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the generation that has enjoyed artificially low taxes while receiving benefits.
The problem is, how do you claw them back?
People voted high benefits and low taxes. They then utterly failed to save enough money personally for retirement, under the assumption that programs that a precocious 6th grader looking at the numbers involved could have told you were unsustainable decades ago would be there forever (or at least until they were dead).
Now it's a balance of cutting enough spending to get the US economy to veer away from the proverbial iceberg before it's too late, while not having the fools who didn't save for their retirements literally starve. You can't significantly cut social security (medicare/medicaid is a totally different story, though) when so many people prepared nothing else (well, you could, but putting the childless elderly on the streets is a bit harsh).
People voted high benefits and low taxes. They then utterly failed to save enough money personally for retirement, under the assumption that programs that a precocious 6th grader looking at the numbers involved could have told you were unsustainable decades ago would be there forever (or at least until they were dead).
Now it's a balance of cutting enough spending to get the US economy to veer away from the proverbial iceberg before it's too late, while not having the fools who didn't save for their retirements literally starve. You can't significantly cut social security (medicare/medicaid is a totally different story, though) when so many people prepared nothing else (well, you could, but putting the childless elderly on the streets is a bit harsh).
Lower taxes and cut programs incrementally each year to allow for an adjustment period. Retirement is an individual problem, not a social problem. Social security needs to be phased out. The amount that is confiscated for social security needs to be returned to the individual, who should be free to set up an IRA with the funds withheld. The government should never get to collect social security for its own nefarious purposes. The funds withheld belong to the individuals who earned them and should be individually allocated to private retirement funds.
Marc's MRA PLAN:
Example: 14% is currently withheld, 7% by the employer, 7% by the employee. That money should go directly into an IRA under stewardship of a trustee, much like the way IRAs are presently handled. That way, your "social security" money is always safely in your possession and cannot be misallocated by the government.
Let's phase out social security over 20 years. Each year, 5% of the SS withholdings would go to private retirement accounts managed by a trustee instead of the government. So government has 20 years to figure out things to cut gradually over 20 years until they disappear. So in 2012, the government gets 95% of SS withholdings. We get a 5% rebate to remit to our MRA (mandatory retirement account). In 2013 the government gets 90%, we get 10%. And so on. In year 20 and beyond, our entire social security withholding would go directly into our MRA, and the government would no longer be in the business of sucking up to cranky old seniors and the sacred cow of social security. And can you imagine the private wealth generated by a 14% annual MRA contribution compounded over time from the age of 18? I can.
Last edited by Marc Paolella; 05-04-2011 at 04:50 AM..
while not having the fools who didn't save for their retirements literally starve
So some people are fools for trusting a large company to handle their 401Ks that upper management stole the money and went out of business or made the wrong investments with their clients money. I thinks it's a tad bit of a harsh assessment.
i dont know those numbers but do you really question that there are more voters that dont receive a pension from a government job than do? i guess some kind of numbers out there could be found but i didnt expect that to be a questionable statement.
If they phase out Social Security, old people will have to live with their children. America won't stand for that.
well, you start out by phasing it out for people who were responsible and saved their own money. by using "means testing" you determine who has the means to survive without it, and you cut them off. another option that i think will happen is they will continue to collect social security above the current 102k or so cap. that would raise its money a lot while not adding expenses much because those people paying in would probably be means tested out of receiving anything. then of course you have raising the age they can start collecting and possibly reducing the benefit for those who dont completely means test out but have some money saved up. this isnt my ideal, but i see this is the realistic way things will go.
i dont know those numbers but do you really question that there are more voters that dont receive a pension from a government job than do? i guess some kind of numbers out there could be found but i didnt expect that to be a questionable statement.
i'm not sure. the US population is 300M+ right. how many people have worked for the government, federal, state, local...that receive pensions? just from googling, i found the number that 14.6 million people work for the federal government. this graph doesn't help a lot, but:
i bet there's more people on "government" pensions than we all think.
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while not having the fools who didn't save for their retirements literally starve
