Abolish Social Security (Congress, Clinton, how much, dollar)

[silas777]

I would love to see it abolshed but I am a realist , not going to happen! We can start allowing young people entering the work place the option of paying in or not & allowing others to opt out! We definitely need to start weening people off of it!

[saganista]

Originally Posted by silas777

I would love to see it abolshed but I am a realist , not going to happen! We can start allowing young people entering the work place the option of paying in or not & allowing others to opt out! We definitely need to start weening people off of it!

We need to ween people off of providing even the most basic forms of financial security for themselves? That's an odd prescription to be writing. I don't guess that you're a Certified Financial Planner. If you're such a realist, maybe you could pay a little more attention to reality...such as what happens with opt out provisions. Maybe we should have those for income taxes as well?

[YapCity]

Originally Posted by saganista

People in general tend to grossly overestimate their actual ability to invest successfully. In the real world, only the fortunate will end up doing better on their own than with Social Security.

I've averaged about a 15% return in my 401k over the last 7 years.
I'll take my chances, thank you.

Originally Posted by saganista

Millionaires collect on their life insurance policies when they die as well. Those payouts affect your rates. Is that causing you a lot of problems also?

Different animal. One is a social program, the other is an investment vehicle and/or insurance.

Originally Posted by saganista

If they paid in their premiums over the course of their working lives, why should those who end up well-to-do be denied the benefits those premiums were exchanged for? At that, Social Security benefits are already progressive, and there are income limits beyond which the well-to-do must pay income taxes on their SS benefits. This is already a net reduction in benefits for being up the ladder somewhere.

Why should they? Because it has to work that way. There is simply no other choice to keep that farce of a social program sustaining itself. Somewhere along the line there needs to be a change. Cutting the benefit completely from someone with a liquid net worth of 1 or 2 million doesn't seem like all that much of a hardship for them. Somebody has to take the beating. Either it's going to be EVERYBODY In 30 or 40 years, which would be a DISASTER, or we can start cutting it NOW for those that can obviously do without it.

Personally, I'd like to opt out completely and get my money back.

Originally Posted by saganista

You wouldn't get very much money back by doing that. Social Security is meanwhile not in need of being saved. It's in need of being adjusted, as it has been many times in the past, to account for what we can see coming down the pipeline. The current problems will not actually show up until the second half of the century, so we have some (but rapidly dwindling) time to deal with those.

You're not thinking very much about this. The benefits they are looking to pay out in 30 years, when considering inflation, might pay a utility bill. Adjusted, YES, by cutting the benefit to those that don't need it. Just like we do with "EIC" and other credits for the poor.

~T

[silas777]

Originally Posted by saganista

We need to ween people off of providing even the most basic forms of financial security for themselves? That's an odd prescription to be writing. I don't guess that you're a Certified Financial Planner. If you're such a realist, maybe you could pay a little more attention to reality...such as what happens with opt out provisions. Maybe we should have those for income taxes as well?

Well if some one considers SS a (basic form of financial security for themselves) they need a prescription, or perhaps get off of one! Excuse my ignorance, but what does "what happens to opt out provisions mean"? I do believe you are on to something with the income taxes!

[saganista]

Originally Posted by YapCity

I've averaged about a 15% return in my 401k over the last 7 years. I'll take my chances, thank you.

Good for you. Do you think you will be able to repeat that performance ad infinitum? Do you think that you are about average in terms of your investment philosophy and savvy, and that most people would do just as well as you or better?

Originally Posted by YapCity

Different animal. One is a social program, the other is an investment vehicle and/or insurance.

No, it isn't a different animal at all. Social Security is an insurance program covering risks and costs associated with death, disability, and retirement. As with life insurance, if you pay the premiums, you get the benefits as you become entitled to them.

Originally Posted by YapCity

Why should they? Because it has to work that way. There is simply no other choice to keep that farce of a social program sustaining itself. Somewhere along the line there needs to be a change. Cutting the benefit completely from someone with a liquid net worth of 1 or 2 million doesn't seem like all that much of a hardship for them. Somebody has to take the beating. Either it's going to be EVERYBODY In 30 or 40 years, which would be a DISASTER, or we can start cutting it NOW for those that can obviously do without it.

Rant, rant, rant. Make a case for why that million dollar life insurance policy you've been paying premiums on all your life should pay out only 100K when you die if you happen to be well off at the time. Then come talk to me about how SS premiums and payouts should be treated in the same way.

Originally Posted by YapCity

Personally, I'd like to opt out completely and get my money back.

It isn't your money, and your preference is likely built upon foundations of general disinformation.

Originally Posted by YapCity

You're not thinking very much about this. The benefits they are looking to pay out in 30 years, when considering inflation, might pay a utility bill. Adjusted, YES, by cutting the benefit to those that don't need it. Just like we do with "EIC" and other credits for the poor.

Thanks, but it's part of my job to think about this, and even if we do absolutely nothing with SS, the real benefits being paid out of SS in 30 years will be greater than what they are today. Particularly given the myopic energy policies that we have in place today, it could indeed be that the real cost of utility bills will have increased significantly by then, but as with the EITC, that's a separate matter from SS. You wanted welfare reform, you got it. And we took all those people off the rolls at HHS and put them right back on the rolls over at IRS. So it goes...

[chele123]

Originally Posted by saganista

KPERS is a personal investment program. Social Security is a social insurance program. As a start, sketch out the differences between personal and social, and between investment and insurance.

My point is, I want the retirement income I was promised. I am not likely to see any of it because of the mismanagement of the SS fund.

The increases in full-benefits retirement age from 65 to 67 were enacted in 1983. So I guess you'd been working since 1953, so you were born in about 1935, and since that's before 1938, you aren't affected by the increases at all. Either that or one or more of the elements in your complaint were misspecified.

I don't think you are doing the math. I have been in the work force since I was 16, paying into my Social Security. I am 45 now. OK - I did exaggerate, it's only been 29 1/2 years that I have been paying into Social Security.

Like I said, selfish people. It's not your money. The only reason that 6.2% is included in your gross pay at all is so that it can be used to meet your payroll tax obligations. And like any tax, once it's paid, it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the payee. Same deal as with the money you fork over at the grocery store checkout. It's not yours anymore either. You meanwhile have any number of tax-advantaged opportunities for personal investing. The rest of us are already underwriting those for you. What more do you want?

The money was mine before they took it. If they had not taken it for SS it could have been applied to my KPERS, or I could have bought more CD's, or I could even start an IRA for better diversification. If you want more taxes, call them taxes, don't call them Social Security. The taxes I pay at the grocery store have nothing to do with the SS withholding from my check.

Or is there just no end to this it's-all-about-me sort of whining?

This is not a socialist country, there is no common pot we all share out of, so yes, it is all about me. I survive if I take care of me. Little by little that philosophy has been whittled away to the point now that some actually believe the Government should take care of them. I am not one of them.

[Miss Blue]

NOOOOOO!!!! My husband paid into it for fifty two years!! He deserves every penny. He will probably never get back what he paid in

[saganista]

Originally Posted by chele123

My point is, I want the retirement income I was promised. I am not likely to see any of it because of the mismanagement of the SS fund.

What sort of mismanagement do you think there has been? The SSTF is invested in the safest and most secure investment vehicle in the history of the world...US Treasury securities. Not one penny of either principal or interest has ever been defaulted on any of these securities. That investment is mandated by law. The management and admin costs for the SSTF are tiny. So again, what sort of mismanagement is it that you allege?

Originally Posted by chele123

I don't think you are doing the math. I have been in the work force since I was 16, paying into my Social Security. I am 45 now. OK - I did exaggerate, it's only been 29 1/2 years that I have been paying into Social Security.

Ah, so you began work in 1978 and the SS retirement age change came about in 1983. That would be 5 years by the way that I do math, leaving you a mere 46 years in which to adjust to the change. That's a somewhat different story from the one you first told.

Originally Posted by chele123

The money was mine before they took it. If they had not taken it for SS it could have been applied to my KPERS, or I could have bought more CD's, or I could even start an IRA for better diversification.

The grocery money was yours before the grocery store took it, but SS was never yours. If it weren't for SS, it would not have been there to begin with. The options of KPERS and IRA's are there for you in any case. As are other tax-favored means for encouraging you to save. Meanwhile, you are (in most states) required to have some form of auto insurance before you can obtain a driver's license. Are you screaming over how that money should have gone for CD's or into an IRA instead? That would be a much better analogy to SS than the ones you are trying to make.

Originally Posted by chele123

If you want more taxes, call them taxes, don't call them Social Security. The taxes I pay at the grocery store have nothing to do with the SS withholding from my check.

I have not seen anyone insisting that payroll taxes are not taxes. The money at the grocery store is meanwhile your entire bill, not just the taxes on it. Once you pay the bill for what you have purchased, that money isn't yours anymore. The same is true for money you pay in taxes.

Originally Posted by chele123

This is not a socialist country, there is no common pot we all share out of, so yes, it is all about me. I survive if I take care of me. Little by little that philosophy has been whittled away to the point now that some actually believe the Government should take care of them. I am not one of them.

This isn't an anarchy either. We have formed a union of peoples for the purpose of providing for the common defense and the general welfare. Folks have been doing this for as long as there have been folks. In any sort of developed society, you are absolutely unable to take care of yourself without the help of many, many others. Like too many others, you seem to believe that you can accept all that help, but avoid paying for any of the costs of it. That's where the word 'selfish' comes in...

[saganista]

Originally Posted by blue62

NOOOOOO!!!! My husband paid into it for fifty two years!! He deserves every penny. He will probably never get back what he paid in

That will depend on how long he lives. But SS benefits are a true, full-life, CPI-plus-adjusted annuity that you can't outlive, and if it should (perish the thought, but it does sometimes happen) turn out that he has only a few years left, you will draw a similar survivor's annuity for the rest of your life, no matter how long that is.

[ElkHunter]

Keep it in place. But stop the gov from borrowing out of it all the time and not paying it back.