Debate Over Private Accounts Resumes (social security)

WP ^ | Aug. 13, 2005 | MARY DALRYMPLE

[FairOpinion]

Lawmakers and interest groups are gearing up for a fight this fall over Social Security, each side hoping to use the retirement and disability program's 70th birthday to build momentum.

An electronic card from the opposite side of the debate, circulated by the Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security, or CoMPASS, shows a Social Security birthday cake sliced and served. Without major reform, it warns, children will be left with the crumbs.

[FairOpinion]

Of course nobody wants to do anything, until with fall off the cliff, then the Dems will be clamoring for tax increases and raising the age of eligibility, to restore it to the Ponzi scheme it was meant to be originally, everyone pays into it, very few people collect, because when it was enacted, the life expectancy of people was around age 66.

Llife expectancy Tables

[spinestein]

Like many people my age (mid 30's and younger) I'm extremely unsatisfied with social security as it currently exists (as an unsustainable mess that costs far more than it delivers and is an unacceptable drain on this country) and I want the situation corrected now, while it's still just a "problem" not 10 years from now when it becomes a "crisis".

[expat_panama]

From the start, Social Security was nothing more than a regressive tax posing as a pension plan.  Even FDR didn't think it would survive beyond 1960, but with congress greedy for taxes the charade was kept up --til now.  

For the first time in the better part of a century, we've finally got a president with the stones to take it on.  

Some think we can balance the budget by cutting say, foreign aid.  Horse-hocky.   I like the National Budget Simulation Game and how it gives armchair budget experts a change to get acquainted with the real world.

Big ticket items are the only way, starting with Social Security.   I vote for farm subsidies and medicare next, but I'll be happy with one thing at a time.