Are you sure about that? It is my understanding that SS was created to provide for those who lived abnormally long lives. I don't think SS was conceived with the idea that many if not most people would live into their late 70's-early 80's. Isn't that why so much borrowing has taken place to keep the system afloat. With the arrival of the BBers at age 65 and with lifespans ever-increasing, it is about to get much worse....
[takes a break from work-induced BBS hiatus to point out an egregious mistake] No, SS was created because before it was implemented, the elderly made up a huge underclass of poverty stricken and homeless people. Before SS, the elderly were the single biggest demographic in the homeless community and SS was created so that our elderly people could, at the very least, have a roof over their heads and live out their golden years in a dignified way. You must be listening to O'Liely a bit too much if you believe this BS. [/returns to hiatus]
Egregious misake? There had to be a lag time in order to aggregate funds of any significance. From http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/briefhistory.html "FIRST PAYMENTS Under the 1935 law, monthly benefits were to start in 1942. From 1937 until 1942, Social Security was to pay benefits to retirees in the form of a single, lump-sum refund payment. The earliest reported applicant for a lump-sum refund was a retired Cleveland motorman named Ernest Ackerman, who retired one day after the Social Security program began. During his one day of participation in the program, a nickel was withheld from Mr. Ackerman's pay for Social Security, and, upon retiring, he received a lump-sum payment of 17 cents. The average lump-sum payment during this period was $58.06. The smallest payment ever made was for 5 cents" That 12 cent return on a nickel investment certainly justifies all the opposition to SS reform. That's quite a return. An average lump sum of $58 probably didn't save too many folks in the late 1930's.
Here's something I found from a quick search. It's clearly from a nice restaurant, rather than a cheap place that most people of limited means would go. This is from the Richmond Grill, North Adams, Massachusetts... during the '30's. This is half of an open menu. $58 bucks could go a long way, giddy. I have photos at my Mom's, from the blackboard of my Grandfather's diner, across from the old Ford plant in the Heights, that has lunch (their main business) for about a dime. Keep D&D Civil!!
Hand me 50 bucks today... and I'll take it! Of course it was a more signficant chunk of change in years gone by.... but it didn't measure a lifetime of work as andymoon suggested. What's more, in that era of family farms and other kinds of self-employment, many people never even had the opportunity to have a nickel taken out just to get their 17 cent windfall as Mr. Ackerman did. I did a little math using your menu: that $58 is less than 100 hamburger steaks. Is that going to get you through your retirement years?
Your reaching, giddy, just like people in the '30's were reaching for a leg up. FDR, by trying everything, and throwing out what didn't work, extended a hand from the Federal government to those desperately needing it. That was a radical departure from previous administrations. And it helped a tremendous number of people who needed help. PS- It would have bought five hundred and eighty lunches at my Grandfather's diner. Keep D&D Civil!!
Sorry if this has already been posted... W - "Because the—all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those—changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the—like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate—the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those—if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."—Explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005
Reaching? I "convicted" you with your own evidence and I'm "reaching".... Even 580 lunches (or 3 square meals a day for about 6 months) is not the panacea it has been made out to be. I have no absolute gripe with the notion of Social Security. Can it be better-conceived? Probably. Is it a monolith that resists change? Definitely. FDR's handup went to all working people who had paystubs not the most helpless. As it launched, it did nothing to rescue the homeless as andymoon indicated.
You mentioned one of the first cases. As it launched it just started. Of course something early on won't have saved as much as it would years down the road. That doesn't mean it wasn't started for the reasons Andy mentioned. It started slow but was still created so that in the future elderly wouldn't encompass such a large percentage of the homeless etc.
The key to your statement is "as launched." Had SS stayed that way, I might agree with you, but "as launched" does not even begin to address the massive positive impact that this successful program (perhaps the single most successful program in the history of our country) has had on our society. Instead of being destitute, homeless, and ignored, the massive numbers of elderly people who could not afford to save for their retirement are now afforded a basic standard of living that they could not hope to have without SS. For the record, I think that SS could be done away with (after a few generations) if we change the way we tax our people (taxing expenditures rather than income), but the change that GWB wants to make is definitively NOT the way to do it. Look at the evidence from Great Britain, which "privatized" its retirement system under Thatcher, a change that is now being regarded as one of the worst things they could have done. Social Security is not in "crisis" now and will not be anywhere NEAR a "crisis" for at least four decades (and maybe even more depending on the estimates you look at). Instead of taking out a loan for two trillion dollars to pay for this change, I would think that said money ($25 billion per year for the next 40 years) would be better spent paying DOWN the debt to reduce our interest payments so that we WILL be able to afford to shore up SS with funds that now go to what amounts to credit card finance charges. "As launched," I will grant you that SS didn't have the impact on our senior citizens lifestyles that another method might have, but what do you say about the SIX DECADES since then where we have virtually eliminated the problem that forced FDR to come up with SS in the first place? (That problem being the fact that before SS, elderly people were, in general, destitute and homeless)
Not by adding two TRILLION dollars to the national debt, increasing the financial crisis (IMO, a TRUE crisis as opposed to the one that GWB is trying to manufacture) created by ever growing interest payments on the debt.
Old people who haven't saved for their own retirement will just have to keep working to maintain their standard of living. Tenement housing can be provided for the infirm, with basic on site medical facilities. This should be much cheaper than social security benfits. Current medicare monies should be able to cover those standard medical needs. I actually do not support abstinance education. I think some rudimentary level of sex education should be a required part of the curriculum. Taking a week out of PE every year of elementary school should do a lot to educate children on sex, a realistic drug education could be done concurrently. As for being robbed, that is why I am against gun control. I would prefer to defend myself from threats like that instead of depending on the police to catch the people after it is too late. Those people will have to keep working. Instead of designing our systems around the morons that refuse to do the right thing, why don't we set up the system to maximize people's ability to help themselves? Or you can just step over the dregs on the way to your Ferrari.
I would prefer to have everyone be responsible for their own actions. Why must we punish everyone just because a few people refuse to do the right thing? The government is preventing everyone from using the money taxed for social security to plan their retirement. The money we are forced to pay into the government mandated pyramid scheme can be made to go a lot further in our hands. How about instead of completely eliminating SS, we just provide the option to opt out of the system, like congress can? I'm pretty sure there are several municipalities that have used that method to great success.
Allow me to rephrase. Current medicare monies should be enough to cover those basic needs as well as they do now. Social Security is not a health care program, so it's elimination should have a small effect on health care (mostly old people paying for prescription meds, which we could just allow them to buy generically/from Canada and save a ton of money).
Good grief, SM!! Tenement housing is something we need to get rid of, not construct for the elderly. My god, you would be putting them in "instant ghettos." They would be segregated. Aren't we trying to end segregation?? I love the fact that, over the years, I've lived next door, or across the street, from some very dignified, independent senior citizens who owned their homes, and depended very much on SS and Medicare... Federal programs that may not be perfect (what is??), but allow people who's lives are closer to the end than the beginning to have security, dignity, independence, the ability to take care of themselves... and in large part because of these programs that are trendy for some conservatives (not all, by any means) to take a shot at. Think about it. Keep D&D Civil!!
The problem is that some things are unforseeable. We can not see another great depression, or a President who burdons future generations with reckless taxcuts, and uncontrolled spending, on unecessary wars. Since we don't know what the debt will be and what kind of sacrifices will be needed to start repairing it, how much should be put away to plan for a young persons retirement today? Since we aren't doing anything to clean up our environment and in fact the administration is weakening controls on that, how will a young person know how much to put away even if they realize that the clean up later on may require even more money to be paid into the govt. How do we know another President won't come along and weaken them even more, or that we won't have anothe great depression. What if we are attacked and have to go into even more military build up? How much would be the right amount to save for that scenario? The future isn't known, and guessing wrong about it, isn't sufficient rationale to force people into ghettos. S.S. is a buffer against some of these types of occurances. It doesn't preclude people from investing in other retirement types of programs, but it does make sure that something will be avalaible to the elderly, even if we have series of presidents that further burdon our future. Some money taxed doesn't mean that other money can't be used. Any taxation by the govt. prevents us from using that money in ways that we see fit. That doesn't mean that there should be zero taxation.
No, wrong guess, wrong rephrase. Let me make it simple for you, if you're counting on Medicare, which is in sh-tty financial shape, to be around when social security, which is in excellent financial shape - in fact, probably the best financial shape of any government program in existence, to make up for the absence of Social security, which we should do away with because it's, you know, in massive "crisis", well, you're either uninformed or irrational. By your definition, btw, the whole government is a pyramid scheme anyway, since future generations are paying for the tax breaks given away today. Let's just junk it all.
