So you are incapable of making choices for yourself, and willingly sign over your resources and decision-making authority to someone else.
And want me to do the same.
Got it. Thanks.
To misquote Sam Stone…“sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you because of the giant straw man in the way.”
Oh yes, evil intent and the desire to screw people over abounds. That’s the reason behind it all.
How about this? How about not taking the senior’s wages via the payroll tax over their 40-year working lifetime to begin with, so you don’t need to pay them back. At all. Then you don’t have to worry about those messy choices between seniors and the Chinese. Actually you won’t need to worry about either - since we are borrowing from the Chinese to pay the seniors.
That sounds like a much simpler, easier and cleaner way to solve the problem. Don’t you think?
Sure! It also has the advantage of having been tried in the past here, and currently in many places around the world.
The only downside is that you have to turn off your conscience to the complaints of the impoverished elderly. Other than that, it’s a perfect solution!
“Turning off my conscience to the complaints of the impoverished elderly?”
Are you positing that SS benefits are go only to the impoverished? If so, please state so. Then we can debate that point, which you will assuredly lose. They are not a means-tested benefit that go to the impoverished. They go to everybody. That’s how FDR sold it, because he knew a new welfare program would never fly.
So that was Giant Straw Man #2. They are coming fast and furious now, I see.
But I still have not heard anyone suggest that.
I agree with that, but are people making that claim? I don’t see anyone having done so in this thread.
It will add to the deficit if SS starts being paid out of the general fund once SS is depleted, but I haven’t heard any proposals to do that.
You’re free to do whatever you want with your own money. The money the government charges you for living in this country at the cost we’ve all agreed on? It isn’t yours.
The government charges me for living in this country? What? And that has something to do with a SS Ponzi scheme?
Good Lord. The prosecution rests its case. Again.
Of course, since I didn’t make any such claim, I’m in no position to lose your fantasy debate. It seems to me that what is occurring fast and furious is your misrepresentation of claims.
Of course SS does not go only to the impoverished; that is not the point. What SS is intended to avoid, however, is the suffering associated with poverty when people can no longer work. Consciences are hardly pricked by an absence of suffering, and massive federal programs are likewise never inspired by the absence of a problem
Like many conservatives, you appear ignorant of reality, and would rather propose economic policies based on a fantasy land where many people would not suffer when they could no longer work late in life. If some were to experience such hardship, it would only be those who deserved it due to making clearly erroneous decisions.
This fantasy world seems to be one in which any investor experiences gains over the course of their lives, 50% of the people fall into the top 2% of income earners, and salary correlates perfectly with merit and merit with positive individual qualities.
Here, by the way, is exactly how FDR sold social security to Americans:
What about this: Could we say SS is like a Ponzi scheme where some investors die and therefore need not be repaid? Could SS be sustainable even if everyone retired at the same age and died at the same age?
It would actually be more sustainable.
If we could accurately predict when people die, we could more easily adjust the retirement age and benefits for SS to keep it solvent indefinitely. Of course, if we knew when people would die and set retirement accordingly, SS would be less necessary.
I mean can we just argue that it’s basically the same as money from myself paying for myself down the line?
Well, that’s what any retirement investment is, no? I withhold from my paycheck, or don’t spend money today, with the idea that I’ll spend it in retirement instead. So yeah, your statement is true as far as it goes.
To amarone’s question. I haven’t heard anyone claim we shouldn’t repay the SS Trust fund bonds. What I have heard people say is that because that money is gone, SS is fundamentally broken and benefits should be cut to levels that make it sustainable without considering the money in the trust fund. That is, they want immediate benefit cuts as soon as revenues fall below payments, even though there are plenty of assets in the trust fund to pay full benefits until 2040ish, and even though the entire purpose of the surplus and trust fund in the first place was to help handle the baby boom demographics.
That is the deception, and the entire purpose of even having the argument.
*screams like little girl.
Didn’t we just establish that the trust fund was raided and that there are no more assets there. Just promises to repay?
I would agree with you if you said, “Hey, we agreed to set aside a bunch of money to pay for social security, but just because we pissed it all away doesn’t mean we shouldn’t honor our committment.”
These statements of these assets are extremely misleading. It changes the debate and misleads people into making it seem like we have a pile of money out there ready to tap into.
And upthread a poster mentioned how a savings account is lent to other people. Yes, other people. A debt that someone else owes you is an asset to you. A debt that you owe to yourself is not an asset unless you artificially parcel yourself into different accounting groups and play games with the numbers.
Why is this simple, simple point not a given? Will anyone email my wife and tell her that my daughter’s college fund is still filled with assets after I cash it out and put in my IOU?
Over 1/3rd of SS recipients have it as their only income. Many others have small pensions too . Yes, it is a safety net for millions of older people.
It also is a support for kids whose breadwinner dies. It provides for those who are unable to work for health or mental reasons.
It is great and important program. It is run on a fraction of what private systems gobble up.
Think of it this way. It takes two people to enter a contract. Not one.
If I promise to pay myself back in the future, it isn’t an enforceable deal. I can, at any time, simply release myself from the obligation to repay. The promise is illusory.
Now, that’s not to say that the U.S. won’t pay SS benefits. They will. They will pay because of public policy and not because of some obligation to the trust fund.
Every dollar you and I have is “Just promises to repay.” The money we have in the bank? That isn’t piles of greenbacks in a vault, it is IOUs from all the people the money was loaned to.
I don’t understand the distinction that people try to make about the SS trust fund. I loan money to the Government all the time via saving bonds, retirement accounts that invest in bonds, overpayment of taxes and who knows what else. SS also loans money to the government. Is there some reason to believe that Uncle Sam will refuse to pay back some loans and not others? Is the US going to default on my income tax refund or refuse to pay my savings bonds?
If you really, really believe that the US will default on the monetary promises thay have made then you have a lot more to worry about then whether you will get a SS check. In that scenario ALL of our money will be worthless or nearly so.
We established no such thing. Do you even know what an “asset” is?
4 million Social Security recipients are children whose breadwinner died . Six million are wives and children of deceased breadwinners. Ten million are disabled people who can not work.
The SS fund is not broke. It is protected by the full faith of the US treasury. If it failed, Social Security would be a minor problem. Our currency would fail. There are over 3 trillion dollars in bonds in the fund.
Have you heard of the 14th Amendment?
The takeaway I’m getting from this thread is that some people have a mental block that precludes them from understanding how SS works. It’s really kind of weird.