- Increase the retirement age. People live much longer than they used to, therefore a larger percentage should be spent working if they want life long benefits. Congress did that in the mid 80s. They will probably do that again before the baby boomers retire. - Tie the growth in SS benefits to true inflation and factor out the increase in standard of living. Who gets to define true inflation? Does it include medical costs? If so, benefit cost will go up not down then. Something else that will likely be done is that $90,000 cap will rise dramatically.
Here's an interesting link on life expectancy: http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html It would seem that while those people who live past 65 are living just a few years more than they were in 1940, the real problem is that so many of them are living those longer lives. HERE COME THE BOOMERS!
What do you think will inspire a worker to work harder? The fact that they might break some threshhold to recieve a little more back 20-30 years from now?? Or the fact that they can SEE the money they make being saved and understand that what they have to spend during their retirement. That also being money they can pass onto their children for their hard work. Obviously you don't know much about human nature, why don't you step out of your cubicle once in a while.
Count on SS being there 20-30-40 years from now, and able to cover the basic living needs for the retired? Don't think anyone can guarantee that. And if you are living areas like northeast (NY/NJ/Boston), you SS check will barely cover your property tax. So yeah, SS as currently stands, is a Tax, government taxes you and hand out the money to retired ppl. There are basiclly two schools of thinking here: 1) let the government manage your retirement (hope like hell they don't screw it up). 2) let the individual take some responsibility in managing their money (which I think will help ppl to be more conscious about their retirement and promote more savings) Personally, I want to be in control of my future as much as possible.
How dare you want to take control of your future. Don't you know that you can't handle the responsibilities and may put all your money in Enron!!!!!! You need to let the Democrats take care of your health, your life and your retirement! Just vote for them and the US will pay for everything!
Khanny, khanny, khanny, did you even know what social security was before this morning? First If you are like most normal Americans who work, you get a freaking statement every single year in the mail from the SSA which says exactly how many benefits you have accrued. So you can "SEE" it right there. But - hey, maybe we should borrow a trillion dollars for a system that will let them "see" in a different way, LOL. Second, you can pass your SS benefits to your kids too if you want, there is, in fact, nothing stopping you from doing so. I don't know much about human nature? Hey, didn't your parents give you all your money or your business or something like that anyway? I'm glad you understand the working man better than me. I'll be sure to read your behavioral economics thesis someday too. None of this of course changes the fact that your original assessment was superficial and wrong - and you still don't seem to grasp the issue too well.
That was worse than Jorge! At least he has a sense of humor. Do you have to practice to get this level of not having a sense of humor or is it a natural talent? My god man. If you really want to know, I didn't see it in the guardian originally. It was also posted on a SUPER left wing nut job website that I often read for amusement. You seriously need to get over yourself. Your freaking guy won. Can't we a least have a little fun by posting silly cartoons of him? Sheesh, lighten up Francis.
At height of the SS crisis many years from now there will be 2 workers per each retiree. That makes 1/3 of the voters who will have SS as their top priority. This is a political reality. The government will keep supporting SS. An empty trust fund will be of little matter.
FYI My Mom worked most of her adult life and made good money. Her SS check is for $967 a month. If that was all she has she would be living in a travel trailer and eating cat food; but I guess that's better than starving and freezing. There is a big difference between ideology and reality when dealing with people and human nature. Capitalism is an ideology, but almost every proponent of realizes that reality requires something like social security.
How is the SS surplus a huge lie? I know that the s.s. surplus was actually used to cover other shortcomings during the Clinton administration allowing him to claim his overall budget surplus. If the surplus is enough that it is sometimes being moved around to cover other shortcomings, how is the surplus a huge lie?
Yes there is a plan to fix the deficit or rather to cut it in half. Have you checked how that's going lately? It's not going well. The deficit is still hundreds of billions not including the supplemental requests that Bush is asking for, which will drive the deficit even higher. If that plan isn't in crisis, then S.S. certainly isn't.
I might agree, but this president doesn't have a plan for dealing with the deficit, contrary to his claims. But we have almost 4 decades to come up with a plan for S.S. The rest of the govt. has already gone far beyond what Bush is calling Bankruptcy for S.S.
This accounting trick I think started back in the 60s. The federal government takes monies in and spends it plus usually a little bit more, The difference is the deficit (or surplus if they do not overspend). As an after thought, a paper entry is made in the SS Trust fund. The SS surplus then is in theory used to buy US treasuries. More paper entries. When the treasuries come due, more paper entries. If you ran a company with this type of accounting you would be sent to a federal minimum security prison for a couple years and would be seriously scolded. In 2018, when SS will spend more than it takes in, Congress will have to reduce spending in other programs or else the SS difference will add to the deficit (or reduce the overall surplus).
And here come the Baby Boomers into the retirement years-- with more of them living longer and longer.
IMO there will be a problem down the road. We simply have more people living longer and there will come a time when the SS program will not be able to match the number of retirees. If I have a choice I will take a % of my SS money and invest it the way I see fit. I do a hell of alot better managing MY money then the goverment does. There was a statement earlier saying Bush was a Lame Duck President, I dont think anything could be further from the truth as his message pointed out. He is trying to fix a problem that will eventually come to pass if we keep things status quo. IMO he will seek ideas from both sides of the aisle, this isnt a democratic or republican issue, this is an American issue.
The two things that rankle Bush's critics more than anything: the War on Terror and reforming Social Security. In both instances, Bush has taken an anticipatory and long view of the problem at hand and its solution-- leaving him open to criticism.
And the fact that he is actually doing something about them, which, in and of itself is "controversial".
IN both instances, he lies to us about it. And his social security plan is only "anticipatory" in that it anticipates and exploits future problems in the sales job, which, if succesful, will IMPLEMENT A SYSTEM THAT IS ACKNOWLEDGED TO HAVE NO EFFECT ON THOSE PROBLEMS. And, I don't know how many tiimes I have to keep saying this, but I will have to do it again in big bold leaders. This is a white house official in a briefing yesterday "In a long-term sense, the personal accounts would have a net neutral effect on the fiscal situation of Social Security." Does anybody here not see why it is exploitative, disingenous, and dishonest for the President to sell private accounts as a solution to long term problems when it is acknowledged that they are not? Giddyup? Imadrummer2k? Do you have anything to add to this besides a few meaningless one liners?
