-called "FairTax" would forestall the funding problem on SS and Medicare. Since he isn't talking about reducing benefits that must mean the revenue to those programs will increase. That of course assumes he's willing to abide by logic.
I'm not thrilled about it, but I figure it's an acceptable compromise to escape the government taking more of my money to pay for people who aren't responsible.
I'll give up some of my freedom in that regard to keep their fingers out of my pockets when the irresponsible come calling with their tales of woe.
Another reason why I'm gonna get mine as quick as I can. Although I will grant you that this late in the game (my age) I doubt I'd get caught up in this.
But it's payback time and I want mine while it's still there. You know, in the filing cabinet in WV :)
I think it only fair that the geezers who have sucked the longest at the government teat should have to pay tax on everything they buy via the Fair Tax. They are the voters most responsible for installing the horrible socialist system we have now by voting for every politician who promised them something. They should be called "The Greediest Generation."
**You could, of course, cut spending in other areas to come up with the money --- but remember who we're talking about here. Even for a congress that has doubled federal spending over the past decade or so, cutting spending even by one single dollar is simply not an option**
Wrong there is one area of the budget that has been cut before and will be cut again. The Defense budget will be raided to keep Social Security afloat.
All the Chinese got to do is wait until when our military becomes a version of Canada's under the liberals.
Respectfully, not one retired Social Security beneficiary "has it coming." You didn't pay anything in (your social security taxes went directly to pay elderly retirees) and you haven't "earned" anything now (your benefits will be paid by younger workers, not by money you have paid in.)
Social Security is nothing more than an intergenerational transfer payment. It is not a retirement program.
Well, the plan outlined by the President will be close to what eventually happens regardless of what Congress does. The relentless pressure of demographics and finance will mean that people over 55 now will be fine, people under about 40 will get new options and not do too badly, and those in the middle -- who have paid the most, since we started working when the SS rate went through the roof in the 1970's thanks to Wilbur Mills -- will get screwed.
"Means-testing" Social Security -- in other words taxing those who earned and paid in the most and also saved -- is designed to turn SS into a welfare program, as Ronald Reagan predicted in 1976.
However, SS and Medicare are just finance, nothing more. Fact is that the cost in man-hours and resources to care for all of the Baby Boomers will be astronomical. "Savings" for the economy as a whole doesn't really affect that -- the reality is that more people and resources as a % of GDP will be spent on health care twenty years from now compared with today.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) 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 and previous articles.
Maybe so but if money's are confiscated by the government under a certain guise then the debt to the citizen must be honored.
He mentioned the reason for net taxes to increase, those people who now pay no or little taxes. There would be very little escape from taxes by people who are here illegally and do not pay taxes, people involved in the drug trade, etc. It doesn't necessarily raise taxes but brings everyone into paying them.
If the government has taken your money, they have fulfilled the promise of social security.
Isn't it strange how that's a foreign concept to some? "Screw the geezers!" is a despicable battle cry.
I agree with both sentences. I never said it was a retirement program.
I fully understand that this is nothing more than a Ponzie scheme and that it will need radical surgery some day (a day that the politicos will put off as long as possible, damaging those who come after me).
But, seeing as how the idiots in Wash DC chose to implement this doomed program and seeing as how I've involuntarily paid into it all my life, I'm gonna take full advantage of every penny they'll give me.
And, FWIW, I'm pissed that the government didn't long ago give me my own account to manage. I could have done better, MUCH better, than them buy hanging the WSJ stock tables on a wall and throwing darts to make the stock selections :)
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.