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If you invested that 15% of your pay all your life, on your own, you would have a very nice nest egg. Instead the government put it in the general fund and spent it. We have every right to get it back regardless of what you choose to call it. As it is you lose it all in the event of death instead of owning it and having it in your estate.
It's not only those who contribute that are using it up. Social Security benefits go to individuals who are "disabled" due to alcohol and drug addiction, children with ADHD, and illegal aliens who have children in the us. It's not the use of Social Security benefits that's the problem...it's the misuse.
This has been known for years. That is why Bush came up wioth a plan when first in office. He was advised as he had to be by law and he responded like he has to. It was congress that ignore ther first warning. Congress had a SS comission several years ago headed by Sen. Breaux(DEM) and they had extensive hearings and said then that either payroll taxes had to increase or benefits had to be reduced. But no action was taken as usual.
I was writing articles on this 20 years ago - back in the 80s. No one seemed to care.
No use being worried about it now! This has been a known situation for at least 2 decades.
The best thing people can do is encourage your children to save to plan for their retirements . . . and if you are under 40, set up your own retirement plan and work hard to save so you can take care of yourself as a Senior.
there is no excuse for people looking at social security as such an entitlement program - there has been info around for YEARS informing people that they'd better do more to look out for themselves.
And for as many years people have been living from pay day to pay day and been unable to do anything about what they knew they needed to do.
You're not alone I assure you. It is past time that we demand that they stop stealing from the fund to finance other interests. Whatever they want to spend money on, pay back into the fund first. They have stolen it and we want it back!
You think SS is a retirement plan? Did someone give you that promise in writing? Because I don't recall any of my employers or political leaders making such a promise to me. It's a supplemental safety net, that's all.
Actually during the Reagan years, Congress did just that when they junked the civil service retirement system in favor of the new plan. The new plan relies on Feds having 1/3 of their retirement from social security benefits. That changed the game and opened the doors to the rest of the economy depending on SS to support retirement benefits in lieu of companies providing the benefits. Congress did this deliberately and in so doing changed SS from a safety net to a retirement pillar. It has cascaded from there with company after company raiding the benefits funds, firing people just before they can qualify, and then just outright junking the benefit completely until here we are now.
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That said, let's remember it's an election year. It seems to happen like clockwork, every four years. Suddenly there's a big scary statement about money running out. Just watch and see--my bet is we'll be hearing different news in November. Miraculously they will have found a different source of money or they will report that statistics were misunderstood or they will just report different findings with no explanation at all.
This, I agree with. The money will be found because they simply cannot let it die. Far, far too many people now rely on it and the rest of the retirement benefits system has died, except for a few who still have the pensions and the winners in the 401k and similar funds. The numbers of people who will have to depend on SS keep rising and there is that niggling little fact that workers have paid for it. If they can bail out Bear Sterns, they won't let SS die.
Ever notice how every time they do this assessment, they come up with a different number? It is probably bogus anyway.
The trick is to be born prior to 1950. All of the alternatives and revisions suggested in recent years leave the benefits for those born prior to 1950 in place. The closer you are to that year the less likely you would see a change.
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