Ryan's Roadmap

http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/ ^ | 8/13/2010 | Congressman Paul Ryan

[13Sisters76]

This is excellent reading.

I would only add a couple of things here. Under "Health care", I would also add a tax incentive to insurance companies for devising affordable plans for pre-existing conditions. Under "Social Security", I would absolutely add means-testing for those with private retirement incomes over $50,000/year. These folks don't need social security assistance. I would also add tax incentives for those workers who opt for a private retirement account.

[VRWCmember]

Under "Social Security", I would absolutely add means-testing for those with private retirement incomes over $50,000/year. These folks don't need social security assistance.

Since when does ANYBODY have the right to decide whether I have a "need" for my own money that was forcibly taken from me in order to ensure that it would be there for me later.

[ChocChipCookie]

If the gov’t takes money out of every paycheck under the pretense that it will be given back to me when I retire, I better damn well get it, and who cares how much money I have in the bank.

[Pecos]

The whole concept of a “Social Security” account, like it is a savings account, was a scam from the beginning. Can we spell “Ponzi”? Current income goes directly to fund current outgo. Anything left over from that has been used for a number of years to fictiously reduce the published deficit. The only hope anyone has of actually collecting is if FICA is increased sufficiently to counter the effect of having too few younger people support too many older people. But then, that may very well have the effect of driving the economy underground simply to avoid taxes.

[Marty62]

You hven’t been paying attention to current events.

What do you think the Dums just did for your HC. Except. it is limiting your HC according to some acturarial table.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Since when does ANYBODY have the right to decide whether I have a “need” for my own money that was forcibly taken from me in order to ensure that it would be there for me later.”

I would think that this would apply to new workers coming into the workforce. Well providing there is a workforce.

[justlurking]

nder "Social Security", I would absolutely add means-testing for those with private retirement incomes over $50,000/year.

I hadn't had to pay into Social Security and was simply able to invest that money into long-term US government bonds instead, I would have an additional $700,000 in the bank and could retire tomorrow.

So, you're saying that since I was also acting responsibly and saving as much as I could in an IRA or 401(k), I don't deserve getting my own money?

Give me back that money that was taken from me in exchange for a vague promise, and we'll talk. Otherwise, STFU.

[13Sisters76]

I will NOT “shut the f*&^ up” and you have a damn lot of nerve demanding it. Did you actually READ the bill and the post? Or are you just another brain dead “lurker” with lots of complaints and not a single idea?

The suggestion IS- IF you make more than 50k from private investments, you don’t NEED a government check to pay your greens fees.

So- add something positive or push off, jerk.

[John Valentine]

If it’s YOUR idea, and Not Paul Ryan’s, to “means test” social security, thereby robbing me and others AGAIN, then you are no better than the criminals that set up this government sanctioned ponzi scheme in the first place.

I am morally entitled to everything I can get back from ANY criminal enterprise that has taken my money by force, and make no mistake about it, I would NOT have been a voluntary participant in “social security”.

If you are an apologist for taking money from people and only giving it back when and if, and in the amounts YOU deem justified”, then you are a moral blind man.

You deserve pity or contempt depending on your innate mental capacity. Based on what I can glean from your writing it is out contempt that you are due.

[justlurking]

I will NOT “shut the f*&^ up” and you have a damn lot of nerve demanding it. Did you actually READ the bill and the post? Or are you just another brain dead “lurker” with lots of complaints and not a single idea?

Yes, I did read it. And I thought it had a lot of good ideas.

On the other hand, your "idea" is nothing short of insane. Where do the hell to you get off telling me that I don't "need" my own money that was taken from me?

I'm already giving up a large part of the value of what was taken from me. If I start taking benefits at the "full" retirement age, I'll have to live to age 123 to get all of it back. And now you are saying that I should give up the rest?

The suggestion IS- IF you make more than 50k from private investments, you don’t NEED a government check to pay your greens fees.

Ah, I see -- you think that anyone making over 50K is living a life of luxury. If you really want to know how I plan to spend my Social Security -- it will be to pay the punitive income taxes on my retirement income that are going to be required to fund this latest spending spree.

So- add something positive or push off, jerk.

Yup, I'll add something positive -- and it is the same as before: you and your ilk can just STFU. You don't know what the hell you are talking about.

[13Sisters76]

It amazes me that so many people know so little about this issue. It doesn’t matter WHAT the politicians have TOLD you about Social Security. It IS a TAX on the generation behind you. It is NOT NOT NOT a “retirement account”. Don’t you get that????? This is so frustrating. The generation that has to support your sorry butt is about one third the size of we “Boomers” and it is THEY- OUR KIDS- who have to pay for this.

There is absolutely NO justification for demanding that our kids pay pay, and pay, a piddling SS check to someone who may have a private income bigger than their own.

Wake up.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Means testing, while good, won’t fly just by itself. But there is a better way.

With the W. Bush tax cuts ending, instead of means testing for those who honestly paid into the system, offer them a slightly better deal than for their SS cash—in tax deductions. If they were getting, say, $100 from SS, they could take the money, or they could get a $120 deduction on their other income.

Importantly, this should be part of an overall program to return Social Security to what it was originally intended to be: a *full* retirement for minimum wage workers with no other retirement, *only*. Had it always kept this basic idea, it would have long been solvent. However, witty socialists in congress decided to turn it into a national retirement system—which ruined it.

So right now, the SS system should no longer take in new victims, except for minimum wage workers. Then everyone already in the system either needs to be remitted and released from it, if they haven’t been in for long; or offered the same tax deduction deal as for those still earning significant money after retirement.

This method harms the least number of people, while restoring the system to stability, and actually *increasing* the pay out for future minimum wage retirees, to “a living retirement”.

[Little Ray]

Gotta agree with the nay-sayers. They paid in to Social Security, and, according the rules they paid under, they’re entitled to returns. If they change rules, they violate the contract.
Its not their fault that Social Security was a scam from day one.

[13Sisters76]

It is NOT your money once the government takes it. It is a TAX. It is NOT a retirement account, never was, and certainly never will BE. And it is a tax on the generation behind you. You paid for those older than you and now our kids will pay for us. You strike me as someone who doesn’t give a rat’s a$$ if your kids get hit with an unsustainable tax bill (”Get off my lawn”! eh?), but others DO care and are more than willing to see changes made to the present system to make sure OUR KIDS don’t drown.

So keep voting for the demonRAts- they will keep promising you things that no one can pay for. You are an idiot.

[13Sisters76]

Of course it was a scam...it WAS a demonRAT plan. The more people they make dependent on the government, the better for them.

Ryan has some great ideas, although he is more generous than I would be. He says from “55 and up”. I would have said 60 and up. To be fair, people in this age group didn’t have the access to info that we all have now. They believed the promises and they can’t be blamed. But now, there are no excuses. Certainly those who did plan for retirement and have good retirement plans simply don’t need that puny SS check, but by cutting such people from the system, it can be saved for those who DO. Not to mention lessening the burden on our kids’ generation. There are far fewer of them than in my generation and it will be a huge bill for them to pay.

Something else for some of these old farts to think about: should that bill become TOO onerous, Obamacare and it’s rationing might start to look very appealing to them. After all, to the left, aren’t old people just “useless eaters”?

[justlurking]

It is NOT your money once the government takes it. It is a TAX. It is NOT a retirement account, never was, and certainly never will BE. And it is a tax on the generation behind you.

Yes, I know all that. You are preaching to the choir.

30 years ago, I made exactly these points. And I wrote letters, made phone calls, and contributed to political action committees like the National Taxpayer's Union until I was blue in the face.

And I was told to STFU.

Back then, I was willing to forfeit everything I had paid into Social Security and even continue to pay a diminished amount for the right to invest the remainder into something that I owned -- just like Ryan is proposing.

And I was told to STFU.

Now, 30 years later and $700,000 poorer, I don't care anymore. You can do whatever you want -- but I've had a lot of money taken from me with the promise that I'm going to get at least part of it back. And, I'm not giving it up.

You strike me as someone who doesn’t give a rat’s a$$ if your kids get hit with an unsustainable tax bill (”Get off my lawn”! eh?), but others DO care and are more than willing to see changes made to the present system to make sure OUR KIDS don’t drown.

I already said that I don't care anymore. But, it's not because I'm unconcerned -- it's because I refuse to shoulder the burden of responsibility for this mess because I had the foresight to make sacrifices and invest for the future rather than spending it all. Unfortunately, that is looking more and more like it was a wasted effort, too.

So keep voting for the demonRAts- they will keep promising you things that no one can pay for. You are an idiot.

Don't worry, I won't be voting for any Democrats. But, I am damn sure going to make sure they uphold the promises that they made to me, despite my best efforts to get them to deal with this problem long ago.

[Agamemnon]

FICA/SSI was first sold as a retirement account, then in 1960 the Supreme Court declared that no one paying into it had a property right to it.

Still that didn't stop the gov't from continuing to market it as a retirement plan with all the phoney "lock box" talk, and sending out annual statements projecting what your payout is supposedly going to be -- like any investment plan is required to do -- based upon monies you persoanlly paid into it -- not what some imaginary future kid was going to pay in on your behalf.

I'm not retired, I'm in my 50's and get these statements every year around my birthday. I'll bet most posting here do too.

The reason FICA is a tax is so the gov't can Constitutionally force the average citizen to buy a gov't sponsored retirement account.

This is the same smoke and mirrors snake oil that went into selling Obama care as not forcing people to buy insurance -- before it passed -- but now that it has passed the only way the gov't is going to try to hold up the Constitutionality of this rape is by trying to fall back on its authority to tax.

The gov't has engaged in fraudulent mis-representation of its intents, and your insistence on defending their right to tax as a backup for this fraudulent argument makes you, 13Sisters76, a party to it, and complicit in promotion of the mis-representation thereof.

FReegards!

[KC Burke]

The irritation is that “means testing” even more than other measures already in place turns the taxation of the Social Security System fraud into even more of an income redistribution scheme.

People and their employers pay about 13% of their income for an entire lifetime into a system that is aledged to be a safety net for catastophe and an old age minimum living allowance to avoid destitution. If the Social Security Disability was alloted how it should be, most would not care that they pay and others receive. But under what form of Liberty does it make sense that government cuts 6.5% of my check every week of my life and then sends that only to others because I have been smart and frugal?

Why would a few years with good retirement investment income, which could stop at anytime, be a just reason to take the SS payment away from me to give to others? If I loose my income from investment for the next three years will the government save the years it whitheld and give it back to me? If my investment “income” is savings I take from a 401k for buying a home to retire in, why should I loose the small living minimum of SS?

Legislation, even legislation as poorly written and devised as the SS System was is a bunch of compromises from political interests. Why pass legislation with time honored compromises, then mismanage it, and then undo the compromises that justified its passage in the first place?

Keep in mind that retirement does not give us tax exemption and that high retirement income is still taxed in almost all cases. The wealthy get money from savings and escape this means testing which would hit good pension and savings planners in 401k that have to show those amounts as taxable and thereby “means testable.”

We have to unlearn the socialist mindset of picking winners and loosers in each transaction based upon percieved “fairness”. It is not the function of limited government to do such picking.

[13Sisters76]

“If they were getting, say, $100 from SS, they could take the money, or they could get a $120 deduction on their other income.”

This is a really good idea. If I can make a suggestion- Ryan’s website has a link to email him. I think you should send this to him, to add to his plan.

I have said, often, in this site, that I understand that many old folks bought the lie about SS. My parents sure did. They made no other plans and subsist on SS, my father’s VA benefits, and help from their kids. But the info is out there now. No one wants to take anything away from old folks who need it, but those who don’t should be cut. Some of the naysayers in here(and I get attacked by the same ones every time) think it is “their money” and that they are entitled to it. And isn’t that the biggest part of the problem- those who feel “entitled”? They ignore the reality of what has become an oppressive tax system on their kids.

I’m up there now. I retired from one career after thirty two years (no retirement- another dumb believer). But at 59 years old, it occured to me that I could have another 20 years in the work force and went back to college. I have no intention of taking SS. I won’t do that to my children.

[13Sisters76]

Even a hardass fiscal conservative like me has no desire to take SS from those who depend on it. My issue is with those who have generous private incomes. I salute their wisdom in planning ahead. But the days of believing that SS is some kind of retirement program are over. There is no excuse for not knowing the truth. And now that we DO, how do we justify NOT making changes that need to be made?

SS was a bad idea- it is a worse idea NOW. And those who will be taxed are a group far smaller in number than those who will benefit from it.

Change must be made. I like Ryan’s ideas, but WOULD means test it- most definately. This is like welfare checks to people who have a huge income from drug dealing. And we know THAT happens, too.