12 ways to fix SS

[Kappo]

You get a lot more out of social security than you put in, that's the point of it

I get more out of all the money I save. I could make more with the SS money I wouldn't put in than the government will. Your point?

 

[her209]

Congress could have helped by never raiding the SS trust funds in the first place. Now the money is not there when it is needed. Big surprise.

What's there is a bunch of IOUs.

 

[Throckmorton]

I get more out of all the money I save. I could make more with the SS money I wouldn't put in than the government will. Your point?

SS isn't an investment. It's redistribution from taxpayers to seniors

 

[Acanthus]

SS isn't an investment. It's redistribution from taxpayers to seniors

But it was designed to be an investment.

Until the govt got their filthy hands in it.

 

[piasabird]

Many people who lost a lot in the market already have gained it all back, unless they managed to lose it all. After a large loss in the stock market there is always a period of prospective gains. This is a good case for having a well balanced portfolio and investing in severy different areas to insure you do not lose everthing if one investment should fail.

 

[piasabird]

I am all for making the US Govt pay back all the SS Money, even if they have to close down all welfare programs.

 

[soccerballtux]

solution: people raise their kids right and their kids will support them.

 

[Triumph]

I'll derail this thread and say that SS is a prime example of why government health care will not work. SS looks easy on the surface - take money in, give money out. It's supposed to be autonomous from the rest of the budget and it's supposed to be self sustaining. And look at it. Anyone who thinks that a government run healthcare system, which is orders of magnitude more complex, can work effectively given the gov'ts history with SS, is living in a dream world.

Before anyone calls me a right wing Bush loving Obama hating whatever, I'll caveat by saying that I am not a republican, and my philosophy on government is simple - don't spend money you don't have.

 

[KB]

Every 10 years we are told Social Security needs to be saved.
Just look at all the changes made to it through the decades in order to keep it alive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States

Every time it needs saving they increase the percentage of tax taken out. If it was truly sustainable the same percentage tax rate would suffice as people continue to increase their earnings (with an increase in the cap that is taxable). Now they want to raise it to 7%. When will we get that message that its not worth saving? When its 10%, 15%, 50%?

 

[MovingTarget]

solution: people raise their kids right and their kids will support them.

problem: not everyone has kids

Sounds great, but this does not work too well as a way to take care of our seniors. Things were much worse before SS - those that didn't have kids that would/could care for them ended up in the poor house (quite literally).

 

[Exterous]

But it was designed to be an investment.

Until the govt got their filthy hands in it.

I thought it was a safety net and it was supposed to be temporary

 

[Exterous]

Social security is different. It is the last line of defence.

If it was treated as such I doubt we would have this issue. It seems like way to many people are willing to accept that they don't need to save anything and will just live off SS when they retire

 

[Triumph]

Here's a simple analysis, look at the numbers. From two different sources, Social Security took in somewhere between $805 billion and $927 billion in 2008. It spent somewhere between $608 billion and $625 billion. Something is wrong with the maths, because this money should be put away for a rainy day.

 

[Argo]

Half of those ideas revolve around raising taxes (one way or another). Just pointing it out.

 

[WHAMPOM]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-Ways-to-Fix-Social-usnews-522214004.html?x=0

What do you think? I think the sooner the better. We can't just maintain the status quo.

I LOL @ the last one. AARP is going to scream "Republicans are raiding the SS trust fund, give the money to Wall Street, and leave grandma and grandpa with dog food for dinner"

I have the one sure method. Remove the collection cap.

 

[Infohawk]

Limit the amount of payouts in a year to the amount of collections in a year. And raise the retirement age.

 

[WHAMPOM]

But it was designed to be an investment.

Until the govt got their filthy hands in it.

NO! NO! NO! It was designed as a PayGo system, working that way until Reagan raised the collection rates to "SAVE" it and used the surplus to give tax breaks to the rich and fight the Evil Empire.

 

[Argo]

While I am not totally against social safety nets, the idea of social security is flawed at the fundamental level and can never be completely fixed, for a similar reason why real communism can never work.

It's the same reason why the medical insurance industry is in a big mess - when you separate people from their investments, they don't have a vested interested in their success and it becomes corrupt and inefficient. Simultaneously, when you separate people buying medical service from having to pay the cost of that service, they no longer care how much they pay and it becomes corrupt and inefficient.

There's no way of getting around human nature.

Amen, brother.

 

[Triumph]

Limit the amount of payouts in a year to the amount of collections in a year. And raise the retirement age.

As I found out, they're already taking in more than they're paying out every year! So how the hell is this system going broke?

 

[simpletron]

As I found out, they're already taking in more than they're paying out every year! So how the hell is this system going broke?

The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains challenging. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current program parameters. Social Security's annual surpluses of tax income over expenditures are expected to fall sharply this year and to stay about constant in 2010 because of the economic recession, and to rise only briefly before declining and turning to cash flow deficits beginning in 2016 that grow as the baby boom generation retires. The deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about three fourths of scheduled benefits through 2083. Medicare's financial status is much worse. As was true in 2008, Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. The difference will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets. Growing annual deficits are projected to exhaust HI reserves in 2017, after which the percentage of scheduled benefits payable from tax income would decline from 81 percent in 2017 to about 50 percent in 2035 and 30 percent in 2080. In addition, the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that pays for physician services and the prescription drug benefit will continue to require general revenue financing and charges on beneficiaries that grow substantially faster than the economy and beneficiary incomes over time.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

 

[WhipperSnapper]

What's there is a bunch of IOUs.

We'll just have to borrow money from China to pay for it all and then send them pieces of paper that say "IOU" on it. :awe:

Then, decades from now, our grandchildren can default on that debt to China when the U.S. declares bankruptcy.