Posted on 11/14/2007 8:41:45 AM PST by Clintonfatigued
Almost everyone knows that the next president will have to wrestle with the immense costs of retiring baby boomers.
Come now a small band of Democrats and Republicans who want to do the new president a giant favor. They want to force the new administration to face the problem in early 2009.
Why is this a favor? Because dealing with this issue is so politically unsavory that resolving it quickly would be a godsend. Otherwise, it could haunt the White House for four years.
(Excerpt) Read more at encyclopedia.com ...
Is there any real doubt what will be done? Raise taxes and cut benefits. Of course it’s gonna happen. The question is... where do they draw the line to grandfather people into the current system?
That said, I suspect and fear you will be right, more taxes, fewer benefits and no personal accounts. Euro-sclerosis here we come.
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 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.
Oddly enough, the Clinton administration back in 1993 had the most realistic approach to “fixing” Social Security in the long run . . . i.e., tax Social Security benefits at current income tax rates. This effectively cut Social Security benefits indirectly without really “cutting” them.
Oh they are going to tax our young backsides off.
A really sad thing to do "for the children", eh?
It seems like this approach makes the program into just another welfare program.
Yep! And it's just amazing that they are going to increase my taxes to support a system that is based on already taking 12.4% of my paycheck!
Yeah our financial advisor warned my wife and I of that.
He doesn’t even talk to us about our SS benefits with regard to retirement because he said it will be a miracle if we get anything.
Enjoy your retirement baby boomers...it’s on me...
You could also cut the COLA and inflate the dollar.
Taxing money that they took from you as a loan to pay “benefits” for others that they borrowed from.
It's like putting your money in a reverse government bond...Pay $25 and 30 years later, you get back $17. Add inflation...and you're getting "0".
I’ve been donating $$$$ to the SS system involuntarily from 1960-2005. SOOOO how are MY benefits courtesy of YOU???? Like I didn’t help pay for the citizens older than myself . Quit whining and get back to work .
You could also cut the COLA and inflate the dollar.
Isn’t that what they have been doing secretly? The cost of living is being understated for several years now so they don’t have to pay for the actual inflation.
Washington remains TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL. The American working public should just stop paying taxes for a while, and see what happens to those carpet-bagging, malfeasant elitists.
The political solution to all of our troubles is to inflate away the debts.
Real Data (not the govt cooked data) shows that M3 is at 18% and real GDP is at -2% that's 20% inflation = hyperinflation.
Welcome to FR. Now connect the dots and tell us what this has to do with SS.
Fearless FRed covered this issue like a blanket some time ago.
I’d say us boomers have footed the bill for every liberal program for fifty years and now we’re gonna get the old up yours. So thanks for nothing!
I got just one thing to say to the left wing lunatics I have watched rob social security the last 40 years to spend like a lunatics on social programs that one can look at today and make a value added decision, that what they have done with the money did not add one damn thing to the overall American dream. Zero then and Zero now.
I kindly send you the New Jersey Salute
While I agree that taxing social security benefits was an indirect reduction in benefits, taxation of benefits will not fix the problem. The rats are committed to continuation of this generational Ponzi scheme. The only way to continue it will be massive taxation. The rats solution is to increase the payroll tax cap. The rats may also propose some benefit reductions with the retirement age.
The other solution is to privatize social security, effectively ending it. The rats adamantly oppose privatization because they realize that social security will become a welfare program. Privatization involves benefit cuts for those who have paid payroll taxes for many years.
A commission is a bad idea. There have been many commissions without any policy changes.
Is that good?
We already HAD a commission which included big democrat names.
Guess what, they recommended PRIVATE ACCOUNTS!!!!
As my super-fine guvna says:
“I’ll look into that...”
-Deval Patrick
Tax the productive, transfer all the confiscated wealth to those who didn't save, don't want to work, believe it is their right to collect more than they ever paid in.
You are young and energetic, you'll get over it. Or you will at least get used to it. :)
In God We Trust.....Semper Fi
I have enough faith in the abject pragmatism and nihilism of this country to realize that our Social Security “problem” will likely be fixed through two approaches: (1) massive inflation of the U.S. dollar, and (2) euthanizing the elderly.
Well I prefer that we slap a 15% surcharge on Money wiring to Mexico. That should help a bit.
Just like they did ours!
I’m sorry I thought slavery had been abolished.
Didn’t call it slavery when we were footing the bill. You’re young, you’ll get over it. Some day you’ll be able to pass the reins to another group of whiners.
I think that you are saying nothing will be done so our living standard will be greatly eroded. Medicare is in a much worse situation than social security so rationing health care is a very real possibility. An eroded standard of living will lower life expectancies. Unless the rats gain firm control, they will not be able to ram through massive tax increases. Benefit reductions, directly or indirectly, are a certainty. The problem with a massive tax increase is that most of the money will fund other programs just increasing the size of the government even more. If privatization is not on the table, I prefer no action.
If only they’d retire, and shut the hell up.....
Yes. What a novel idea. Let's re-tax dollars collected and redistributed via taxation.
Hey it wasn’t my idea it was Clintons. But the compromise fix will end up being higher taxes in some way, shape or form. The Democrats and AARP will assure it.
Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates. Pay back IOU’s with higher Federal Income Tax rates.
(Having Beavis and Butthead moment.)
I'd say you boomers are fine and will be funded as promised. The AARP is a huge liberal voting block. It will be your kids that I think will get the old up yours. No politician is going to screw with the largest voting block. They will go after the "children" that have not taken an active interest in politics yet (20s and 30 - somthings).
Thank you.
If the kids don’t have brains enough to plan for their retirement it’s their own fault. I could do fine without SS because when I was in my twenties I was told it won’t be around by the time I retired and I believed them. So the fact that I’m getting anything from SS is a surprise and I will dutifully use it to cruise the Caribbean. Thanks to those youngsters coughing up their hard earned bucks.
We just need to adjust benefits to life expectancy like back in the beginning of SS. People collected when they were 65 and life expectancy was 65.
So adjust for life expectancy and males now get SS at 80 and females get SS at 82.
So Renegade, get back to work!!!
Me too. You can't be that old. Are you sure you're a boomer? :o)
Bite me !
On top of the above, the CONGRESSCRITTERS began to use "surplus SSA funds" to cover any and all general revenue shortfalls (surprised?)
The end result is, that a rather modest "safety net" which "somewhat resembled "insurance, was transformed into the unsustainable mutant that we have today!
Indeed, the preamble to the original Social Security Act boldly stated that it was to be a SUPPLEMENT to retirement funding!
Obviously..., a sterling example of the proverbial "Camel's Nose Under the Tent"????
Dude,
You told someone else to quit whining and get back to work. I tell you the same thing and you get mad.
I think most people forgot that they weren’t suppose to live long enough to collect SS. The only ones as a group following the original game plan are black males and I think there life expectancy is under 60.
The Dems have already assured us that there's nothing wrong with social security. Is the author assuming the Republicans will hold the White House?
Yes I understand the original intent. It ain’t that now and it won’t be that tomorrow either.
Probably. Hitlery scares a number of people.
Yo Dudster,
You go tell my buddies wife about life expectancies after he died of a sudden heart attack last year at the age of 53. I didn’t set up the program and I sure am going to take back all I put into it . The government cost me approx 1.5 milion that I could have acculumulated if I had the option to invest privately all those years . Don’t go blaming the shortfalls of SS on the Boomer generation . Blame the government who raped the monies in the fund for everything under the sun for the last 50 years.
BTW, I can’t even begin to get my $$ back for at least 1.5 years BUT I will think of you next week while I smoke a cigar on the beach at Luquillo, PR and The same in Costa Rica next March .
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