Posted on 08/29/2015 7:34:15 PM PDT by WilliamIII
Republican presidential candidates. who have had to seek contributions from a handful of wealthy contributors, want to cut Social Security. Average Americans love the program; the superwealthy don’t.
Something strange is happening in the Republican primary — something strange, that is, besides the Trump phenomenon. For some reason, just about all the leading candidates other than The Donald have taken a deeply unpopular position, a known political loser, on a major domestic policy issue. And it’s interesting to ask why. The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing. But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program, and what Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all. Despite the political momentum from the GOP’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security crashed and burned. Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is and don’t want it cut.
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
“The solution is not to make people pay into the system for a lifetime, and then to rob them of their return.”
The solution is not to expect others to “invest in big government” just because you did. There is no “return” on government. You are getting someone’s money. Yours was spent long ago. Your time to get your money then, not now.
If folks today are successful in keeping their money, you won’t get their money.
W provided the solution but lacked the raw political power to produce change
his vision will be implemented
“we eat well.”
You are taking food off of someone’s plate who earned the money government gives to you.
You should thank them.
Conservatives who claim social security is “their” money are not who they think they are. It’s a popular program because it allows Americans to steal other Americans money. They can pretend that is not what they are doing, but they are deluding themselves.
After it was FIRST stolen by government.
Believe me, I have no love for Krugman, but he has a couple of points here. First - he’s right about the Invisible Primary, where candidates have to run around chasing Big Money...and Big Money always has strings. “Immigration Reform” is, obviously, the best example. Rush has been perplexed for almost a decade trying to figure out why Republicans, nearly every one, campaign hard right on immigration, but immediately go soft on border security once they get into office - and the answer is, of course, big money. Scott Walker is proving it best this campaign season in that he had more positions on aspects of the issue than there are candidates (including 3 positions on Anchor Babies in one week).
And it make sense for Social Security. Like it or not, it is a very popular program. I’ve challenged its structure by saying we should means test benefits and at least half of the respondents ON THIS SITE, perhaps the most conservative on the web, attacked me, saying that they earned the money, and they want it back. When I mentioned that they had already spent the money, twice over now, by voting (collectively) for politicians that raided the surpluses and ANY MONEY they get today is taken directly from my children and my grandchildren, it made no difference to them - they wanted what they perceived as their money and if this country was destroyed in the process, so be it. Again, these are FReepers talking, and you can see a few here. So couple them with Dems, and there simply is NO WAY that SS is going to change form in any significant way, short of full economic collapse or foreign invasion. So that’s not happening.
As to “stealing from the Trust Fund” - while technically correct, it really doesn’t matter, as SS would be broke on the same day, whether or not we raided the trust fund. To explain that in simplified terms, if SS had a $100B surplus in 1997, for example, and Congress spent that money, then Congress got to claim they “balanced the budget”, thanks to that $100B. But SS is still owed that money and has first rights to it from general revenues, which is where we are now, as SS is now running deficits. So if SS revenues are $150B short in 2014, SS gets to claim that amount from general revenues, and they are now getting it back. Of course since no one wants to cut spending anywhere else, that $150B is simply tacked on to the deficit, which is part of the reason it’s so high now. In effect, the $100B back in 1997 didn’t show up in our deficit (and debt) until 2014, but it did eventually show up and SS wasn’t hurt by it.
By its Authorization Law, SS has the right to reclaim every dollar it ‘lent’ to general revenues, and it is doing so now (I think it was about 5 years ago when revenue no longer matched expenditures). But there is a limit, based on current law, which is that SS cannot claim back anything beyond what they ‘lent’ to general revenue. That’s the day SS goes broke. If SS had held on to the money over those years, it still would go broke that day - I think in year 2033. At that point, ACCORDING TO CURRENT LAW, SS would only be authorized to pay out exactly what it brings in, which will be about 78% of obligations in 2033. So with no change in the Authorization Law, there will be an automatic and immediate 22% cut in payouts whenever that day comes in 2033. Of course the law will change and that cut will never become real.
As to what to do about it, there certainly are some options. To break even without cutting benefits to retirees, SS will need about 28% more revenue starting in 2033 and probably going up from there in later years. Here are some options:
1) Make sure the people receiving benefits are legally entitled to them (i.e., not illegals, and not dead - lots of dead people still get SS as their relatives never get around to informing SS about them).
2) End transfers out of the (paper) SS Trust Fund. Right now huge amounts of money wind up in the hands of the “Disability Fund”, which is due to go broke next year. Happens on a regular basis...the “Disability Fund” goes broke, and Congress takes money from the (paper) SS Trust Fund and bails them out. What it does is reduce the SS fund’s claim on general revenues and pushes the doomsday clock forward...maybe from 2033 to 2031. Instead tell the Disability Program to get rid of its 35% fraud that we all know is going on - that will more than cover their needs.
3) Revenue enhancements (1): Get rid of the earnings cap (presently $118,500). A dirty little secret as to why you don’t hear Dems proposing this is that they get A TON of votes from liberals in the Northeast and California who would get clobbered by this, as they are high-income liberals...for them it means a new 6.2% income tax (with no deductions allowed) on every penny over $118,500. Republicans, especially outside of liberal areas, would feel it much less.
4) Revenue Enhancements (2): Increase the withholding rate from 6.2%. Obviously not very popular with anyone, but if it increased to about 8%, that would end the most of the trouble for SS.
5) TRUMP’S IDEA: Grow the economy enough so as to bring SS back closer to break-even. One of the little-known aspects of SS is that people who make less money, or no money at all, do MUCH BETTER with the existing system than people who earn upper middle class incomes. For example, if your wife never works...never ever works, she will get about half of any benefit that you get. If she works, depending on circumstances, she may have to work quite a bit to ever match that number based on her own work. My wife will never make that kind of money, or work long enough, at this point, so any money she pays into SS is down the toilet for us. Also, the benefit formula for single workers is heavily low-end favored, based on the fact that the program isn’t much use to people if they are broke when they retire and only see, maybe $500 per month, rather than $1500 per month, where $1500 may be enough to keep them out of poverty. We have 97M people out of the workforce - give them well paying jobs, like Keystone, building the Wall on the Southern Border, and bringing manufacturing back, and people like my wife might just go back to work and help out the SS system.
Just some thoughts.
“the lying leftists may actually mean “we will have a program called social security and through that program you will get a check for $50 a month””
If “lying leftists” did this it would be more honest than “conservatives” who try to preserve the system we have now.
When leftists are more honest than you, you should reconsider you political affiliation.
“After it was FIRST stolen by government.”
Of course. This is a feature that allows conservatives to pretend they are not theives themselves as the take other people’s money.
Here’s an idea. Let’s “reform” retirement benefits for former deadhead government employees first. Gold plated pensions with forever COLA’s. Free medical care for life. Retirement at age 50. All taxpayer funded
Then lets talk about “reforming” SS.
Oh blow it out your ass. It is still money I am entitled to and yes, my money went to someone else who was entitled to it.Actually it is my late wife’s money since she died before she could collect what she was entitled to. You must be some whiney little bitch who is afraid the well will be dry by the time you get to retirement age.
I cash that check every month, and sleep the sleep of the sainted every night.
“It is still money I am entitled to”
You are making a step towards honesty.
Good job. You recognize, at least, that it’s someone else’s money.
“I cash that check every month, and sleep the sleep of the sainted every night.”
You have a lot of (”conservative”) company. Conservatives can lie to themselves same as any other check casher.
“The “surplus” was always a fiction. It was always tax and spend. There never was any “investment” other than empty government promises.”
I agree. Many people view social security as sort of a mandatory 401K in which the government is saving your money for you. It’s just not true. It’s just another tax program, and the money goes into the same mash pit as the rest that comes into the government. Just because it came in as ‘FICA’ doesn’t mean it gets put into some special account. It’s not your money. It’s theirs.
My parents both worked, for many decades, and both paid into social security. When my father died, my mother had to choose which social security account she would receive money from, hers or my fathers. If they had been allowed to put that same FICA money into personal investment accounts, she would have the money generated from both their working efforts, not just from one of them. I only include this because it illustrates how it isn’t ‘your money’ being saved for you. It’s their money, and they make the rules how much you’ll ever see.
We can come up with much better options, while also being faithful to the commitments the government made when it started taking money out of your paycheck for FICA.
Yourself excepted, of course. Every dime you earn or have is pristine, I’m sure.
“Yourself excepted, of course. Every dime you earn or have is pristine, I’m sure.”
“Pristine” in what way do you mean?
I earn my money, part of it is taken and given to people like you who think you deserve my money more than me.
FDR would be 133 years old if he still lived.
But yes he deserved to rot in prison for what he did to this country, including the creation of this program and the payroll taxes to fund it.
I’m no expert but something must be done with social security. Privatize it. It’s to Bush’s credit that he tried, though he failed miserably and gave up.
It’s ok for us to be cashing the checks. ( actually, the SS ledger entry is transferred to my ledger entry electronically and never touched or seen by a human)
I like to go to walmart to observe all the morbidly obese there that are going to die and not collect and thus leave their contributions uncollected for others to use. one of the benefits of too much stuff is that some die young
ALL income taxes are thievery, IMHO. Welcome to the real world. You could always start a cash business and not report. Otherwise, you’re going to have to deal with it.
If you thought you were going to get something back, you must be one of those fools that celebrates getting an income tax return check "from" the government. End collection of SS taxes NOW, and I will not have your entitlement expectation here when I am 75 (the new SS age by that time). Hopefully, I will have died peacefully in my sleep before then anyways... you know, after being hit by an Iranian Nuke.
“It’s ok for us to be cashing the checks. ( actually, the SS ledger entry is transferred to my ledger entry electronically and never touched or seen by a human)”
Socially? Of course. It’s a time-honored tradition now for Americans to take others money for their own use.
Morally? probably not.
It’s just more honest to accept the fact that you are taking other people’s money when you “cash” the check. Once enough folks understand this - we can change it - even better eliminate it.
It’s better (and more American) in the long run for everyone if we do. Except for the folks that are used to living off of others.
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.