Posted on 01/02/2011 10:24:47 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Seniors should be older before the receive Social Security and wealthy Americans should receive less benefits across the board, says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
He made the argument in an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press, but it's a position Graham has advocated for on the stump in South Carolina, including a 2009 stop at The Citadel with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
"What I'm going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions," Graham said at the time, telling the crowd of cadets, Tea Partiers, and Graham supporters that they shouldn't give Congress a pass on the tough stuff.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlestoncitypaper.com ...
I know exactly how much money I have contributed over the years.
It isn't as much as they think.
You apparently don't understand the time value of money.
If I give you $10,000 today, I'm going to expect more than $10,000 in return, 30 years from now. Otherwise, I've given you an interest-free loan.
I've done the same calculations as you have, but I've also accounted for the average long term Treasury bond rates over that period. If you were born in 1955, started work at 21 and worked until 62, a conservative estimate would be that you'd have over $2,000,000 in the bank if you had invested what was forcibly taken into US Treasury bonds.
In order to exhaust that amount with the currently legislated benefits, you'd have to live past about age 120.
>Bullsh*t. It’s enormous, but you want to take the easy way out - rob those that are paying for it rather than actually investigate and prosecute fraud.
You got proof? I’m basing my case on the fact that every time they make claims about the huge amount of money recoverable from fraud, they actually do the investigations and recover diddly squat and save about nothing. Do you have some magical senses which reveal it all to you so you can ferret it all out and save us? If so, by all means proceed. Meanwhile back in reality, we’ll try addressing the problems with real solutions.
>Maybe we can pull the money out of the same orifice that you’re extracting your figures. Wash mine first, please.
About the only money you will be able to expect is BS dollars since the bond markets are already considering lowering the status of T Bills, and when that happens interest rates will get ugly, and the cost of the debt will explode.
Well said.
How did I figure out the $130,169.69 number? Taking max taxable income for that year and used the rate the ssa.gov showed for that year. Added the whole shooting match up for the last 45 years, and that is the absolute top of what someone, by law, could pay into the system. Any excess contributions are returned to the payer at the end of the tax year the overage occurred.
You forgot to add in the employer matching amounts.
>I’ve done the same calculations as you have, but I’ve also accounted for the average long term Treasury bond rates over that period. If you were born in 1955, started work at 21 and worked until 62, a conservative estimate would be that you’d have over $2,000,000 in the bank if you had invested what was forcibly taken into US Treasury bonds.
So by virtue of making utterly specious assumptions (that you were investing), you come up with a nonsensical value. How useful.
What you paid in is a fixed amount. It has nothing to do with what that money might have been worth.
I don’t consider social security welfare an entitlement for those who paid into it. But many people didn’t from the poorest to the richest. The government used the contributions of those who paid into the general fund to wage wars, build roads, run the country and fund tax cuts. It was used to run the country just as income tax and now that the surplus is no longer contributing to the general fund they want to cut it. BS.
Those who live off investment income may have never never paid a dime into it, yet they were subsidized and benefited from social security. Why should a person who works at Wal-Mart be required to subsidize a billionaire hedge fund manager? The surplus should have been lockboxed for recipients. The fund would likely be solvent forever if that was the case.
But before they start cutting into social security we need to take care of the USA and ALL giveaways to other nations and start charging countries for our worldwide defense.
On that, we can agree. At least the means-testing portion. I had outlined other ideas for resolution earlier in the thread, but I've found myself fending off the "redistributionists" along the way. I endorse aligning the payout with what someone put in (possibly with interest) - no more, and no less.
In other words, if you and your employer put a total of $200,000 in, you benefit should be based on that amount as applied to an actuary table at the time of your retirement taking into account your age, adjusted downward an appropriate amount if you want a surviving spouse benefit. Likewise, if you only contributed (and I use that word loosely) $20,000 over your working years, you should receive a much smaller benefit to reflect your smaller contribution.
Matching benefit with contribution and adjusting for average expected longevity is what I would expect any conservative to seek, if not outright elimination of the program (which would have to occur over a time period, given that such a large population of people that DID pay in are now retired and collecting). What I would not expect to see is a "conservative" advocating eliminating benefits for those that paid in while maintaining benefits for the freeloading deadbeats that are dragging this program down in the first place.
Also, I'd advocate getting rid of the SSI and all the other non-retirement garbage. Or make it a separate program that isn't mandatory. I really don't relish paying a welfare mom because she could find a crooked doctor to prescribe Ritalin to her antsy youngster.
First we need to get a new understanding for the meaning of such words as fair,equal,earned, you get the point?
Correction: We need to start taking care of the USA first and END all giveaways to other nations, and start charging for the protection that our defense forces provide. Too many nations have lived fat and happy off our dole for too long
We need to (without blaming anybody) look at the demographic and financial projections, understand what they are telling us, and then decide whether we want to:
(a) start taking the action to fix the problem now, or
(b) just let the engine run dry until it seizes up, and then start over again from square one.
If I consented to plan (b), then there would be some blame....my kids and grandkids would have every right to blame ME.
Yeah, it would have been great if the government had allowed everyone to invest that cash instead of taking it. There would be a bunch of happy people right now, having turned that $130K into a real retirement portfolio. One that could have kept the owners in style in their golden years.
But the government had other plans. It took your money (and everyone else’s) and turned into a money losing proposition. A boondoggle on an epic scale.
What if you continue working to 70? Actually, my "age" isn't 65, it's 66 and 10 months due to the ratcheting up of the retirement age.
If an employer matches 5% of your contribution, you can still, only meet the maximum. If Employer contributions exceed the max contribution allowed each individual, the money goes back to the employer.
An example of that is me; I contributed the maximum allowed of $22,000 off the top of my gross and the 5% Employer match had to be sent back to the employer in full. In fact, such programs reduce your 401K advantage because you cannot take as much off the gross income, which may put you into a higher bracket. The 5% employer contribution is added into the total each year, so you lose part of the advantage of a 401K.
Have him turn in his pension and just collect SS and we’ll see what he thinks...
Read the post again. You will find I did, and even added a little bit in the final figures. In 1984 there was a 0.3 percent rebate for the employee, making the effective rate 5.4%, not 5.7% like it was supposed to.
That may well be the easiest part of the fix.
My problem is with those Freepers who complain about those accretions in order to not confront the long-term demographic collapse of the core system.
I have looked into the pure ‘welfare accretions’ (nice term), and while it seems hard to get a straight number on the cost of those, it does seem to be around 10% at most.
And if you die the day before retirement, the government keeps the whole thing. They like when people do that. It is why SS retirement was set at 65. Half of the population was supposed to kick off before they reached that age, and most of the rest shortly after.
I certainly agree with you and your post was so well said. My husband is drawing ss now tho he is still working. I will be eligible in another year. I certainly hear the difference in arguments depending on the age of those debating this subject. You are right. The younger people make it sound as though we are taking from them and are leeches. They have no idea what it feels like to have paid into the system for a lifetime then be told you get nothing back possibly.
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