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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...b8fe28-29c0-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html
The WP has the best editorial on Social Security I have seen in years.
Obama's statement have no proposal to increase revenue, and no details about how he would expand Social Security benefits.
1) There are no details
2) It is virtually impossible to expand SS in a way to help those who are poor
3) Tax increases will compete with other priorities
4) Children are twice as likely to be in poverty, and yet in 2011, the federal government spent six times as much on the elderly as it did on children. Children can’t vote.
Not sure about the statistics behind #4, but the last line is priceless.
And this at a time, when we should be downsizing SS, if not replacing it totally. It is a bad system and economists have known it to be so since I was a child. In the meantime our technology has improved so much that it is unbelievable, that we should still be trying to fix it instead of a total change.
if any other company ran a similar program they would be arrested and thrown in jail.
SS should have never been based on a Ponzi scheme.
SS should have been an individual retirement account in which the federal government pays a simple interest rate on.
similar to a savings account. when you go to retire the government would then put in a lump sum based on years worked etc ...
yet your account would still continue to gain interest. the fact is that the government is promising people money
it can't pay. worse it is considering cutting back on money paid out so that you never realize what you invested.
And this at a time, when we should be downsizing SS, if not replacing it totally. It is a bad system and economists have known it to be so since I was a child. In the meantime our technology has improved so much that it is unbelievable, that we should still be trying to fix it instead of a total change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...b8fe28-29c0-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html
The WP has the best editorial on Social Security I have seen in years.
Obama's statement have no proposal to increase revenue, and no details about how he would expand Social Security benefits.
1) There are no details
2) It is virtually impossible to expand SS in a way to help those who are poor
3) Tax increases will compete with other priorities
4) Children are twice as likely to be in poverty, and yet in 2011, the federal government spent six times as much on the elderly as it did on children. Children can’t vote.
Not sure about the statistics behind #4, but the last line is priceless.
Magic. Taxing only those rich people, without effecting anyone else, because magic.
Details can get scored, and that allows opponents to point out their problems. TANSTAAFL, and whoever is paying for that lunch is going to get upset.
Politicians know this. The winning candidate in 2008 had an effective platform that was two words if you don't count "and". The GOP candidate this year has a platform that comes down to "Winning" (1 word) or "Make America Great Again" (4 words), depending on whether you want the simpler, or the more complex version.
Hold benefit growth flat for upper income earners and transfer the savings to grow the benefits of lower income earners. Not sure if that counts as a "net expansion", but it'd be one way I'd look at doing.
And alter incentives, altering behavior. That upper income earners will not simply mindlessly acquiesce to being constantly gored is a lesson the taxers generally fail to appreciate.
Yup. The problem with our safety net stems not least from the fact that we have effectively designed it to benefit our middle class the most. Middle Class Seniors vote, after all. It's become an extractive exercise.
SS is all screwed up, like most of the Federal government, but nobody is willing to fix it because they would be out of job. We should draft a special 1 session Congress that does nothing but overhaul SS, Medicare, the IRS, and military spending.
Social Security has a structural problem.
It has no idea who is and who isn't wealthy.
There is no way to expand Social Security in a way to help the poor without ending Social Security.
The benefit growth of higher end seniors is small. It really moves with wages. If you hold the benefit levels, you are breaking a foundation principle of the system. Benefits should never be means tested.
Today workers with high wages pay more, but the benefits were supposed to be earned by the contribution so that no damn politician can scrap "my" system. FDR took the system personally.
If you want a welfare system, end SS and send the resources to an actual welfare program. Then you won't have seniors mindlessly claiming that they deserve an expansion on what they paid for.
You are looking at it as an investment. Insurance isn't an investment. It is an expense. Your real beef, and deservedly so, is that it is overpriced insurance.
1) Originally Social Security wasn't a ponzi scheme. Congress converted it into what it is today over decades.
2) No, SS shouldn't be an individual account. People already have individual accounts. What most people do not have is access to economically affordable old-age insurance. That is what it was supposed to be until Congress converted it into I-Don't-Want-To-Live-With-My-Mother-In-Law insurance.
[/QUOTE]3) The government isn't promising anyone anything. Social Security isn't a guarantee. (If you are interested in the Nestor case, here is an article I contributed to FedSmith) : Social Security?s (Missing) Guarantee : FedSmith.com.
SS is an unfunded liability bomb that's slowly exploding. No one wants to act, because right now, in the short term doing what needs to be done would be politically unfeasible, by the time the idiot voters realize something NEEDS to be done, and the political winds are favorable for actual change, it will be too damn late. SS is one of many FDR disasters that plague America still.
SS is not insurance. stop repeating that misinformed nonsense.
It has a couple of structural problems, starting with being a Pay-Go system tied to a populace with a barely-replacement birthrate.
I would say it probably has one of the best ideas, as it has the granularity on personal income for each individual stretching back decades. IRS would be best for recency, but as I (dimly- I've never investigated) understand it, they only keep records for 7 years.
:shrug: this is incorrect. For example, slowing benefit growth for the top half of earners while creating a minimum benefit of 125% of the Poverty Line and offering a bump-up benefit increase for seniors past the 20 year mark would still net benefit Social Security's long-term finances.
They already are means-tested, as the benefits formula already grants less "return" to higher wages. Tweaking a formula already in place is not "breaking" Social Security :roll:
FDR, whom you quote, argued that the reason for SS' existence was to provide a measure of security against old age poverty. Not a benefit paid out for the prize of reaching age 65. The intent is to reduce or end the incidence of poverty among our elderly, not reward higher earners.
Uh... Yes. That usually happens, when politicians make a 30-second comment about Social Security.Obama's statement have no proposal to increase revenue, and no details about how he would expand Social Security benefits.
Of course there aren't any details. It wasn't a policy speech. He was at Elkhart, making a feel-good economics speech.1) There are no details
Yes, I'm sure that giving people who have no income other than SS won't help them at all2) It is virtually impossible to expand SS in a way to help those who are poor
Only if you treat taxes like a zero-sum game3) Tax increases will compete with other priorities
Uh huh4) Children are twice as likely to be in poverty, and yet in 2011, the federal government spent six times as much on the elderly as it did on children. Children can’t vote.
Yep, SSI is not insurance. They only put the word "insurance" in to help get it pushed through. I pay premiums for my insurance based on risk. SS is just a tax where the government takes your money, you don't have a choice, and they give it to other people.
Here is the whole quote : We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
Health insurance will give the average citizen some measure of protection against poverty-ridden old age. Are you saying that the intent of health insurance is to reduce or end poverty.
Old-age insurance is a sensible expense
He said that it was 'some measure', not an absolute.
He made it clear that it was not to be a public dole or charity for those who hadn't prepared for retirement. He wanted a system which was insulated from the damn politician.
Big picture you want to continue the failure of the past which embeds more and more politics into the system. We honestly disagree. To me, politics has become the cause of the problem, and is not a cure.
Past earnings tells you nothing about current wealth. The past is not current, and earnings are not wealth.
Whether or not you like the term "insurance" - it's certainly not "just a tax" that they give to other people.Yep, SSI is not insurance. They only put the word "insurance" in to help get it pushed through. I pay premiums for my insurance based on risk. SS is just a tax where the government takes your money, you don't have a choice, and they give it to other people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...b8fe28-29c0-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html
The WP has the best editorial on Social Security I have seen in years.
Obama's statement have no proposal to increase revenue, and no details about how he would expand Social Security benefits.
1) There are no details
2) It is virtually impossible to expand SS in a way to help those who are poor
3) Tax increases will compete with other priorities
4) Children are twice as likely to be in poverty, and yet in 2011, the federal government spent six times as much on the elderly as it did on children. Children can’t vote.
Not sure about the statistics behind #4, but the last line is priceless.
When it is provided by the government, indeed it is. We call that program "Medicare/Medicaid".
Insurance is for transferring risk of sudden catastrophic events such as cancer, auto wrecks, and house fires. Turning 65 is not a sudden catastrophic event. Nor is it unforeseeable.
:shrug: this is incorrect. For example, slowing benefit growth for the top half of earners while creating a minimum benefit of 125% of the Poverty Line and offering a bump-up benefit increase for seniors past the 20 year mark would still net benefit Social Security's long-term finances.
You realize that the proposal you are citing does nothing for existing seniors.
It clearly doesn't help seniors who aren't eligible. It doesn't help the people who weren't able to work 30 years. This is why the exhaustion point of the Trust Fund doesn't budge. This is the problem with getting information from a think tank instead of the SSA.
Walk me through your logic. How are you going to tell retiree who turned 62 in 2010 that he gets nothing while retiree Y who turned 62 in 2022 gets the 125% bonus.
How do you justify handing welfare payment to less than all poor Americans.
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