I don’t think SS is that bad a deal when you do the math. I did some simple spreadsheet calculations for a person who mad the maximum taxable income for each year 1978-2018, 41 years of working. For example, in 1978 you and your employer each put in 5.05% up to $17,700 of earnings, total $1787.70 for the year. Do that for each year of the range, taking into account both the salary cap and the rate. In 2018 the employer and employee both kicked in 6.2% of wages up to $128,400, for a total contribution of $15,921.60. If you do it right, you should wind up with a total contribution over the 41 years of $364,803.88. What about interest, you might ask? OK, then at the end of each year tack on 5% interest on the amount on deposit at the start of the year. With simple interest, your balance would be $854,151.88. Then suppose you take out 5% starting in 2019. Then you’re taking out $42,707.59 per year. The max SS benefit in 2019 is $45,240. I don’t think the difference is that significant. What SS does do is ensure that if you become disabled before retirement age, that you have something to live on. Squirreling that cash in the bank every year wouldn’t do that.
Back to answer the original question, which agencies to eliminate. The answer is none. I find DHS abhorrent and the jobs they do should be farmed out to other agencies like they were before. I think the phrase “Homeland Security” is Naziesque and the office should be headed by the Reichmaster or something. But what they do is by and large needed to be done.
As to the notion that we could give all government a 25% “haircut”, I find that a bit naive. If there was 25% there to be cut, it would have been cut. Republicans always run on cutting waste, but when they get in charge they can’t find it. I believe that means there is very little fat to be cut, any cuts involve cutting meat and bone.
You’re wrong on several levels. The entire budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development is well below fifty billion dollars a year, so it’s obvious you couldn’t save that much by eliminating it.
On a bigger point, rental assistance is not the primary role of HUD. Its primary role is backing up mortgages - which are loans.
It also works on ensuring that people are not discriminated against when seeking housing.
What I believe you’re talking about is the Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly called Section 8. If you wish to abolish this program, what’s your proposed alternative?
Do you figure the people who are using it to pay rent will figure out some other way to find their rent money? If so, I’d like to see the evidence to support this.
Or do you figure they will go homeless? If so, I feel that’s short term thinking. The eventual cost of a large homeless population would exceed the cost of rent subsidies.
In addition, I’d like to ask if you favor school vouchers and, if so, why you feel that subsidizing private school educations if a good use of federal money and subsidizing rents is not.
There seems to be an assumption that you will somehow get all that SS money back. I won’t hold my breath.
The SS trust fund was plundered years ago, and sooner or later (I’m guessing sooner) the money meet demand won’t be there.
If we wanted to make it fair and quality, money would be attached to the recipient and paid to whoever the recipient decides to patronize. When choice is removed, quality tanks. Look at government housing, government schools, and government medical care.
VA benefits, housing, and schooling ought to be like SNAP. A debit card that can be used most places for what benefits the recipient wants to utilize. The VA hospital waiting list catastrophe would not have happened because veterans could go to someone else for care. Once competition was allowed, things would improve.
Here’s my source for that: “85% of HUD Budget Goes for Rental Assistance”. It shows line items for $41.1B, $3.3B, $2.1B, and $1.7B. If I’m doing my math right, those add up to $48.2B, or “something like $50B”. Now, I’m certainly open to the possibility that my source, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which seems to me to be a left-leaning outfit, is wrong, but would you mind telling us how wrong they are? What was HUD’s actual spending last year?
Yes, I think the vast majority of them would find some other housing arrangement or alternative means of paying their rent. What we’re discussing is a hypothetical that isn’t going to happen. What sort of evidence would you find convincing?
Not at the federal level. If individual states want to do it, that’s fine. The Department of Education should be abolished too, but that wasn’t one of the choices in the OP’s poll.
And yet, here we have our very own BobLibDem “doing the math”, as well as a couple of national publications, prominent economists, etc. It’s not like this is just some HurricaneDitka lone-man-in-the-wilderness routine. LOTS of people have wondered something along the lines of “I wonder how SS compares to other retirement planning options” (and at least some of them have come to the conclusion that it’s not very favorable).
We’ve established that you don’t understand about risk. You’re hardly the only one to have this problem.
I was assuming that your position was that forced retirement savings was unnecessary since everyone would do it voluntarily. I guess I’m wrong, and your real position is it’s not a problem if the elderly starve to death on the streets.
If not, please explain how those who don’t save will survive.
A major, if not the major, cause of the Great Recession was the delusion of many investors that they could get high returns with minimal risks, and the work by the banks to feed this delusion. There is nothing wrong with risk as long as it’s managed. But wishing it away, especially for other people, is not too smart.
Thanks for proving me correct.
We’re not talking about taking someone out to dinner here. We’re talking about providing money to live on.
Family? Odds are that the family, especially kids, of people who can’t afford to save won’t have money to support them either. All the kids moving in with their parents sure will be able to support those parents.
Friends? Yeah, right. Poor people have tons of millionaire friends.
Charities? They’ll do what they can, but where will this money come from? And will it be even close to the money lost?
But I’m sure the Trump Foundation will jump in and pick up the slack.
State or local assistance programs?
Like in Kansas? I’m sure the Republicans will be right on raising taxes to support this. And today, with less of a need than there would be in Libertopia, the states and cities have gotten it all covered.
Yeah, right.
Flat Earthers are rational compared to libertarians.
The trust fund was NOT plundered. When SS runs a surplus, the law requires it to buy T-bills. When it runs a deficit, it can cash in those T-bills like any other investor. The money was NOT stolen, it is safely invested as required by law and the system is working exactly as it was supposed to.
The three legged stool model is predicated on the idea that SS exists and is required. If that were not the case, and folks were not so required, I think it’s pretty clear that for some individuals it would not be a wise choice to enroll.
I’m not sure the question makes sense. The T-bill is a liability for the US treasury no matter who the bearer is. There’s no reason to believe that the SS trust fund is any less entitled to redeem its bills than any other purchaser.
I’m assuming your closer to retirement age and wouldn’t get much of a return if you opted out of social security now seeing as how you’ve been paying into it most of your working life. Suppose you could opt out when you started your career. That money could go into an IRA instead. If you broke or came close to six figures during your career you could max out your IRA and still have money left over.