Posted on 08/15/2018 9:20:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Social Security is running out of money.
You may not believe that, but it's a fact.
That FICA money taken from your paycheck was not saved for you in a "trust fund." Politicians misled us. They spent every penny the moment it came in.
This started as soon as they created Social Security. They assumed that FICA payments from young workers would cover the cost of sending checks to older people. After all, at the time, most Americans died before they reached 65.
Now, however, people keep living longer. There just aren't enough young people to cover my Social Security checks.
So Social Security is going broke. This year, the program went into the red for the first time.
Presidents routinely promise to fix this problem.
George W. Bush said he'd "strengthen and save" Social Security. Barack Obama said he'd "safeguard" it, and Donald Trump said that he'll "save" it.
But none has done anything to save it.
"There is a plan out there to save it, but it requires some tough choices," says Heritage Foundation budget analyst Romina Boccia.
Heritage proposes cutting payments to rich people and raising the retirement age to 70.
Good luck with that. Seniors vote. Most vote against politicians who suggest cutting benefits.
This summer, interviewing people for my new video about Social Security's coming bankruptcy, was the first time I had heard the majority of such a group say they were aware there is a problem. One said, "We're already at a trillion dollars (deficit) ... (I)t's almost like a big Ponzi scheme."
Actually, more like a pyramid scheme. Ponzi schemes secretly take your money. But the Social Security trick is written into the law -- there for anyone who bothers to look.
Social Security isn't the only hard choice ahead of us. Medicare will run out of money in just eight years. At that point, benefits will automatically be cut. Social Security hits its wall in 15 years.
Amazingly, as we approach this disaster, Democrats say -- spend even more.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proudly announced, "Nearly every Democrat in the United States Senate has voted in favor of expanding Social Security."
How would they pay for it? "Raise taxes on the wealthy!" is the usual answer.
I tried that on Boccia: "Just raise taxes on the rich!"
"There isn't enough money, even that the rich would have," she countered, "to pay for the $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities."
One partial solution proposed by Heritage and others is to let younger workers put some of their Social Security money into their own personal retirement accounts.
"Imagine being able to own and control your own retirement dollars," urged Boccia, with genuine excitement. "You could invest it in businesses, grow the economy, whatever rocks your boat."
If history is any guide, private accounts would almost certainly pay retirees more than Social Security will ever pay.
"Even a conservative portfolio of stocks and bonds that got you about a 5 percent annual return, you would make many times more," said Boccia.
She's right. Money in government hands just sits there or gets spent wastefully; it's rarely invested wisely.
Private accounts have been tried in a few countries. In Chile, the investment they created helped make Chile the richest country in Latin America. (Before, Chile was poorer than most.)
Yet even after that success, leftists in South America hold street protests against private accounts. They're angry because capitalists get a slice of the pie.
I told Boccia that I couldn't understand why people in Chile don't loudly cheer private accounts because of the wealth they'd created.
"We lack gratitude," she replied, "for what the free market provides. That is difficult to wrap your head around. It's easy to think, 'Here is the government. This is where I go.'"
But eventually, even governments run out of other people's money.
Like most American politicians, Donald Trump campaigned saying, "I'm not going to cut Social Security ... not going to cut Medicare."
He and other politicians pretend they're protecting people's futures, but they are not. They're ignoring the inevitable.
Better to fix old-age programs now -- rather than have them suddenly go bankrupt later.
Third fix: fund SS by radically cutting back on welfare. By "radically", I mean make it non-viable to support a kid on welfare, to the point where no low-income woman will find "having kids to qualify for benefits" an attractive option.
>>Meanwhile, I turn 66 in early 2020 and am taking full retirement benefits. It’s all I have. After moving to rural KY it’s also all I need.<<
Bummer. I am a few years from retirement (whatever that means) and have planned to not get a single dime of SS.
When I start taking SS will depend on my whim and whether I think the $$ will be there or not. Maybe if I want ti travel a bit more or something like that.
No offense but depending on SS is probably not a really good plan.
Yep, I remember what they did to Bush for even remotely contemplating the idea! Really too bad. I’m 63 and working until I’m 66 (or longer). I hope there’s something left when I get there and I had hoped something could be done for the younger ones.
Lying democrats sure know how to screw things up.......
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The “Kingdoms of men” will run out of existence before SS runs out of money!
I guarantee it.
There is an easy fix for this and that is to copy what Galveston, TX did and other cities and some countries.
The reason not allowed is for control. Example is my sister who is on SSI. Did you know you cannot have more then $2,000 in your bank account or they will deduct anything over from your check! Not allowed to save for a rainy day.
Social Security also penalizes you for working. If invested as in the links you could work and collect and tell the gov’t to bugger off.
How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered
https://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2011/05/12/how-three-texas-counties-created-personal-social-security-accounts-and-prospered/#45daedf43283
How Privatized Social Security Works in Galveston
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/how-privatized-social-security-works-in-galveston.html
Al Gore was the one that propose that during his run for the presidency. I hate to admit this but his proposal would have been better than what we have always done with it. So he was right.
There is also a reason conservatives should be against it. You would have to borrow even more money to cover the shortfall created by allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their taxes.
Happens all the time in High Tech.
There is a reason engineers from India bring their entire family and its NOT to be close to family.
Remove the income tax limit. Do not increase the payouts proportionately.
There are billions of additional dollars.
And recall the payouts over REAL life expectancy, not the BS models they’ve been using.
No offense but depending on SS is probably not a really good plan.
I also plan on continuing my IT job while I take SS, hopefully dramatically increasing what nest-egg we have.
I look at SS like this: If the government gets in such a bad way that they can’t pay my SS, then my SS will be the least of my problems. Having enough lead will be a bigger issue. Our place already has all the food and water we need should it get bad, but I don’t expect it to.
Since they are not taxed,.....What country do you live in?
First of all,there should be absolutely NO illegals getting anything except what is necessary to get them out of our country.. There should be nothing else of any kind coming out of S.S. funds. There are those people,who upon retiring,will never need their S.S. funds,but they paid in all those years,so not sure what is the answer in that case. Any S.S. fraud should mean an automatic jail sentence for anyone convicted. No income tax should come out of S.S. in any way when you draw. Taxes on it were already paid once. Privatization of the funds is a consideration,since the politicians have not been up to the task of running the system fairly. S.S. raises need to be honest raises;not offset by an equivalent increase in Medicare. When Medicare absorbs the raise in “benefits” there really is no raise to cover inflation. There is more that could be done,but that’s good for starters.
Kentucky. :)
No state income tax on SS ND below the threshold for federal income tax, if I keep my taxable income low.
Discussions like this will get nowhere until it is universally recognized that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and that NOBODY deserves to be rewarded by such a scheme.
As with all such schemes, the earliest beneficiaries receive more than they contribute and later contributors typically get nothing.
The money has been spent already. Future benefits must be paid from future contributions. Any imbalance between future benefits and future contributions is a continuation of the unethical aspect of the scheme.
Will the burden of maintaining Social Security ever reach the point where each contributor is responsible for one or more recipients? Or will people demand changes to reduce that burden? I think the latter will be the case.
Legal ponzi scheme.
But reform is difficult because dems will scare old people, who’s votes we rely on.
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