Should We Do Away With Social Security - Is It Welfare? (Israel, Clinton)
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This was already answered in Post #38, along with links to the sourced report. If you are in favor of or against Social Security, the fund is not in trouble, and a detailed analysis show this to be true.
Thank goodness, people like my MIL worked their entire life and saved very little and if they ever take her earned SS away she would not be able to afford housing, to eat, stay warm... like so many others.
I missed thread #38.
It is an issue, several candidates are talking about it as many town hall questions are about it. Then these candidates need to stop saying it is in trouble if it is not.
I agree none of us have the responsibility to take care of others, we all need to be accountable for ourselves.
I am dead set against welfare for those who can work, but I am all for maintaining SS for those who have paid into it and were never told it would not be there when they retire.
Hillary is telling everyone is will be broken by 2012, is that a scare tactic or what? Obama is saying the baby boomers will break the bank?
I haven't been paying much attention to the campaigns, but if either of them actually said those things, they were lying.
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Originally Posted by Floridabound09
Where is the surplus? Do you have a link?
It's held in the Social Security Trust Fund. You can find detailed descriptions of the purposes, mechanisms, and accounting of the SSTF at the Social Security Administration website.
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Originally Posted by Floridabound09
Not testing you at all, but I would like to see for sure if there is because everyone seems to think it is going broke and allot of older people are actually scared.
Yes, a lot of people ARE scared, this primarily as the result of the callous campaign for privatization that was carried out by President Bush in early 2005. That campaign was a pack of lies from top to bottom.
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Originally Posted by Floridabound09
Not long ago someone said it is funded until 2027, now they say 2012?
No, neither of those numbers is close to accurate. There are two primary projections for Social Security. One is done by the politically appointed Social Security Trustees. Their projections are based on very pessimistic assumptions. Even so, they report that even if we do absolutely nothing, SS is fully funded through 2042. The other projection is done by the non-partisan CBO. Their assumptions are also quite pessimistic, but not so much so as those of the SS Trustees. They project that even if we do absolutely nothing, SS is fully funded through 2053.
It should be noted that fully funded means that SS will be able to meet 100% of its projected benefit obligations, as those benefits are calculated under current benefit formulas. If the point of no longer being fully funded were actually to be reached, SS would not be broke. It could continue to pay approximately 73% of all projected benefit obligations all but indefinitely. Because of the way the current benefit formulas are structured, 73% of scheduled benefits then would actually be worth more than what 100% of scheduled benefits is worth now.
Actually, you won't. As I do not "contribute" to SS, I can never recieve Social Security nor any of the other .... "ancillary" benefits.
At least until the Bush administration came along, we were not accustomed in this country to simply standing around watching desperate people struggle. I assume that we will return to our roots once this band has been dispatched. In that light, you can expect to receive support from various sources and via various means that have nothing at all to do with Social Security. The rest of us will be picking up the tab for you...
Nope - I have no personal or impersonal obligation to support you or anyone else - Only myself and my family. It is called "Personal Responsibility" - a term you Washington types know little about.
Ah, the Sovereign Citizen...the Self-Made and Self-Sufficient Man. The easiest person in all the world to fool is oneself. We Washington-types are a little tougher...
It is an issue, several candidates are talking about it as many town hall questions are about it. Then these candidates need to stop saying it is in trouble if it is not.
SS is not in trouble. But that is different from saying that we should forget about it and walk away. There are funding issues that will arise, though not at all likely until well into the second half of the century. That's on the order of 50+ years from now, but SS is a big boat, and you have to start turning early to avoid an iceberg. The baby-boomer problem was resolved in 1983 with about 25 years of lead-time to work with. Current problems are smaller and further away, but the sooner one starts, the easier such things are to fix. There is nothing wrong with talking about SS, particulalry in light of the overall budget crunch that Bush's tax cuts and war-driven deficits have put us in, but there is no reason at all for panic over SS...
Social security is a bought and paid for benefit. It comes out of every pay check. There is nothing at all comparable between welfare and Social Security. I do believe that those who pay in should be entitled to decide how it should be invested. At least a portion of it. It is in fact 1 of the few programs the Government hasn't fouled up completely. This in itself is nearly a miracle given any level of governments track record for managing money.
I do believe that those who pay in should be entitled to decide how it should be invested..
Does Geico ask you how it should invevest your car insurance premiums? By the way, do you know why your premiums went up recently? Because they had higher claims and they needed more money to satisfy those claims? Nope. Because they made bad investments with your money, took losses on their investments, and need more money from policy-holders now to remain solvent. But the CEO didn't lose a cent.
Does Geico ask you how it should invevest your car insurance premiums? By the way, do you know why your premiums went up recently? Because they had higher claims and they needed more money to satisfy those claims? Nope. Because they made bad investments with your money, took losses on their investments, and need more money from policy-holders now to remain solvent. But the CEO didn't lose a cent.
while I have complaints about the insurance industry you can't compare that.
for one you have the freedom to not buy insurance,and there are choices to who you can buy from.And you pay them,they don't automatically withold money from your paycheck.
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