reply to post by dawnstar
the money that goes to paying the seniors DOES NOT come from the same fund that is paying to take care of all those kids that many of you guys
are always complaining about having to support!! the money that goes through social security was paid in by the workforce, invested into treasury
bonds, and well, it's time to cash some of those bonds in, just like you may have some of those treasury bonds in your IRA, and well, when you want
to retire, I am sure, you plan on cashing some of them in!!! Just like china, india, japan, plan on cashing them in....
In theory, you're correct. In practice, Social Security has been butchered.
www.heritage.org...
Why the Social Security Trust Fund Differs from Real Trust Funds. Private-sector trust funds invest in real assets ranging from stocks and bonds
to mortgages and other financial instruments. However, the Social Security trust funds are only "invested" in a special type of Treasury bond that
can only be issued to and redeemed by the Social Security Administration. As the Congressional Research Service noted in a report on May 5, 1998:
"When the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against another entity or
person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from one of its accounts to another."
According to the Office of Management and Budget under the Clinton Administration in 1999:
"These [trust fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures--but only in a bookkeeping
sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can
be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising
taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. [Emphasis added.]"
In short, the Social Security trust fund is really only an accounting mechanism. The trust fund shows how much the government has borrowed from Social
Security, but it does not provide any way to finance future benefits. The money to repay the IOUs will have to come from taxes that are being used
today to pay for other government programs. For that reason, the most important date for Social Security is 2018, when taxpayers must begin to repay
the IOUs, not 2042, when the trust fund is exhausted.
Regardless, it doesn't change a few simple facts:
www.cbo.gov...
Although Social Security is often characterized as a retirement program, it also provides other benefits. Indeed, only about 63 percent of its
beneficiaries receive their payments as retired workers (see Figure 3-2). As of September 2007, 14 percent of beneficiaries were disabled workers, 13
percent were survivors of deceased workers, and the remaining 10 percent were spouses or children of retired or disabled workers.
The cost of the Social Security program will rise noticeably in coming decades—a change that has long been foreseen.2 Average benefits typically
grow when the economy does (because the earnings on which those benefits are based increase). However, in the future, the total amount of scheduled
benefits will grow faster than the economy because of changes in the nation’s demographic structure.3 As the baby-boom generation reaches retirement
age, and as decreasing mortality leads to longer lives and longer retirements, a larger share of the population will draw Social Security benefits.
4 Moreover, whereas the number of people ages 20 to 64 is projected to grow by 11 percent in the next 30 years, the number of people age 65 or older
is projected to double. As a result, in three decades, the older population is likely to be more than one-third the size of the younger group,
compared with one-fifth today (see Figure 3-3). By 2030, the Congressional Budget Office anticipates, about 86 million people will be collecting
Social Security benefits, compared with about 50 million today. The average benefit will have grown by about 29 percent in real terms. Consequently,
CBO estimates that unless changes are made to Social Security, spending for the program will rise from 4.3 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2007 to 6.1
percent of GDP by 2030. With further increases in life spans, spending for Social Security will gradually rise thereafter, reaching 6.4 percent of GDP
in 2082.
Holy forceful intercourse, batman.
We have some difficult decisions ahead of us.
The fact of the mater is that we do NOT have the resources to afford the same lavish spending we have 'enjoyed' up to this point. Changes
will have to be made, and someone is going to get their toes stepped on. That doesn't mean we need to have a toe-stomping competition, but it's
unavoidable. We are spending over 1 Trillion into the deficit this year, with the deficit to exceed annual GDP within two years, at the projected
spending levels.
it doesn't take a genius to know where all the dollars have been flowing to the past few decades or so, there is only one group that has
benefitted by the way things have been running, wasn't the seniors, wasn't the poor, wasn't the small business owner, wasn't middle class....
and that other group, well, they are quick to send their cash overseas, to nice safe havens and protect it from uncle sam's tax collectors and hire
top notch accountants to find every danged tax break and loophole to get their tax bill to as close to 0 as possible...
I've already explained the source of the problem concerning the concentration of wealth.
Government can't do anything about it, spare use us boys in uniform to go seize assets. Which I'm sure a number of these crazy people who like to
blame "banksters" would love to see happen. That's how Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and other socialist leaders came into power. And, I've probably
hereby doomed the thread simply for bringing up those names, but - honestly, the 'logic' used by a number of the 'progressive' types is eerily
similar to the logic used to bring people like Hitler to power (it was all the fault of the Jews - who were often known to run successful businesses
while everyone else didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of). And it concerns me because it's a very volatile state.
We need to simplify the tax code, get rid of tax credits (these are so blatantly and overtly abused it's not even funny), and re-evaluate how we tax
capital assets/gains. I can pay fewer taxes by having a billion dollars sitting in a bank or as a form of stocks than investing that money into an
operating billion-dollar (or more) business as an owner/proprietor.
On the other hand, taxing the piss out of held assets like that will simply lead to fewer investors and a stagnant, or worse - controlled investment
system. For example - due to high taxes mutual funds and venture capitalists (those who help start-ups) become smaller and virtually non-existent,
with more power over what businesses receive investments sitting in fewer hands. Meaning "banksters" end up with control over whether or not your
restaurant will become a franchise chain (regional or national) - even though you're gunning for expansion and have a good model.
well, this is what happens when a high percentage of the wealth sits outside of the tax pool!!!
This would really be pretty simply resolved with a national sales tax and dropping income based taxes (perhaps still taxing capital gains - but I
don't think that's really necessary).
The reasoning is pretty simple. Was it made in China? Was it made in the U.S.? With low/no corporate taxes and a sales tax on the consumer end - it
doesn't matter. It becomes easier for U.S. businesses to compete in the U.S. by having encountering the same taxes on the shelf, rather than getting
hit with taxes in the bank, factory, transport, and also at the shelf (and the pocket-book of the person buying). It also makes it more competitive
abroad - with fewer taxes being paid by corporations producing things here, products sold in Germany don't have U.S. taxes pre-applied to the price
Germans pay.
While I'm sure some would like to think it a good idea to try and tax international sales in that manner, it really doesn't help us when the reason
businesses leave the U.S. is due to corporate tax systems and high employee wages (for jobs other countries will perform for far less). We'd rather
have the jobs and tax the spending of the consumer than try and tax Germany for buying something made here in the U.S.
Further - am I a billionaire? While I likely have quite a bit of money in the bank - I am also likely to spend quite a bit of that money, too.
Rather than try and take someone's money away simply because they have it - just let them pay a tax on what they buy. At that point - you're buying
for effect, not really for cost-effect. With lower corporate taxes and overhead, it's likely that the costs for many items would be less, post-tax,
than they are currently (with a system designed to be revenue-neutral, in other words - the government receives just as much from this tax system as
it would from corporate and income taxes).
Sure - they could probably choose to buy things from abroad to try and avoid paying sales tax on it - but that's likely to be far less detrimental
than the loop-holes available to them at present. Are they going to buy their paper towels and have food shipped from overseas, too?
so let's focus our attention on the seniors and their social security!!!
It's a very serious concern when there will only be about three workers to support each retired senior.
I can flip the perspective around - the senior is in his/her twilight years. When faced with the prospect of: "spend into a deficit that destroys
the middle class and impoverishes the lower class to afford seniors a quality retirement in the years leading up to their death" or "reduce funding
and restructure the retirement programs for seniors to prevent adverse consequences for the young and middle aged families." Which is more
functionally logical?
I'll be downright honest - if my kids try and destroy themselves out of some kind of sense of debt to me, I swear to all things holy that I will beat
the living hell out of them. The debt children owe to their parents is to live life and to pass as good of a life on to their kids as they possibly
can. When I'm a crinkly, cantankerous old fart, I won't look around at my house or place of residence and see accomplishment. I'll look at my
family and see that - hopefully (that, or extreme disappointment and a sense of being a failure). I'd be pissed if my kids put themselves in
hardship or jeopardy to try and afford me some kind of retirement. The fact is I'd probably have to wear diapers to keep from soiling the furniture
and my clothing and moving in general will hurt - what am I going to do in retirement other than tell stories of the days when we actually had to type
stuff into computers or talk on a phone that was connected to a wall?
I'm not saying my parents don't deserve a retirement. They did so much for myself and my brothers. Of course, they are both dead, too - so,
yeah.
On a debt level, were my parents still around, I could never pay them back in a monetary sense for all they have done. And they wouldn't have it,
either. They would rather me put $1000 dollars in the bank to cover unforseen expenses than to get that much to help them pay for medication or
something. Especially if I had a family of my own.
Although I presume it all boils down to moral relativism. But the point is - it's not a case of "we're rich and buying summer homes for ourselves
while our parents shiver and hunger in a shanty" - we're at a point where spending -has been- at unsustainable levels, and it's now capitulating
into an economic crisis.
Everyone is going to have to stand to see a restructuring to the way we spend, and spending reductions. Military, Social Security, Medicare, "Income
Security," etc. We're spending too much and need to stop and figure out what we really need to be spending on and how we can make things more
efficient. When medicare fraud, alone, is estimated at $60 BILLION annually - that's pretty damned ridiculous. That's about four times NASA's
budget and about 1/12 the operating budget of the military while it's currently fighting three damned wars (that does not include payroll and
procurement - but it does cover all operational expenses and maintenance costs). When medicare pays three separate companies for a total of four
prosthetic arms for the same individual... something's not quite right. Last I checked, I only had three arms.