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SS taxes taken out of your pacheck is used to pay current retirees. It is not being saved up for you. It is a form of wealth redistribution (today's workers paying for the benefits of the non-workers). So we delude ourselves by calling Social Security anything other than a manifestation of socialism. Yet many Republicans (who presumably are anti-socialist) have no qualms cashing their SS checks. So to attack Obama for being a socialist while cashing in your SS checks is the height of hypocrisy.
The bill sold to the people of America when Social Security was passed described an insurance program, not a social benefit program. The monies collected were supposed to be invested and the payments to retirees was supposed to be from the earnings on those funds and the surplus used to fund the social programs for those who had not earned sufficent to see to their own needs.
The actual administration of this program is abominable and a violation of the trust of the American People. If there is any shame in participating in this program it is not in the cashing of the check, it is in the meek particpation in the plan in the face of the Government's bully tactics in it collection. Saddly, we can do little against this practice without the support of our politicians who do not seem to recognize our angst in this matter.
I do not see any hypocracy in making the best of a bad situation by cashing these checks when we have no choice about donating our earnings toward the government's finacial ineptitude, nor do I see this a socialism. Socialism is based on communal sharing of resources. This is confiscation and redistribution. There is no sharing involved.
We often hear retirees say the money they get from Social Security is "their" money which they paid into the system over the years of working. My parent's generation was taught this was a form of retirement for them.
To a point, it is true that it is "their" money compounded annually. However, especially with people living to a longer age, there comes a point where they have exhausted the compounded funds they paid into the system. At that point, Social Security Retirement Benefits become a form of welfare to the individual.
Sure wish I could put money in the bank, allow it to compound, then keep drawing on it as long as I live even though the compounded amount was exhausted long before I perished.
(In this statement, have ignored the fact that monies paid in are not actually sitting in a Gov account - Gov has long already spent the money - and monies we pay in now are going to the retirees).
Here's a thought - upon retirement, retiree receives his/her monthly SS Retirement check up to the point where the compounded amount he has earned is exhausted. At that point, retiree's situation is assessed. If retiree is found to be financially needy, retiree then gets SS Retirement Welfare. If retiree is financially sound, he no longer gets anything.
Sound crazy? Spouse and I have paid SS for years. We get statements from SS telling us what our income will be from SS when we retire. However, we are not pinning our future to it because we figure by the time we retire, SS will be broke.
BTW, in-laws did not believe us when we told them what we would be getting monthly. Even though we pay in much more than they ever did, we will be getting an amount less than what they receive.
Starting in 2017, program expenses begin to exceed revenues... due to the aging of the baby-boom generation (resulting in a lower ratio of paying workers to retirees),.... and increasing life expectancy. Further, the government has borrowed and spent the accumulated surplus funds, called the Social Security Trust Fund, while counting the funds as revenue, not debt.
During 2007, the fund held $2.2 trillion in government bonds—essentially "IOUs" or claims on the government's general fund or tax revenues. This amount is part of the total national debt of $9.6 trillion as of August 20, 2008.
By 2017, the government is expected to have borrowed nearly $4.3 trillion against the Social Security Trust fund.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,843,977 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by padcrasher
Well I have a offer for you. Why don't you provide evidence of your claim that, "My kids generation will have nothing in their old age except the leftover deficit from us."???
Show us an objective source or expert that makes the claim that SS will not be there for your kids generation?
If you do I'll donate $200 to the candidate of your choice. And I'll email the receipt?
Is there one single right winger among you that can back up your Social Security B.S. with an objective source?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It's official: Social Security will reach its tipping point this year.
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the system will pay out more benefits than it receives in payroll taxes both this year and next, the government officials who oversee Social Security said on Thursday Social Security: More going out than coming in - Aug. 5, 2010
If you are a supporter of McCain and Palin, you must have heard that they abhor socialism. If so, do you believe Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid (i.e. entitlement programs) are manifestations of socialism? If so, shouldn't you be returning your social security checks? Shouldn't you renounce any Medicare and Medicaid benefits you might receive beginning now until you drop dead?
SS, Medicare, and Medicaid comprise the biggest chunk of the federal budget. This is where the bulk of your taxes go. So if you hate taxes and oppose tax increases, it is only logical for you to renounce these programs and fight tooth and nail that they be abolished. But we don't really hear McCain and Palin (and their stooges on this forum) doing that. They attack the abstraction of socialism, but they can't really attack these programs directly because they know they will lose votes in the process.
All they do is posturing. These Republicans criticize Obama for supposedly being a socialist while at the same time they continue to receive their SS checks. Suck the government teat while hypocritically whipping its behind.
I suppose some would consider all government programs socialistic, but that is stretching the point.
One thing too many forget: SS and Medicare are programs we all pay into. SS checks are based on how much one contributes, some people get just a few hundred $$s a year, others get up to a couple thousand. If I contribute to get something back, how can that be true socialism? Now, if I had the choice, I would have preferred to invest the money in other ways, so, the government telling me what I have to do, is the socialism part. The investment and return is not the socialism part.
Of course SS is socialism. That's the direction this country has been headed for 100 years. I blame the fed & international bankers who control the economy.
We often hear retirees say the money they get from Social Security is "their" money which they paid into the system over the years of working. My parent's generation was taught this was a form of retirement for them.
To a point, it is true that it is "their" money compounded annually. However, especially with people living to a longer age, there comes a point where they have exhausted the compounded funds they paid into the system. At that point, Social Security Retirement Benefits become a form of welfare to the individual.
Sure wish I could put money in the bank, allow it to compound, then keep drawing on it as long as I live even though the compounded amount was exhausted long before I perished.
(In this statement, have ignored the fact that monies paid in are not actually sitting in a Gov account - Gov has long already spent the money - and monies we pay in now are going to the retirees).
Here's a thought - upon retirement, retiree receives his/her monthly SS Retirement check up to the point where the compounded amount he has earned is exhausted. At that point, retiree's situation is assessed. If retiree is found to be financially needy, retiree then gets SS Retirement Welfare. If retiree is financially sound, he no longer gets anything.
Sound crazy? Spouse and I have paid SS for years. We get statements from SS telling us what our income will be from SS when we retire. However, we are not pinning our future to it because we figure by the time we retire, SS will be broke.
BTW, in-laws did not believe us when we told them what we would be getting monthly. Even though we pay in much more than they ever did, we will be getting an amount less than what they receive.
So according to you auto insurence and homeowners insurence is socialism .
I may pay one payment in auto or home insurence but if my house gets blown away or I wreck my car I still get up to a half million bucks for just a payment of a couple hundred dollars . Is this socialism .
Is auto ,car or health insurence socialism ? Nope not at all . neither is SSI or SSD . it's all insurence many will never collect a dime for it because they will die before they reach the age to collect .
There is not and has not ever been any country in history without some aspect of socialism. None. Just as there has never been any country in history without some aspect of capitalism. Again, none. All countries are a mixture of both. The only issue is the level of the mix.
But for people who think all socialism is inherently evil, either they have short memories or they need to grow up and realize everything isn't black and white.
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Republicans apparently don't know that it was their beloved President Theodore Roosevelt who in 1912 proposed national health insurance for all...
Particularly lame are the complaints of healthcare critics in the southeastern US who benefit from the regional socialism of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned-and-operated supplier of electricity for tens of millions.
America's Social Security program is Bismarckian socialism. Medicare, especially with its prescription drug benefit program is socialistic. Government aid to parochial schools is sleight-of-hand socialism.
Socialism's most vocal critics are often beneficiaries of corporate welfare with all its perks: expense account meals, free NFL box seats, free corporate cellphone use...Exploiting US tax codes, corporate America has long enjoyed its own brand of socialism subsidized by taxpayers.
Like most Americans, I am not overly keen on socialism. History shows that it can curb important personal freedoms and stultify entire economies. But it is not inherently evil. And by the way, if you enjoy your 40-hour workweek, with weekends off, you owe those to an earlier generation of socialist-leaning labor leaders who championed that and so much more that Americans now take for granted.
The post was amusing, but its premise is incorrect, because social security is not socialism. That's an argument against social security pitched against it during a time when Socialism created a picture of Bolsheviks and Nazis in people's minds. As we know -- those people became Communists, and enslaved people.
Which brings up an odd point I learned during my travels. According to a couple from Amsterdam that we met, many in Europe view America as a Third World Country, because we allow homelessness to continue. As they expounded upon this, we also learned that during their travels to the Communist countries (pre-collapse) on business, they experienced the same concerns that they experienced entering this country, just a few months ago.
Maybe those attuned to Fox News should turn to a world venue for their news, like BBC America, or some other English translation.
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