Time To Fix It
Federal Reserve chief says that cuts in Social Security payments are necessary.
Thank God that someone had the guts to say it.
Here is the simple truth: when Franklin Delano Roosevelt first proposed the Social Security system, he stated openly that he hoped that within 10 years it would be transitioned to a privatized system.
Check me on that. I'm not kidding.
It's time that we do the right thing--the sensible thing, the moral thing--and move Social Security toward a privatized, individual-account system.
It's time to finally do it, dammit. Because it's the right thing to do. For our children, and for ourselves.
I like the way Greenspan said it, too.
We need to cut Social Security, but we should not touch current payments.
In other words, "Cut the payments - just not mine!"
It'll be danged hart to do. The government loves to hold on to other people's money. This will be like trying to take a steakbone away from a pit bull.
Not to mention losing the deficit masking qualities of the payroll tax
Roosevelt knew he was betting on the come - that the worker population was on the rise, and of course current workers would outnumber retired workers, and the rakeoff of their wages to support retirees wouldn't be excruciating. Anyone except for politicians could see that if the working population peaked and started to decline, the rakeoff would quickly become excruciating. It's been known for a couple of decades or more that a peak of this sort was approaching with the retirement of the boomers, and Congress has bravely... gabbled and quacked and passed it off till next year.
Roosevelt also, to give him credit, made clear that Social Security was never intended to comprise all of a worker's retirement income. It was supposed to SUPPLEMENT the savings that prudent humans accumulate for old age.
Our genius Congresses, since the Roosevelt administration, have crassly given citizens to understand that the gummint is the tooth fairy, and if re-elected they'll raise the largesse. Savings be damned, just be happy consumers and we'll take care of you. Greenspan isn't the first person to warn of stiff measures needed, but it's rare that such remarks ever make it into public discourse.
Privatize your own damned retirement, Dean. If you can.
A lot of people will never earn enough in the great free-market economy to pay for a decent retirement with the medical care they need. Fix the problem by removing the ridiculous cap on contributions by the upper middle-class and rich people and means-testing the benefits. Social Security should be a safety net for the working poor not a transfer of middle-class tax dollars from one generation to the previous one. People with six-figure incomes and/or seven-figure net-worth’s shouldn’t be getting a check from the government. But they should be augmenting the cost of decent living standards for retiring nurses, teachers, firefighters and ditch-diggers, as much as necessary.
Shep - that's not was Social Security was intended to do. And much of the mischief in our govt happens when a program is hijacked for a purpose it was never intended for and wouldn't have been enacted for.
Dean - you owe us a reference for this one. And if he did say it, it would help if we had evidence that he really meant it, rather than just using it to try to appease fears of creeping socialism.
Meanwhile I'll give you a link: http://reason.com/9703/fe.lochhead.shtml
"Franklin D. Roosevelt famously crafted the illusion of a funded pension so that Social Security would not look like welfare, ensuring that "no damn politician" could repeal it. Every politician since, Republican and Democrat, damned or otherwise, has happily gone along with the deception. "
J Bowen,
He said it (more like to appease the fears of creepy Republicanism) page one in the metropolitan daily of you choice. He's showing that the 3-rd rail of American politics has moved from Social Security to raising taxes. That pathological aversion to necessary taxes masked in the boogey-man of unfair taxation goes to the heart of your argument about transforming the system. Perhaps a president who can lead us to think more about our responsibilities to the common good, rather than pander to our selfishness, can change the equation. That is, if there is still such a politician.
Step 1... re-tie the Social Security age to the projected lifespan. I'm 41 and am counting on SS to not be around at all.
Who says I'm ENTITLED to retire and get a government pension?
Get the government entitlements off my back and let me invest.
Dhimmicratic socialists in the government are NOT better suited or more entitled to invest my SS dollars than I am. Let the Dhimmicratic Party offer a Party Retirement Plan and let it compete. Methinks they won't do that because it will fail, as all Dhimmicratic Socialist financial plans ultimately fail.
You’re not entitled to anything in the world, Aaron. Your “every creature for himself” philosophy is fine for pigs rutting in the jungle and may work out for many of us. For many others, the system will fail them no matter their efforts, or shit will happen to them (see threads above). You don’t have to be a (whatever your silly-ass disparagement) Socialist to think we shouldn’t let them suffer needlessly when they have contributed so much to the society that has served others of us so well. You need only be a Christian, or a Humanitarian, or a compassionate (or just intelligent) human being.
... 'or just intelligent human being'. Meaning one who reserves some fraction of lifetime income, day by day, to provide for those later years. It's a pretty small fraction if it begins early and is kept regular.
Those who rely on gummint promises to play Robin Hood, grabbing from those that did save to transfer to those who did not, are less intelligent than those picturesque pigs out there a-rutting in the jungle.
The 'intelligensia' might also consider investing some time and energy into teaching the unwashed masses about the blessings of studying in school, as opposed to creating art works celebrating exploring their sexuality and discovering single parenthood. And into teaching the wonders of compound interest and the long-term gain in value of equities, instead of creating poetic paeans to the deservitude of the spend-it-all-today crowd.
Shep
My wife and I ARE nurses and according to the Dems, we ARE the rich. My son and daughter in law are both telephone co. workers in the union and they ARE the rich. My sister is a teacher and her husband works for a big Boston university and they are also the rich. We don't need your elitest, selfrighteous, narcissitic, solutions in our lives. We need to be free to reap the benefit of our own hard work. Anybody in this country has all the wherewithal they need to "learn how to fish", the problem is that there are too many people who will never fish as long as there is a free fish to be had somewhere. Some people, you have to hit with a rod to get them to fish.
Shep,
It would be helpful for us all to remember that we all are people of good will. You talk about job programs and social security as if they are good for everyone and only people's selfishness keeps them from seeing that. Well, I think that job programs destroy more jobs than they create and that Social Security (Increase the dole, O Caesar!) could very well drive this Republic toward eventual dictatorship and the possible enslavement of our people. (I'm talking fifty to hundred years before dictatorship and another couple of hundred years before our civil liberties are so trampled as to be useless.) In the long run this may be inevitable, but I'd prefer to stave it off as long as possible. Already Social Security has corrupted our politicians and the voters. Privitization would fix that. Who's selfish now?
Yours,
Wince