Entitlement Programs: A Plan to End Them
America’s financial situation is precarious. Over the past eight years our national debt has doubled to $14.5 trillion, and our total unfunded liabilities now exceed an astonishing $114 trillion. That’s $1,115,000 per federal income taxpayer.
Even the most unrepentant spendthrift understands that these debts and liabilities are unsupportable, nor can they be solved by immorally targeting the rich. Instead, we must enact immediate, across-the-board spending cuts, with special emphasis on the biggest components of our financial wreck: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These entitlement programs constitute the majority of our unfunded liabilities, because despite being labeled “trusts” they’re not actually savings plans.
Rather, the programs are essentially pay-as-you-go schemes. (What little surplus the trusts did accumulate was used to fund other government programs, such that nothing’s been saved[1].) Operating this way has two terrible consequences. First, because funds aren’t saved and invested, they don’t generate returns. Thus there’s no compounding effect for any of the money that’s been withheld. Second, for every year that the programs are in existence, their total future liabilities increase.
Moreover, the programs have grown inexorably over time, partly because they were deemed good in principle, and partly because it takes nothing but a vote to increase benefits.
When Social Security was first rolled out in 1936, the promise was that the program would be very limited, both in terms of contributions and of payout. The most anyone would contribute was $360 per year, including the employer’s contribution. By 2010 entitlement programs cost employees up to $12,648 for Social Security and an unlimited amount for Medicare (at a rate of 2.9% of salaried income). Promised — but unfunded — benefits grew even faster, with payouts exceeding inflation and the years of retirement coverage continuously increasing. By some estimates, a typical 66-year-old couple today will get back double what they paid in. It’s no wonder that our entitlement programs are often compared to criminal Ponzi schemes.
In the past, a myopic focus on the short-term may have allowed some to gloss over the long-term insolvency of the programs, but that’s no longer possible. For we’re now rapidly approaching the time when the money deducted from employees’ paychecks is much less than payouts promised to program participants. Already today, approximately half of Medicare’s funding comes from general tax revenues.
Clearly then, our entitlement programs are an unmitigated financial disaster. But if we’re to properly deal with them, we mustn’t limit our analysis to economics alone. For after all, the deepest arguments underlying the programs aren’t financial — they’re moral. Indeed, much of the reason that there’s never been any reform of the programs is that until recently, few would question the moral views of man’s nature upon which they’re justified.
What are some of these questions?
As recently discussed here and at length here, one fundamental question pertains to whether men are ends in themselves or means to others’ ends. I won’t recap the arguments, but suffice it to say that when the Founders created this land of opportunity (not of entitlements), they clearly enunciated a new — American — ideal in which each of us pursues our own happiness. This put them squarely in the camp of treating individuals as ends in themselves. It’s a camp to which more and more of us are proud to belong.
Another crucial question is whether, in general, men are capable of thinking and fending for themselves.
This question is best answered by observing people throughout history. Compare the success and can-do attitude of citizens living under freedom to those living under any form of statism, and one has to conclude that — when left alone — men are eminently capable of thinking and fending for themselves. It’s only when the state removes and restricts incentives and choices that men become dependent.
For nearly two centuries, Americans, including millions of penniless immigrants, eloquently proved the point. The world marveled at the typical American’s self-reliance, be it his ability to earn a living, build his house, fix his car, or move up the social ladder. In every domain, when left free to think, act, and enjoy the rewards of hard work, Americans surpassed themselves and the rest of the world.
But advocates of entitlement programs deny this. They view man (except perhaps that special breed which constitutes the governing class) as feeble and incapable. He can’t think or plan for himself. He must be forced to act for his own “good.” Indeed, as we saw with the passage of Obamacare, there’s no longer even a pretense of persuasion; we childlike peons are to find out what’s in store for us when the laws have been passed. Ever since the New Deal, it’s this paternalistic view that’s guided government policy.
Tragically, however, the paternalists have the causation backwards. In actuality, it’s their myriad of forced redistribution programs that has fostered a mentality of dependence among the populace. With each new program they implement, they further sever the link between personal action and personal outcomes. Slowly people lose the idea of individual responsibility, and begin to believe that somehow they’re “entitled to” or have a “right to” the products of other people’s efforts. As a result, America’s independent spirit is waning.
A final key moral question is whether people should be treated primarily as independent individuals or as interchangeable parts of a larger collective.
Here again, history provides ample evidence. Wherever and whenever they’ve been free to do so, people have exhibited differing values, plans, and priorities. Societies succeed by respecting and catering to these individual choices and preferences; they fail when individuals aren’t even recognized. Take, for example, the contrast between the Free World’s outpouring of diverse and imaginative consumer products with the Soviets’ monotonously drab and barren output during the Cold War. Or the Maoists’ brutal mainland uniformity versus the flourishing trade and production of free Hong Kong. Or, for history buffs, the contrast between ancient Athenian and Spartan cultures.
But the evidence isn’t only historical, it’s also intimately personal. We each have unique dreams and aspirations that require differing paths and choices. No one else, much less the government, can know what’s best for us (despite what might be “good” for a fictional “average person”). College may be generally worthwhile, but the next Bill Gates might be completely justified in dropping out to start a business. Following a safe and steady career path may be good for most, but for the aspiring actor or musician, success may mean taking a very unorthodox route to that one big break.
Yet those pushing entitlement programs see it otherwise. They have a collectivized, one-size-fits-all approach to man. To whatever extent possible, the government should create and impose uniformity: all children should go to public schools until they’re 16. Patients should only be allowed to take drugs approved by some government board. Everyone should contribute 15% of their income to their future retirement and medical needs each and every year. Everyone should retire at 65.
Part and parcel of this collectivized view is the refusal to see individuals at all. Thus there’s no recognition that particular people, engaged in particular processes and efforts, earn and produce wealth. By dropping the individual from their worldview, collectivists don’t have to confront the moral question of why they find it proper to take from some to give to others.
The result of these collectivist and paternalistic views is a continuous assault on individuals and their rights. This is borne out in the implementation of our entitlement programs.
For example, consider all those who haven’t yet acquired sufficient skills and experience for a potential employer to justify both their salary and the additional burden of a 15.3% FICA tax. Entitlement programs price these people out of the labor market, and thereby contribute to our stubbornly high rates of unemployment — particularly among the young.
The same type of analysis applies to those employees trying to save enough to start a family or a business of their own. For many starting out, the 15.3% withholding tax represents a huge percentage of their discretionary income. Forcing them to prioritize retirement over other genuine values is inimical to their personal success and happiness. Contrary to the one-size-fits-all mentality, people’s circumstances vary widely, and there are often times in a person’s life when withholding for retirement is not a good thing.
Next, consider every responsible person who could have — and would have — saved and invested the equivalent of his mandatory FICA withholdings had he simply been allowed to. Over the years many wanted to opt out of the entitlement programs to build their own nest eggs, but they were prohibited from doing so in the name of protecting them from themselves. Now, thanks to our paternalistic caretakers, all that money is gone.
But it doesn’t end there, for not only is inclusion in these Ponzi schemes mandatory to employees, but when FICA contributions are inadequate — as they already are for Medicare — every taxpayer is forced to contribute to the deficiency via the general revenues.
As bad as all this is, perhaps the most egregious violation of rights comes in the treatment of future generations. Thanks to a complicit majority, those of voting age have for years now sought to burden (some might say indenture) the next generation with their retirement and medical bills. It’s a classic case of trying to have one’s cake and eat it too. Voters approve and enjoy all the current year spending to which their withholding taxes go, but still expect someone else — indeed a whole generation — to provide them with the very goods they refuse to set aside.
Redistributing wealth in any form is bad enough, but there’s a certain audacity to forcing the young and not-yet-born to become the primary victims. (This type of conflict is far from an anomaly; collectivist schemes to redistribute wealth always pit one group against another, here the strife they cause is intergenerational.)
Having now established the moral and economic bankruptcy of our entitlement programs, the question becomes: what do we do with them? Given how long the programs have run and how many people have been forced to participate, there can be no easy answer. But to get us started, why not look at an analogous situation? There are obvious differences between Madoff’s and FDR’s Ponzi schemes, but reviewing how Madoff’s is being handled does provide two valuable insights.
First, as soon as Madoff’s scam was discovered, it was shut down. Second, a trustee was appointed to return what funds remained, and then to reclaim money from anyone who’d knowingly or unknowingly profited from the scheme. In justifying this, the trustee appropriately decided that no one had a right to “fictitious profits” or “other people’s money.” Since there was no investment to generate returns, the most anyone could get back was the dollar amount they’d contributed.
With this in mind, here are some initial ideas on how to tackle our entitlement mess:
1) Stop the programs immediately. No one would accrue another cent towards Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
2) Continue to make Social Security payments on the existing schedule, but cap the lifetime payouts to the nominal value of past contributions. For younger people this would be an easy transition as they could plan their retirements accordingly. For some older people this would be more difficult, and in those cases of real hardship, they could be added to the welfare rolls. (Indeed, it’s been argued that entitlement programs are already a form of welfare.)
3) Convert Medicare and Medicaid to a monthly payment similar to Social Security and cap these to lifetime contributions as well.
4) Fund the remaining liabilities through the general revenues. This is already how SMI and Part D of Medicare are funded, but the difference here is that over time expenditures would taper to zero rather than growing exponentially as they do now.
Ending a fantasy is never welcome for those who want the impossible and who think that all they have to do is cast a vote to make it happen. Nor can there be any easy or completely just solutions to a colossal, multi-decade Ponzi scheme. But the solution outlined above has several merits:
- It ends the program.
- No one is cut-off “cold turkey.”
- Anyone who lives long enough gets back what they put in (less inflation).
- Unemployment is reduced by the elimination of the FICA payroll tax.
- People are once again able to prioritize their values and plan for their own retirements and medical care.
Finally, and most importantly, future generations can once again enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that were — and should be — this nation’s hallmark.
Arm chair philosophizing aside, if you think the GOP is going run (and win) with a campaign based on cutting, or better yet, doing away with, entitlements you’re mad. Perhaps the most trouble you might have is with the GOPs own aging base themselves. They love all this talk about how bad socialism is, blah, blah, blah, etc., but the fact of the mater is socialism is bad for everyone except them. I mean who would pay for their motorized wheelchair and diabetes medication were it not for Medicare? Was this supposed to be some sort of a joke?
If those things were no longer paid for by Uncle Sugar, there is one thing that is a certainty. The prices for both would drop like a rock.
The cost of medical care would not drop like a rock, because the demand for old age care would remain constant–unless you’re assuming that without Medicare the elderly would just get less care.
If Medicare ended, private insurance would move in to replace Medicare and demand for medical care would remain high.
They started introducing transparency here in Florida by publishing what pharmacies were charging Medicaid. That quickly led to price competition that benefits us all. Wallmart offered generics for $4 and the biggest supermarket made antibiotics free. Now, the V Acharges $7 for prescriptions. So much for wage and price controls working better than a competitive market.
wrong again, the prices will tend to drop as far as there will be true competition in the market and as long as no one feels there are “assured gains” like the ones there are when Government is paying the things. True, the demand will not change overnight, but the incentives for the companies yes.
If you applied English grammar to the Comment, you’d understand that the reference was to motorized wheelchairs and diabetes meds, NOT to healthcare, in general. That is an absolute truth.
While the column’s author recommends a draconian set of solutions, they’re much less draconian than the alternatives, which would be NO phaseout, but sudden and apocolyptic drop in the economy to barely survival levels.
I think that gradual, say up to 5 years after paying out buy-ins, or some combo, in concert with gradually subsidized replacement insurance would produce overall sustainability without crippling beneficiaries of current systems.
The way to fix SS is really quite simple. Right now, any income over $106,8000 is not taxed for SS. There is a bill in the senate that would re-instate the SS tax on incomes over $250K… So, if you make between $106,800 and $250K, you’re not paying any additional tax on that income… Over $250K, the SS tax kicks in again…
“The chief actuary for Social Security says the proposal to make the payroll tax applicable at higher income levels would create enough new revenue to keep the program solvent for the next 75 years.”
That is actually a pretty good fix. It would get us over the demographic hump. By then most of the Baby Boomers will have died off and the curve will have leveled out.
Moreover, the Bush tax cuts will be expiring as well as the two unfunded wars ending. After that we won’t be hearing much more about SS, which incidentally doesn’t contribute one cent to the debt.
Actually Cynical, you cannot depend on projections of when SS insolvency will occur, because they end up being revised downward because they happen to be a tad rosy. SS wasn’t supposed to run a deficit for another 10 years. Woops, it’s running a deficit right now. Incidentally, do the current projections take into account that our population replacement rate is decreasing?
The fact that SS is running a deficit now means that it is a debt issue for the general fund. After all, that’s where the bonds went when Clinton and a bipartisan Congress raided the SS “trust fund.” Now that SS is cashing in bonds, money is being sucked from the general fund. That means more debt on an already uncontrollable pile.
Frankly, I find the notion of forcing people to pay in more to SS (rich or not) to be laughable. It’s like saying that Bernie Madoff would not have done anything unethical, as long as he regularly doubled the required contributions of the next series of investors.
Many abuse the system and run for care whenever they have nothing better to do. Why not? There is zero cost to the medicaid recipient. For those on Medicare, if the program will cover it, again, why not? BUT; if there is no covering program, and the money must come from the Sickys’ pocket, two events will take place: 1. Sicky won’t go to the doctor unless he reall has to- thats about 20% of the time. 2. Prices will drop with the reduced demand.
Further, most repeat exams(every x# of months) are unnecessary and only pad the physicians pocketbook. Some fines and jail time could make a big dent there, too.
Oh, you mean by introducing competition? Kind of like the, so called, private banks? LOL.
The big problem at the root of the banking crisis is decades of the housing/mortgage market being distorted by non-free-market policies. There is nothing free-market or competitive about the federal government backstopping housing debt. It just made mortgage money prices (interest rates) too low, and housing prices rise too high. It incented moral hazard. It was a government policy -caused distortion of the market.
I’ll grant you that a competitive free-market system may not be the best model for a few specific tasks like fielding a national army, building an interstate highway system, or putting out people’s houses when they are on fire. However, for the vast majority of products and services, the competitive free market is in fact the best way to deliver those. But if government is mucking things up with too much regulation, failure to actually enforce the regulations that do matter, or distorting price signals, it is not a failure of competitive free markets. Rather, it is a failure to let competitive free markets actually do what they are supposed to do.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, the alternative systems are worse.
A joke? I thought it was extremely well thought out and stated. Stringing together logically, several destructive liberal policies permeating society.
I question your superficial analysis. Impedance of the op-ed’s content is apparent.
I share many of Mr. Ghate’s observations, however I couldn’t have presented it as concise and complete as he.
It appears to me that you like to be the first one to Blah Blah Blah, an obvious joke.
That’s why I referred to it as “armchair philosophizing.” It is well thought out, as you say. It is indeed a plan. However, it sounds much better in theory as it does in terms of being implemented in practice. The biggest whiners are going to be old white people (aka the GOP base). I also disagree with the notion of Social Security being referred to as an “entitlement.” In fact it is a government administered annuity. An annuity that we all pay into as workers. When you meet certain criteria (such as age) you are “entitled” to the benefit. That’s why they call it a social contract.
The fact is, if anyone ever tried to take this benefit away there would be a civil war. Imagine the Occupy movement then. Old white people camping out in tents with their oxygen tanks and Depends Undergarments. Meals on wheels supplying food. Amit needs to put down his copy Atlas Shrugged. Speaking of Ayn Rand, did you know she changed her name so that she could suck away at SS herself? Funny, how they all talk a tough game but when push comes to shove . . .
Here’s the bottom line: like much of the industrialized world our population is aging. That’s not bad, it is perfectly natural. It is a demographic curve that will eventually right itself. Social Security and Medicare have been remarkably successful in the sense that the elderly live longer and healthier lives than ever before. We should all be proud of that. Before SS and Medicare this was not the case, so the success clearly is due to these programs. The question is how do we deal with the influx of retirees? We can’t stop people from aging (unless you’re Cher)! I don’t claim to have an answer but the one offered by Amit isn’t well thought out and doesn’t deal with reality.
I never signed that social contract, therefore, it is not binding on me. As far as I’m concerned, your so-called social contract is taxation without representation.
You may not have signed it personally, but via representation you did. Congress enacted SS, etc. Unless, SS is dissolved by congress they and you are part of the contract previously entered into. That’s how representative Democracy works. Now I understand that you don’t like the idea of SS, however, that does not absolve your participation in the social contract. That is, until that contract is changed. Understand?
The Supreme Court, in Flemming v. Nestor (1960) agreed that there is NO contract. From the Social Security Adminstration website:
“In this 1960 Supreme Court decision Nestor’s denial of benefits was upheld even though he had contributed to the program for 19 years and was already receiving benefits. Under a 1954 law, Social Security benefits were denied to persons deported for, among other things, having been a member of the Communist party. Accordingly, Mr. Nestor’s benefits were terminated. He appealed the termination arguing, among other claims, that promised Social Security benefits were a contract and that Congress could not renege on that contract. In its ruling, the Court rejected this argument and established the principle that entitlement to Social Security benefits is not contractual right.”
No, Cynical, I don’t agree. I don’t agree that so-called representatives had any right to sign a contract on my behalf long before I was born, let alone able to vote. That is taxation without representation, not a social contract.
On the face of it, I agree but…if they cut the entitlements, does that mean the money they’ve withheld from my paychecks since I was 14 is gone as well? What penalty will the government pay? (rhetorical) And when I reach 65, will it just be my 401K helping me out?(also rhetorical).
Millions of Americans had NO CHOICE but to pay into the mandatory SS and Medicare BS…and just like after Vietnam when the GI Bill vanished, my generation will get screwed again both ways. I’ve already committed my mind to the fact that in spite of the loss of monies over the years from my paychecks, I will see NOTHING in return.
This is the fault I see of your argument, Amit; That there are millions of people who have been forced to pay into the system all their lives with no hope of ever seeing a return on that. So what’s the “consolation prize”? In 1979, they handed us VEAP instead of the GI Bill for veteran’s education benefits. It sucked. It was poorly managed and hardly helped with the bills while in college. Yes, I had a job, too then. Low-paying, long hours.
Either the government can cut me a check for what the money would have yielded me in an IRA or ……gee….looks like I’m out in the cold AGAIN when it comes to all things that the previous generation benefited from, which is another problem with socialism: Only a certain few will find it a good ride at first and then the wheels come off.
You make a great point. Many posters here – and even the writer of this article – Amit Ghate seems to have forgotten that I and many others have paid into this ‘system’ for many years. IT ISN’T AN ENTITLEMENT when you are forced into paying for it.
I paid into SS & Medicare for 45 years, I retired 2 years ago. I’m perfectly willing to be cashed out. I figure my cut is something around $850,000. I’d like that in small bills. I’ll happily move to Mexico and live well.
Many of you have seen the recommendations and comments made by ex Senator Alan Simpson. Typical claptrap from someone who’s lived off the largess of this country most of his life and is living a life I can only dream of with a pension in the hundreds of thousands a year for his ‘service’ to the country.
Simpson famously compared Social Security – the federal government’s most beloved program — to “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” What Simpson failed to recognize is his own ‘tit’ is bigger than almost anyone. He doesn’t get it from SS – instead its a pension with medical and dental benefits that I’d love to have. We are paying for idiots like this and what it is is REAL ENTITLEMENTS. He feels entitled to those benefits yet never paid a dime for them.
See the irony? I do. He don’t.
Exactly right. Cash me out if you like, but you WILL pay me for what I put into your little ponzi scheme or you will soon learn the reason for the SECOND Amendment. I didn’t ask to be cared for.
There is also the dilemma for those who have no living family left to care for them should they became ill. What becomes of them? Should they just be allowed to die? Methinks not.
You make a faulty assumption when you assume that people who need care will not get it if the government does not provide it. The government certainly did not come up with this idea of helping the needy. No, the political class saw charities doing it and decided that if they could take that over and take credit for it they could buy more votes.
Look around and tell me if you can find a charity hospital today. Where do you think that they all went? The government put them out of business in their race to become everybody’s sugar daddy.
As a top 1% tax bracket, pay through the nose sort…Know I have paid dearly into Social Security for 45 years. It was an insurance policy of sorts where the dastardly Dems passed my monies out to the stupid, the lazy, and the illegal for years …And now they tell those who have funded their “great society” scheme to stuff it.
To: All youth and those who come behind me understand the Dems are about lying, stealing and socializing this country… If you are to enjoy freedom and liberty…vote the Dems (this group particularly) out of office and begin investigations so the politicians understand the consequences of stealing from the people and the nations treasury.
The easiest way to identify the rubes when discussing Social Security: they are the ones insisting that they “paid in” and so SS is ipso facto not welfare, or that they are still “entitled” to something, at minimum reimbursement.
That’s fair enough. the trouble is simply this brute fact: that money is GONE. That’s how Ponzi schemes work. Someone’s going to be left holding the bag. You are the victim of a theft, the thief destroyed that wealth. In other words: like it or not, those collecting SS are now subsisting on contributions from the young. In other words: welfare, with a pretense of “paying in”.
If you can manage to get back from the government what it stole from you, great — but comes the day when that wealth runs out, anyone else looking for reimbursement is simply SOL. Someone’s going to be left holding the bag.
There are various proposals for dealing with that, including one in the original article which k.T. and like-minded idiots in this comment thread didn’t bother to notice (in case you need handholding, it’s in Mr. Ghate’s line #2).
But your “entitlement” to the money stolen from you is limited in the same manner as that of Bernie Madoff’s victims; when it’s gone, it’s gone. Being robbed by A does not entitle you to rob B. Much as it is for the young now, it is for you — a tax funding welfare for others, not a “savings plan”.
When people sense an opportunity to feather their own nests (i.e., lower taxes) at somebody else’s expense (i.e., payout SS at 20 cents on the dollar), the inner criminal quickly emerges.
It’s really all about the money.
The real irony is that 90%+ of people who wouldn’t have to pay into SS and Medicare would be flat broke at 65. It’s the reason the programs were put in place in the first place. Very very few people have the discipline to save.
yeah your right, 90% of people are fat, stupid and lazy and must have the (self) proclaimed (self) righteous intellectual elite few (government) to take care of them because you know teaching economics from k-adulthood is just a waste of time on the unwashed peasant masses
Yes, your money is gone. It is long gone, whether SS is reformed or not. It was spent on someone else’s benefits as soon as you paid in. The question is: do you condone playing the same cruel injustice on our kids?
Yes, your money is gone. It is long gone, whether SS is reformed or not. It was spent on someone else’s benefits as soon as you paid in. The question is: do you condone playing the same cruel injustice on our kids?
Read it again. This article promotes the idea of giving everybody back what they paid in. Fair enough, I think. Add some nominal ROI and that should be that.
Yes they will because there’s no other options. Cut the welfare state and phase it out in favor of freedom OR continue the violating rights exploding spending and spiraling into collectivism. Those are your only options.
True enough, the country is already dominated by moronic socialists and a Republican would get slaughtered in any election attempt to place this idea on the party platform. We will soon all be living in poverty and serving our collectivist masters. It now looks like the country will have to learn the terrible lesson of State controlled means of production first hand.
The thesis above is not disproved by this sad fact. Since all government spending in the marketplace is inflationary, the only answer to spiraling entitlement cost is to get government money out of the equation.
Our financial problems have come from people robbing Americans of their retirement again and again in the last 30 years, nothing else.
All that rightfully earned income would have been spent right here in America on goods and services and improvements, investments, you name it.
Think of every scandal where we saw families losing their retirement savings. America has been betrayed by the Republican and Democratic parties. I fear Bush may have been our last decent president.
why is it no one ever mentions wellfare. food stamps. h.u.d. and all of the other give away programs to the deadbeats loafers and dopehead? I paid into social security since I was 14 years old working in the timber woods till I joined the Army when I turned 16 in 1951. I AM 76 YEARS OLD AND THERE ARE PEOPLE ON WELLFARE DRAWING MORE EACH MONTH THAN I DO.but no one wants to talk about cutting wellfare. of course thats the way the democrats have been buying votes for over 50 years so why expect them to stop now,
If one points out the deadbeats collecting more than those who pay into the system, they will be called racists. That is why it is not brought up in campaigns.
How about all the deadbeats getting SSI disability checks most of their lives instead of working like the fat “adult baby syndrome” clown? Meanwhile the American Psychiatric Association is constantly inventing new “disorders.
How about all the deadbeat CEOs that got us into this mess? We reward them with bailouts? Why do we always look to place blame on those who had little to do in creating this economic mess but instead were largely victims of it? Personally, I’d much rather see my tax dollars going towards helping an unemployed dad, so he can keep a roof over his families head rather than some CEO looking to take his new hooker on a spa vacation.
Or some hooker looking to take some CEO for a spa vacation.
All of those “deadbeat CEO’s” vote for the same party you appear to belong to and make the same lame and ultimately vacuous arguments that you make for keeping the system.
I defy you to find one CEO that OPENLY discusses doing something serious about SS or any other major entilement. You write like it is 1930′s capitalists vs “the people”. In fact it is wealthy elitists in government and industry vs everyone else. Think about the reality of who supports what before you say stupid things.
SSI and Disability are the step up cash cows for generational welfare leaches.Medicare has inherited huge amounts from the welfare crowds that now collect for fat children,anorexics,ADD,ADHD,drug addicts,alcoholics,obesity,diabetes etcetc.
SS and Medicare numbers and costs are distorted by adding all recipients in one total.
Liberals prefer to disguise the fact that we are being bled by illegals and welfare payments.
A promising, sensible, realistic idea.
Alas, it will never get implemented. This is because it would be instant political suicide–in a democracy where the state predominates–to suggest to voters that it ever should be.
Hence, the fiscal can will be kicked as far down the road as it can…until the roadway suddenly ends at the edge of the cliff.
That way, the country will experience an eventual catastrophe; but at least the politicans will avoid the curse of becoming unpopular, and their constituencies the need for preemptive sacrifice, in the interim.
So, meltdown is inevitable, and the fallout will be severe. Romney won’t fix it, and Paul won’t be elected. Cain? Well, it’ll probably be one or the other.
The tragedy is that about half of America IS up to challenge of dealing with this dire situation.
Part and parcel of this collectivized view is the refusal to see individuals at all.
Quite true. The Democrat Party is a great body of causes. Beware of causes…they will steamroller right over the individual with nary a twitch. Because the cause is so important, you see, that the individual doesn’t really count.
“Because the cause is so important, you see, that the individual doesn’t really count.”
which is blatantly apparent with this ows crowd, they are destroying some of the small business around their protest and they could care less. individuals don’t matter only their cause (whatever the hell it is suppose to be). they also don’t want to share their food and tents with the homeless. so they want the rich to give to them but they don’t want to give to the truly poor. which is typical progressive hypocrisy.
I worked 40 years and most times two jobs. My understanding was SS was set up as a separate trust. When I was younger I resented that big chunk out of my paychecks. LBJ started the biggest theft of our interest by giving it to the welfare system this is what has to stop, not people who paid in all their working lives. Welfare and ssi are the draw on this system and these people draw more than the people who paid in. The politicians are having snit fits to get at the principal and it set up so they can’t get the principal and by ending ss they will have complete control and rob the principal. SS and medicare are not the problem leave it alone. Get the big spenders out of DC. Bush wanted to privitize ss but remember who stopped it, yeah the democrats because they couldn’t pay their voting base with our ss money. I am very tired of being blamed for something I paid for and will never collect what I paid in.
If you can show cancelled checks that you paid in, I would support reimbursement. However, I learned when I was putting a business to bed that FICA is not your liability, at all. It is assessed on employers, and even if they go out of business you never are liable, but you get a refund on taxes not paid. Social Security is codddled in myths, and the biggest one is that employees pay in. Per capita taxes on employees are a major deterrent to hiring, especially low skill workers.
That FICA line on my pay stub sure looked like it reduced my take home pay.
What on earth is this person talking about.
So the money deducted from my paycheck – and I do the payroll – and which my employer pays, are not taken from us?
Hello?
FICA, however little I like it, is coming from both my check and from my employer. It’s not imaginary. It’s a penalty. The employer who fails to pay his portion will face the wrath of the IRS in all its fanged, slavering glory.
There is no principal. It is not a trust. The money you paid in over the years is not still sitting there in some account waiting for you; it has already been paid out to retirees. The only money you will eventually receive is money that is paid in by folks working then. That is why the whole thing is a ponzi.
A good essay; the ideas present a starting point, although not necessarily the optimal solution. The country suffers from a set of false, unrealistic expectations. That is one of the psychological evils of progressivism, in that it has changed expectations that used to be (as pointed out by the essay) based on self-reliance.
I applaud the author, but I would also add that there has to be a realistic transition process, so that expectations can have time to change along with the programs themselves. For example, regarding only Social Security, a private investment program along the lines of what Chile already has could be set up as an immediate alternative for individuals, but not mandatory until ten years have passed. In addition, at that point a cutoff age would exist for those already on SS versus everyone else.
Similarly for Medicare, if it exists at all it must be transformed into pay-as-you-go, with no more benefits paid out than are already taken in. Everyone must therefore expect that any and all medical procedures are simply not possible; however, the individual could be allowed to choose which ones they want under such a revised program, up until the point where their allowance was used up. In general, the program would also be required to be re-voted into existence every ten years by Congress, i.e., an automatic sunshine law, so that it would not automatically ratchet up expected benefits outside of the system’s ability to be funded. Also, abusive, strangling regulation of insurance industries must be radically altered to allow personal catastrophic health insurance from across state lines to any individual and/or private organization, and NOT through their employer. The ability of private organizations in the past to not only help local members in local communities (as well as to run private hospitals) has been completely undermined by massive federal intervention. We had localism before in this country, and the feds must be completely rolled back so that we can have it again as the basis for doctors and patients to start interacting directly on an economic basis again. THAT will truly transform the cost of “healthcare” in this country radically downwards.
False expectations are generally the cause of destructive outcomes, both on an individual and now on a wider societal basis.
False expectations will be the ruin of us all.
This is a joke, right? It’ll never happen. For any politician to do this would be instant political suicide. The Republican base is white people over the age of 50. How do you think they will like this idea? … That’s what I thought.
It is impossible for any politician to reform entitlements. The people are hooked on their favorite programs. They claim they don’t like socialism – but try cutting their Medicare or Social Security… The reason ObamaCare is so unpopular (including and especially among GOP voters) is that it will cut their Medicare. During the health care debates, people were carrying signs “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” — HILARIOUS! They don’t like ObamaCare because they are afraid it will cut their Medicare…
The problem will not be solved. The people don’t want any changes. And the politicians aren’t going to commit political suicide. So we will end up like Greece.
FDR and LBJ’s ticking time bombs are exploding…the debt is spiraling out of control…national bankruptcy is inevitable. Helicopter Ben’s printing presses are running overtime, in the middle of the night… you will get your government checks…in worthless dollars. Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe — Here we come!
There is a widening divergence between young and old in America: The old are very white (with some black), and the young are very Hispanic (with some Asian). The principal beneficiaries of the mid-20th century entitlement programs are old whites. The fellows expected to fund them are increasingly “minorities”. 80%+ of Social Security and Medicare recipients are white; 50%+ of births in America are to “minorities”. Just wait til you see what happens…
The welfare state is going bankrupt. If the parasites insist, they will get their entitlements and government checks…in worthless dollars — courtesy of Helicopter Ben’s printing presses. Wiemar Germany and Zimbabwe — Here we come!
Social Security and Medicare are transfers of wealth from working class black and Hispanic young men to upper middle class elderly white women.
Geez – who knew those were the only two groups paying into SS and MC?
What a dolt!
If this were the truth, there would be no money for SS and Medicare.
That is a racist and ageist remark.
We are drawing monies we have already paid in. The politicians will have you think your paying for us now, but you are not, this money your paying now is for your retirement. Do not believe these lying ignorant politicians. This is not a free pass for us old white baby boomers as we have paid dearly. These people havfe squandered our interest on welfare leeches. The principal cannot be touched.
Charming naiveté. You are sadly misinformed if you think the money you paid in is lying around somewhere, unless you concede that it is in some organization’s pocket. Expecting it to have earned interest is almost too funny. Social security was never meant to SUBSTITUTE for a salary. It was meant to AUGMENT
Charming naiveté. You are sadly misinformed if you think the money you paid in is lying around somewhere, unless you concede that it is in some organization’s pocket. Expecting it to have earned interest is almost too funny. Social security was never meant to SUBSTITUTE for a salary. It was meant to AUGMENT what the worker has set aside (or invested) for his golden years. It is gone because in the beginning, when the flow of money vastly exceeded the outflow to recipients, it was easier for lazy spendthrift politicians to “borrow” from that fund than to ask the taxpayers for more money through taxes. There was never a question of sacrificing pet projects (read “pork”) because there wasn’t enough money to pay for them. Only the taxpayer is expected to sacrifice, which is why the tea party movement sprang up. It is the voter screaming “Enough, already!” to a bloated political class. I hope the movement succeeds beyond its wildest and most outrageous dreams.
The 5 biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Department of Defense/Wars, and Interest on the National Debt.
The people aren’t going to give up their favorite social programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), and Interest on the National Debt can’t be cut (indeed it is going to rise dramatically over the coming years)…so it is pretty obvious where cuts will be made – on Defense/National Security/Wars/Military-Industrial Complex. The neocons will go apocalyptic, but it is going to happen – there’s no doubt about it.
ObamaCare will “solve” the Medicare and Social Security problems.
exactly!
instead of dying a slow and tortured death obamacare will be like putting a shotgun in every american’s mouth and getting it over in a hurry
As the ratio of payers to recipients approaches 1 to 1, all of you who say that this cannot be done are going to be wrong. Further, taking money from those who work to pay those who do not work is morally wrong, and the long range consequences impede the formation of family capital, disincentivising family stability in poor families, having a disproportionate impact on black and hispanic families. Our parents sold us into slavery and its time to leave the plantation – end socialism security now.
I got angry. Then I got even.
I had a small business from ’89 to ’93, and I was paying that outrageous ripoff of FICA. I mean, I had a wife and two young kids, and I was grossing maybe 60K in a good year. Then my accountant suggested, “Why not incorporate?” So I did.
I paid myself dividends. My corporation bought my supplies.
I saved a lot. I knew all along, being born in ’63, which by the way is NOT the Baby Boom, they stole my year, but in any case I knew I’d never see Social Security. And I never will. Neither will my kids.
Most of my kids’ generation here in White Plains NY are making four to five hundred dollars a week, cash on the barrel head working in restaurants and so forth. None of them pay into the system.
The reality is, if you want to make it here and now, you have three choices:
1. Work for the government, 2. Incorporate or 3. Work for cash.
If you do not do one of those three things, you’re impoverished, and cannot afford to live. Nice situation, right? It sucks that a man cannot just get a truck and some tools and start a business without getting killed by regulations and taxes. That stifles development in a big way.
However, when I traveled from here to Wyoming and back last summer by motorcycle, stopping at many small towns, what I saw was that even in the so called red states, there was really not much economic development. Most towns had few independent restaurants. Most housing was beat up mobile homes and most places simply had no sidewalks.
If we could blend the creativity and money of the coasts with the regulation free environments of the red states, we’d have America back to what it should be. Just a thought. Don’t give up hope. The Boomers are dying!
You hit on the salient issue: The more taxes and regulation, the stronger the underground economy. Americans at heart are freedom loving people and they will gravitate towards freer systems. You are correct about another thing: Americans will not accept being born into economic slavery.
Socialism dies one way or another. Either we go the rational directed route suggested by the author of the article or it will be done in a more spontaneous organic way. I would prefer the former but expect the latter.
As for the Baby Boomers, the socialist system was in place before they were born. It was an Utopian dream from another century that started from a little seed and has grown into a monstrous reality 100 years later. Blame the BB’s all you want but if you think about it, they have paid more into the socialist system than anyone else.
Don’t be ridiculous. I worked since age 15 and am now 70, drawing ss that alas, did not earn any revenue because what we all paid in was spent elsewhere, and much of it to bureaucratic perks. I don’t like paying for a plane for the presidential dog. I don’t like paying for deadbeats. I don’t like paying bonuses for bank executives who were bailed out with my money. I am sick of the American working person being ripped off. You are right. We cannot afford entitlesments. SS is not an entitlement, it was a PREPAID system that turned into a pyramid scheme. When Congress stops its own enrichment votes and suckering the public to return to the will of the people, things will improve. But I have no hope of that happening. Throw ‘em all out and that includes the shameful Nancy Pelosis of the planet.
First we have to end ALL the welfare programs. Don’t want a really big backlash? Well then end them in place and reinstitute welfare reform, ie. the young MUST take jobs. Then let NO one else into the programs. period. Need help? Go to your Family, Church, or nearest food pantry. Or try saving for a rainy day.
The country needs jobs and needs them fast. First end the EPA and let the states regulate the air and water. I see no clause in the constitution that permits the federalies to regulate any of this. Its nothing but centralized control over the economy and your private property. Get rid of the endangered species act and the ability of enviromental groups to sue to stop energy production. Get rid of the energy department. The U.S. is on the verge of an energy explosion and the government needs to get out of the way.
The government needs to end forced unionization. I’m ok if you want to join a union, but you shouldn’t be forced to join one and pay for political causes you don’t believe in.
End the Disability and survivors portion of social security period. Again, end them in place. Investigate anyone who has been on disability more than 5 years.
Pass cut, cap and balance; Then work on phasing out social security and medicare.
Build a secure fence along the entire southern border. Every mile. When that is done, build a fence along the northern border.
End the agriculture department and all its illegal subsidies.
Devolve power back to the states. Give them the entire power to administer and taxing power for unemployment benefits and road & bridge building on non federal lands. Sell excess federal lands so they can be developed and go back on the tax rolls.
End birthright citizenship. Good grief, terrorists can sneak past the border guards or fly in by jet with their wives, deliver babies here, and voila, they’re citizens.
End the education dept. Since the federal government has gotten involved in education, the education level of students has dropped. The lone exception are the DC scholarships. End all the training programs. I have never met anyone who got a job as a result of these programs.
Get the government out of the financial industry. Fannie, Freddie, GNMA, VHA, FHA, FDIC, FSLIC, Dodd Frank should all be shut down. Same with student loans. Privatize everything. End federal reserve and link dollar to gold or a basket of currency.
“…the biggest components of our financial wreck: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”
I’m neither an economist, statistician, or tax accountant, but I must confess to profound doubts about the validity of the above assertion. According to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees (as quoted by Robert W. Patterson in the American Spectator), these pay-as-you-go, reciprocal programs have and still are running surpluses. Social Security alone has run a 25% surplus since 1990! http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/19/what-would-reagan-cut#
We need to think long and hard before we suicidally take a blow torch to that once-steely backbone of the American middle class and first systematically apply and enforce reason, fairness, and integrity within the “185 overlapping [welfare] programs across six federal departments…that account for no less than half of our current federal deficits,” (again quoting Patterson).
If we clean up the immigration/anchor baby debacle first and eliminate the blatant abuse perpetrated by folks like those in the clip below, it is my firm conviction that the unfairly targeted, essentially self-funded above three programs would require far less draconian reforms than we could ever imagine. (CBS reputedly removed this video from YouTube according to the e-mail chain, but it seems to me the people who are paying through the nose to support this kind of insanity deserve to see it:
http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15915
And BTW, if you’re going to watch the video, stick with it to the O’Henry ending–it is absolutely beyond belief.
It’s a safe bet that the little creep in that vid is a typical Obama voter.
As if the Baby Boomers didn’t do enough damage to this country, they have now started retiring, and will vote as a bloc to protect their insanely generous Medicare and Social Security benefits. Any politician who suggests that we must slash their benefits (or else we will go bankrupt as a country) will be thrown out of office.
The selfish Boomers (who are overwhelmingly white) won’t be willing to sacrifice and give up their Medicare and Social Security, so that the government will instead be able to spend the money on younger people (who are mostly Hispanic, black, and Asian).
The older beneficiaries of these entitlement programs are overwhelmingly white, and the younger workers who will be paying the taxes to support the elderly whites will be mostly Hispanic, black, and Asian.
The Republican Party is the White Party — 90% of the GOP’s votes come from white people. And 80% of “minorities” vote for Democrats. Historically, the Democrats are the party of Social Security and Medicare, and the Republicans opposed the welfare state. But the Republican base is whites — especially older whites. So there is going to be a collision. This should be fun.
Sure thing – I’ll be glad to give up my SS. Just as soon as you – or the government – mails me a check for $850,000. Thats what I paid in – with interest of course. Had I not paid into this scheme I’d have gone to jail.
Get over yourself. I and many other were forced to pay into this scheme. I plan on getting my money back – with interest of course. Either by check or living a long time.
exactly
And btw, I don’t consider SS “insanely generous”, I consider it the worst investment of my life. If I had been able to manage that money, I’d be posting from my luxury condo in Tahiti.
So, you are saying that with 15% more income you would be infinitely more wealthy today than you otherwise would have been? 15% of your income was enough to destroy your dreams and ability to retire on easy street? Funny thing is that I am sure you beleive yourself when you dream up these insane ideas.
Yup, if I would have only made 15% more money in my life, I would not have spent it all like I did the other 85%, nope, I would have invested it, and those investments all would have been good ones where I made mad money, and then by the time I am 55, I would have enough money to live on easy street for tens of decades. LOL.
hmmm. I could have sworn that what I said was that I consider SS to be the equivalent of a bad investment. If I’m not mistaken, that is pretty much the common view.
There is no question that if I had had the discipline to invest that money (a big if for most people), then I would be much better off today. I’ve done K.T.’s calculation for myself and spouse, and my calculation is that together, we would have about a million dollars.
The thing that people don’t get though, is that very very few people have that kind discipline. 90% of people who want SS dissolved would be flat broke at 65 if that ever happens.
Normally I would be nice to someone who makes a mistake on their numbers.
You are a lying sack of excrement.
The absolute maximum you could have paid in as paying both the employee and the employer contributions is about $350,000. That would require you to have made the maximum amount taxable from 1938 through 2011.
And you people wonder why boomers get no respect? Really, I wish we could just cut you people off cold turkey and put your lame asses back to work until you die, or you have enough money to retire on your own merits.
K.T. made it clear that he included returns in his calculation. The S&P 500 is up by a factor of 17 since 1970; the Nasdaq is up by a factor of about 30. Some mutual funds are up by more than that. Depending on one’s assumption about the investment vehicle, 850K could be low.
No, I saw that, and it is flawed. His early payments were in the very low hundreds of dollars a year, and that is imagining that he would have in fact saved that money and made the right decisions on where to invest it. All speculative.
“Yup, if I would have only made 15% more money in my life, I would not have spent it all like I did the other 85%, nope, I would have invested it, and those investments all would have been good ones where I made mad money, and then by the time I am 55, I would have enough money to live on easy street for tens of decades. LOL.”
I know that the early payments were lower percentages. The math still makes the potential nest egg for people who paid close to the maximum for 35 to 50 years very large. It’s more because of the market returns than the amount paid in. Just as a quick example, using NASDAQ returns for 1970, the potential amount for that year alone is about 60K (including the employer match). Every year wouldn’t be that good, but K.T. could have paid in for 50 years.
You may also be ignoring the employer match.
As I said earlier, my own calculation for myself and spouse is close to a million, and I didn’t used the Dow, which is a more conservative projection.
That’s why many people want the system to be changed to allow people to invest some or all of the money paid in.
Well, I did it with 5% returns from 1938 through 2011 and I always include employer match, and that comes out to $543,777.42. Like I said, if you make all correct investments and actually invest ALL the money, HUGE ifs it looks like you could do much better at 8% interest which brings you to a bit over a million from 1938 through 2011.
Then again. You got what your generation voted for. Which was you paying for your parents and non parents retirements while you worked, and hope that children will pay for yours. I for one am not inclined to pay for someone else’ retirement.
The S&P 500, on average over decades, returns between 8% and 9%. That’s a huge difference when you consider compounding for decades. Nasdaq returns a percent or two better.
Your math basically shows that K.T.’s numbers are reasonable if he paid in close to the max for 40 or so years.
re your point about what my generation voted on, there probably aren’t more than a couple hundred thousand Americans still living who were of voting age when SS was passed, so don’t blame my generation. I never got a chance to vote on it. (but if I had and I knew then what I know now about human nature, I would have voted for it)
Hindsight is 20/20.
1) He would have had to EARN maximum the entire time of his career. I call BS on that alone.
2) He would have had to have had the intention to put that money SS took into savings. I call BS on that as well.
3) He would have also have had to have had invested the money wisely, each and every year, no risky losses. No selling because the market tanked. I call BS on anyone who claims that they would have matched S&P returns unless they have real investments over that same period that have shown those returns. Again, I call BS on this.
Yes, he would have had a nice nest egg if he would have done these things, and nothing stopped him from taking the equivalent money and investing it as he says he would have. Sure, he would have had less for the fun times and enjoyment during his working years, but that is the cost of having financial security in old age.
Also note, if you invested in the S&P over that whole time, you would have had all of your money at risk, the reality is that much of the money would be tied up in bonds and savings and not purely stocks.
You know what, if I had all that money the government took from me (~$200) I could have invested in X stock in 1989 and kept it until 1999 and sold it to buy Y in 2000 keeping that until 2008 and selling it for cash until 2009 where I would have invested it in stock Z and sold it Friday I would have $25,000,000, so where is my check for that one year?
“1) He would have had to EARN maximum the entire time of his career. I call BS on that alone.” Lots of people do, particularly small business owners. I did.
“2) He would have had to have had the intention to put that money SS took into savings. I call BS on that as well.” All he is saying is that IF he did he would have 850K. That’s not BS, that’s a fact. I have already pointed out that few people have that kind of discipline. That is also a fact, and it is also the main reason that SS should NOT be disbanded.
“3) He would have also have had to have had invested the money wisely, each and every year, no risky losses.” No he wouldn’t have. The returns I cited above are market returns for just investing in some common indices. That includes the ups and downs, including 1972-1974 (very severe bear market), 1987 (20% crash in one day), the internet crash (nearly 50% value loss on average), and the Obama/Soros 2008 crash (more than 50% value loss on average). During about the first 30 of the years in K.T.’s period, Fidelity Magellan returned, on average, about 24% p.a. If K.T. had invested in Magellan, he would have had more like 10 million. It just points out that SS doesn’t give you much of a return.
Listen, ignorant child, no ‘Boomer voted to be compelled to pay into Social Security for every day of our working lives. The only ‘Boomers who could vote in ’64 when LBJ was elected and the Great Society began to be enacted were however many 18 year olds in Kentucky and Georgia bothered to vote and the odds are pretty good that most of those in GA voted for Goldwater since he carried GA. The first election that any significant number of Boomers could vote in was ’68 and that Republican, Nixon, won that one.
Most demographers consider the Baby Boom to be those born between ’46 and ’64. Consequently, the first election that ALL ‘Boomers could vote in was ’82. As I recall with my aging brain cells, that Republican Reagan guy was elected in ’80 and again in ’84, so you’re going to have to blame at least some ‘Boomers for Reagan’s two terms. And for the 12 years of the Bush Presidency. ‘Course you can blame at least some of us for Carter and Clinton. Clinton was himself a ‘Boomer, but so was GWB. Technically, Comrade Obama is a ‘Boomer, but his life experience is so foreign he hardly counts as one. But if you look at the election of a truly distructive avowed communist, you’ll find Comrade Obama’s primary support other than minorities was all you smart young’uns that so love to hate ‘Boomers and of course the single, divorced, and never married women – of all ages – some of whom look at government as the Daddy for their brats and some of whom really knew how to piss off some ex.
Yet, while boomers controlled the political world, as the largest generation, they did nothing to get rid of Social Security. They saw it just like everyone else, an easy way to live off the work of someone else. Boomers are still going to get paid back in excess of what they paid in, even the youngest of you.
Well, actually, my state had the good sense to “secede” from SS in ’81. Consequently, my wife, who did a 30 year career with the State government, doesn’t even have her 40 quarters in, so she doesn’t have to endure having her retirement “adjusted” for SS. I spent the last 20 years of my career with the State and while I have SS earnings they were a long time ago and won’t upset my retirement much. Both we and the employer made contributions equal to FICA to a managed investment account that during the good times was “paying” us more in monthly earnings than our wages. Unfortunately, Soros’ coup d’etat destroyed a lot of the earnings but it still did one Helluva lot better than SS. My only regret is that my retirment plan forces me to apply for Medicare when I become age eligible which then becomes my primary HI rather than my much better private insurance. I don’t really lose benefits but it is a whole lot of hassle. So, yeah, I’m one of those people you love to hate; I saw how to do well for me and mine and since the house was burning, I kept warm.
I do believe you are a racist. A nasty one at that.
It’ll be all sorts of fun, yeah. Just sit back and laugh about it.
As someone who is middle-aged, I am telling you that I knew, perfectly well, from the time I started working, that there is no way in hell that I will see a dime from Social Security or Medicare.
Knowing this, I have saved carefully, invested carefully, taken my losses with gritted teeth, and generally made sober plans for the collapse of Social Security. Any damned fool could see this coming.
Frankly, this is a case of people having voted for the desired impossible, which will, without fail, meet the disastrous possible.
It’s not going to be amusing when it’s one’s own granny who won’t have her Social Security. It’s going to hurt like hell. So get ready to help your friends and relatives, privately, exactly as it ought always to have been.
Finally, a winner!!!
The only way SS will fail is if the country fails. Next to taxes, it is about the most secure thing your will have in your life.
On your list of things to worry about, it should be the last one.
The country is going to fail. Most of the blame can be laid on Social Security and its various branches.
nonsense. You are irrational.
What haters these people are. The world is full of thugs and thieves, including the crew in the white house, and nut jobs like this focus on old people who are living out the last days of their lives, after working for 35 to 50 years, and blame THEM for all the problems in the world.
It’s kind of sad.
Last days. 65 to 79 on average, but lets be honest, people are starting to live longer fast enough that by the time someone 55 today dies, their average life expectancy will be somewhere between 90 and 1000 lets say. That’s 25 years expected last days, 9131.25 last days on average. Now we are not talking about the infirm old here, no no no. In Utah my neighbors were 72 and 69 years old, they down hill skied together, jogged, and drove a 4WD SUV with ski rack, gun rack, push bars and a disabled sticker.
just to be clear, I will never consider, not even when I am at the point to retire myself, a single penny given to the government as some claim to my being owed something. That thought is paramount to the OWS people. It was known from day one that existing retirees were supported by current taxes. If a voter is ignorant enough to not have figured that out, they are dupes that got robbed. If a voter is evil enough to have though voting for the person that would keep the scheme going for themselves, then I have no sympathy or feel and obligation towards them. If someone argues that they paid in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the program, then that person earned enough money to have also had plenty of money to put into that saving account they say they “could” have had if only.
As for all the problems this system causes. Look around at the OWS people, the “disabled”, the perpetually lazy and poor entitled. Look at the size, education given to, and real life prospects of today’s youth compared to what the Boomers inherited from their parents and tell me that the boomer generation earned anything from them.
now he’s not only irrational, he’s incoherant.
When Social Security was first rolled out in 1936, life expentancy was also a lot lower. People were lucky to make it to 65, and few lived beyond that age. But today, people living into their 80s and 90s is not uncommon. And now the government is stuck with the bill for not only providing retirement money for people (Social Security), but medical care as well (under Medicare). And the government certainly has not helped matters by not only squandering the money people have paid into Social Security, but by also growing the Federal Government in gigantic leaps and bounds in the past 60 years. Remember, when Social Security was created in 1936 not only was the government a lot, and I mean A LOT, smaller than it is today, we also didn’t owe nearly as much money, either.
So here we are, deep in debt and no way to pay the people who actually paid into the system after all these years. What to do? First, we need to shrink the size of government, FAST. Get rid of as many departments as possible (the Departments of Energy and Education are just two, but there are a lot more). If you can shrink the size of Government, you will save literally trillions of dollars that can be plowed back into Social Security and Medicare.
Second, you may need a national tax, or a VAT, on everything. Nothing huge, but maybe 1% to pay for these programs. The deal is that this VAT would only be used for Social Security and Medicare. Now people will say that this is an unfair tax on the poor. Well, most (if not all) of these people pay NO federal income tax at all, but they all want to take advantage of the benefits when they retire. So, they need to have some “skin in the game” too. A small national sales tax wouldn’t be too bad if the revenues were set aside only for Social Security and Medicare.
But will any, ANY, of this actually happen? Not a chance, my friends. Not a chance.
All this blather about freedom and surpassing the world is nonsense. The United States has seldom ranked best at anything that speaks to quality of life, other than advanced education. Its economy could be characterized as lurching from self inflicted recession to recession. Democracy is the real benefit to a citizenry, not unrestricted license for the rich. Countries that understand this distinction such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and, to a degree, Canada a are currently weathering the current economic disaster brought to us by the cowboy capitalism of the US much better than the US ever will. All those countries recognize that people must pay to create a social and economic environment that supports the notion of community, in its broadest sense, and that means taxing those who benefit the most from that supportive environment, the most. Nobody is emigrating from Denmark to take advantage of the USs’ vaunted freedom (freedom from taxes, that is).
They don’t have to.
They can stay in Denmark and enjoy the Internet (based on research done by the Pentagon); the Macintosh; Microsoft Windows; Facebook; and a lot of other innovations from America.
How many world-changing technologies and inventions came from Denmark?
Going back a ways, Denmark and every other Western European country could create welfare states because they hid behind America’s skirts rather than invest in their own large militaries.
Since you want to through the “older Whites” around, aren’t the “older Whites” the ones who have funded this entitlement/payroll deduction called social Security?
Lol, seems like all the leftist groupies came out to protest for -horror of horrors, an out of the box article.
I think is quite reasonable to keep the contract with the elders regarding their retirement, it’s kinda late for them; but regarding the youngers, no sorry, you get your money back and are now on your own. For millennia human beings has lived with no leftist institutions (no social security, retirements, medicare, etc), if you want those goodies, pay for it, but pay for it in the MARKET. Don’t get someone else to pay for you, for is immoral (in addition to being an unsustainable Ponzi scheme).
Now, you might ask, where is the Government going to obtain money to give back to people as their “social contracts” get rescinded? Well, I have some suggestions: shut down a very lot of stupid programs and agencies, EPA anyone?
And then, “social contracts” don’t exist, anybody signed it? It is not even a contract, but an obligation imposed on people like we were slaves and not citizens.
Time to stop this leftist lunacy.
There is no answer to this question because there is no will to solve the problem.
The Grifter Government conned you out of your money by promising you something that appealed to your personal gain. You, Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer…are the “mark” in this long con. You keep paying the Grifter Government, they keep using your money for other purposes…their own…and eventually the sting collapses, moves on to more fertile ground and you are left holding an empty bag.
Global Warming is simply a sting operation with simultaneous international marks and the leftist media act as the shills…as they always do.
The Grifter Government is almost always run by leftists. The center-right instincts of smaller government, lower taxes, free market principles…lead toward independence…the Grifter Government relies on building a co-dependency sickness in the society it seeks to rape, pillage and plunder.
The older generations…they say “Hey, I paid the Grifter Government for this con and I want what the sting promised, what the con man said I would get!”
They are frightened and who can blame them? They got swindled…and we either have to let them pay the consequences…or we pay the consequences for them. Then we absorb the swindle…our question becomes…do we fully absorb it…or pass the swindle on to our children and grandchildren.
Are we strong enough as a generation to pick up the tab for the older generation above us…and to pick up the rest of the tab for the younger generations behind us?
Not a chance. We are not made of that kind of stern stuff. Absolutely not. We will whine, whimper and cower in a corner. We wouldn’t dare make the moves necessary. So, we will ignore the problem, close our eyes and pretend it will all go away. It won’t, of course.
And we will be the generation that INTENTIONALLY saddled our offspring with financial ruin. Here’s to hoping they do to us what we will not do to our elders. I hope they abandon us. I hope they throw us out in the cold.
We deserve it…if we intentionally try to leave them to ruins. Let us eat cake. And off with our heads.
“The Grifter Government conned you out of your money”
uh, not exactly.
They confiscated the money, essentially at the point of a gun, since if I had somehow refused to pay, I would be in jail.
That’s a significant difference. I wasn’t fooled, and I didn’t have a choice. Had I been “conned”, I would be a bit more willing to laugh it off and say hey those silly foolish seniors deserve to live out their lives in poverty.
Actually, you were suckered out of your money. Maybe you saw through the flim flam, but you did nothing to convince your fellow voters that it was all smoke and mirrors. So, over all, the people voted for generational theft of SS. All that evil requires to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
Like everybody, I didn’t worry about it. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.
But now that I’ve paid hundreds of thousands, somehow, I can’t quite bring myself to support a scheme that would punish myself and my spouse to the tune of thousands a month, just so somebody 30 years old can save a few hundred a month. Somehow, that doesn’t make sense to me. Call me selfish and unpatriotic.
So, you are going to do what every evil person would do in your current situation, vote to have the government, at the point of a gun if necessary, steal the money from other people and give it to you. You see, you just admitted that is what your nature is, evil.
They conned us, proreason and they continue to pull another con every day.
At some point, good people have to stand up and stop the small c communists from pulling further fraud, hoaxes and con games on this land of ours…and slap down their propaganda machine as well.
It is much to ask. And, it is much easier to ask it of our children and grandchildren. I don’t suggest lightly that we take the hit.
However, what every man and woman of our generation must ask ourselves…is it better that we take this brutal hit…or our children? A Hobson’s Choice if ever there was one.
I don’t look down my nose at anyone who votes differently than I do. Both choices are ugly. The time has come for all good men and women to confront what is there before us. A headlong charge into the abyss…or a toss into it of our offspring. Ugly. Brutal.
But avoiding this decision…is a decision. Fight the leftists now or surrender our children to them.
You might have been conned. I wasn’t. I knew 30 years ago that I would be stiffed, but short of going black market, there wasn’t anything to do about it.
But I’m 100% certain I’ll get what was promised, unless the country collapses entirely. My only issue is that it’s less than half of what I ought to get from what I put in.
And I’ll bet that the whining losers on this thread screaming about what a raw dealthey are getting will get four times what they should, because they are all minimum wage people. SS is extremely progressive. The losers are the ones who make out. And it’s a good thing for them too, because it’s also 100% certain that they wouldn’t have a penney when they reach 65 if they weren’t forced into the system; that kind of person lives hand to mouth their entire life. The louder the screams, the more certain it is. The system was put in place for the losers. Funny, isn’t it? The very people screaming that they have been cheated are the ones who will most desperately need it when they are old, and they will get much much more out that people who have simply worked without whining.
Those of us in the “sandwich” are going to be the designated drivers and clean up squad.
Isn’t this fun?
TO THE MODERATOR, NOT FOR PUBLICATION–What’s Up, guys?? This item 22 is supposed to go under my comment that has been intermittently showing to me off and on item 16 “currently awaiting moderation.” Hope you can eventually position this where it belong. TX
This article assumes everyone on Medicare and SS are retirees. Check the govt website, and you’ll find 25% are disabled, never having paid in the system. The simplest path to reducing SS/Medicare payouts is to increase the age to life expectancy. Since the numbers of disabled, per the got’s figures, are growing faster than retirees, how you deal with that is another article. How could anyone blame old people who really believed the msm/govt lies that a trust fund existd? Prior to the internet there was no way to discover the truth. This article switches the current class warfare from targeting the rich to targeting the elderly. Without the WWII vets, where would any of us be? Or does anyone read history these days?
I agree.
The average American life expectancy keeps exceeding the SS retirement age by longer and longer.
Today, the life expectancy is 78. And it will get longer still as medicine advances. We’ve already got folks staying healthy till they’re 90. That means they will have collected SS and Medicare for 25 years, which is unsustainable.
The original purpose of SS and Medicare was to make your last years comfortable as you sat on your rocking chair and waited for the Grim Reaper. It was not to give you a 25 year long paid vacation at taxpayers’ expense.
The elephant in the living room is this: Technology has enabled humankind to do more for each individual at a cost which greatly exceeds the ability of the individual to pay. Within the constraints of human existence to which we are inescapably tied, there is no solution to the problems being addressed within the current system.
The double edged sword of technology, which can cogently be viewed metaphorically as Original Sin, is demanding its due.
The author blithely writes of solutions to these almost insurmountable problems as if we still lived in an age when a doctor carried almost all he could administer in his little black bag. Technology has rendered the old rules in new lights. In the days when an individual could afford all that the available technology could deliver, he was, on average, dead at a much younger age than he is now.
Unless humankind can devise ways of delivering, at drastically reduced charges, our greatly increased ability to provide care which has become completely unaffordable under ANY existing scheme, we are headed for a day of reckoning which no one has been able to address and few have considered.
In the end, it may well be that we are reaching the point where we are outsmarting ourselves with our technological prowess and unless we can figure out a way to make high tech logistical (food, shelter, etc.) and medical care almost free relative to the current costs, there is little hope for optimism.
Could this end be the prophesized price that humans will pay for partaking of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden?
What? Are you talking about? Original sin is technology? That’s a new one.
“…the biggest components of our financial wreck: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” (emphasis mine)
I’m neither an economist, statistician, or tax accountant, but I must confess to profound doubts about the validity of the above assertion. According to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees (as quoted by Robert W. Patterson in the American Spectator), these pay-as-you-go, reciprocal programs have and still are running surpluses. Social Security alone has run a 25% surplus since 1990! http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/19/what-would-reagan-cut#
We need to think long and hard before we suicidally take a blow torch to that once-steely backbone of the American middle class and first systematically apply and enforce reason, fairness, and integrity within the “185 overlapping [welfare]programs across six federal departments…that account for no less than half of our current federal deficits,” (again quoting Patterson).
If we clean up the immigration/anchor baby debacle first and eliminate the blatant abuse perpetrated by folks like those in the clip below, it is my firm conviction that the unfairly targeted, essentially self-funded above three programs would require far less draconian reforms than we could ever imagine. (CBS reputedly removed this video from YouTube according to the e-mail chain, but it seems to me the people who are paying through the nose to support this kind of insanity deserve to see it):
ttp://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15915
the final link obviously should have an ‘h’ at the head of the url……it was corrected on the first posting that somehow evaporated
http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15915
The increase in life expectancy statistics is mostly because far fewer people now die young from infectious disease or post traumatic injury infections. Life expectancy for those who do live to age 65 hasn’t increased all that much from what it was in the 1930s. What HAS changed is the overall general health of those who are 65 and older. When Social Security was established most workers performed strenuous physical labor which wears out the body over time. In the 1930s it was true that by age 65 many people could no longer function effectively at a job. Today very few jobs involve physical exertion. At a minimum this argues for a significant increase in the age at which benefits begin.
There are lots of problems with that solution. Right of the top… what about the people who DO work at jobs they can no longer keep up with? Also, many of the jobs that you might classify as ones that a person over 65 might be able to continue in, while not physically demanding, are high stress jobs. This kind of solution would most assuredly fail for many reasons.
Along with eliminating many of the bloated federal programs (some mentioned above), how about ending the full-salary pensions for the POTUS & members of Congress? I wonder how much $$ would be saved merely by doing the latter.
Not much money would be saved – but its a start!
First of all, I suggest the author stop referring to programs that some people have been forced to fund to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars as “entitlements”. I’m one of those people, and I consider it “my money”, as do millions of others.
Secondly, the reference to ponzi schemes is another red flag that the goal is for the author to get his hands on “my money”. Not good.
Now, for the solution. Interesting, and not all bad. There are some decent ideas there. But here is my suggestion for the author:
Since he wants to “cap” my family’s lifetime payments to “the amount deducted”, I think we should calculate the difference between the payouts that have been promised for 70+ years and that number. In my case, it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Include my spouse, and the number approaches a million dollars.
Then, THAT amount should be deducted from the author’s paycheck over a 10 of 20 year period. We could call it a “reverse entitlement”. That seems fair to me. The author and his redistribution scheme and my family would both have our lives equally destroyed.
But you would impose upon me a debt that I never had the opportunity to vote against. I have a better idea- let’s sell all that Federal land and use the proceeds to give everybody their money back, then shut down the program.
I wouldn’t impose anything on you. I was simply pointing out how ill-conceived the idea of imposing 20 cents on the dollar on seniors is.
The irony of it all is that of all of the programs, SS is by far the easiest to correct. We don’t have to sell diddly. The program simply needs to be adjusted so that people don’t get 20 years+ of payments on average, since the average lifespan has shot up over the decades. There is nothing unfair about that solution to anybody, and it’s simple to implement. The adjustment to the retirement age wouldn’t even need to be that radical, and the adjustments should be mandated going forward, based on the demographics of the country. It’s such a simple and logical solution that it makes me think the whole “problem” is more about envy than solvency.
What about the issue that many are pushed into early retirement? Many of them have trouble finding another job. I am afraid it all just isn’t that simple.
Well, I have sympathy for people in that situation. That’s one of the reasons the SS early retirement option exists.
But the basic point is that SS really is unsustainable if the country insists that the retirement age cannot change. And the other options, in my opinion, are worse than adjusting the retirement age.
In any event, SS is the minor problem. Medicare is the one that is on the brink of sinking the country. It has to be converted into a fixed payout system. It can’t survive much longer as a system with virtually no limits on the payouts.
If by “pushed into early retirement” you mean employers cutting off SS age employees because they can, first that is age discrimination and is actionable. Second, if you are over 62 or 65, you don’t have to apply for SS if you are still able to seek employment and draw unemployment insurance, if UI would provide a better benefit than SS. If you do get pushed out and just tuck tail and apply for SS, you’re doing the employer a favor by not sueing and drawing UI if it is a better benefit.
It is far more often the case that employers provide some sort of incentive for employees to resign rather than be laid off or dismissed, and the reason they do it is that the “resignation bonus” is cheaper for them than some other RIF program would be. Realistically, there are still quite a few jobs that one has a very limited ability to perform by the time one is 65, especially in the trades and construction or manufacturing. I don’t have a problem with raising the SS retirement age but I think there needs to be something like a disability exception for older workers in the remain jobs in the workforce that still require considerable physical ability. I worked constuction in my younger days; it was OK at 26 but I’d hate like Hell to know I had to do it now at 62. Fundamentally, if you’re in the trades or the heavier construction/manufacturing jobs, if you’re not a foreman or supervisor/manager by the time you’re 50 or so you’ve made some bad choices and are in for a hard slog to 65 especially if you live in a hard climate. That said, there are lots of employers that welcome older workers who actually understand the notion of following instructions and procedures and coming to work on time every day. You might not make what you were making in your heyday, but you can probably make more than SS.
I agree with you about the “entitlement” part when you speak of people who actually paid in and are drawing a benefit based, albeit roughly, on what they paid in. Unfortunately, the politicians have made all sorts of people eligible for SS and Medicare who’ve paid in little or nothing, and that is indeed an entitilement.
yes, the main thrust of SS reform, other than adjusting the age of retirement should be the disability part, which has basically become a scam. If 25% of SSI recipients are really disabled, I’d be surprised.
A significant part of Medicare is also largely a redistribution scheme from taxpayers to con artists, but even if all the fraud was eliminated, there would still be problems with a program that has essentially unlimitted payouts. It has to be converted to vouchers, or an equivalent payment-limitting methodology, for the country to survive.
In the original concept of America, you were exposed to both the fruits of your own labor and the consequences of your own mistakes. In the collectivist mode of operation, the government captures the fruits of your labor and you have to suffer the consequences of its schemes, and in the best case its mistakes, assuming they were honest mistakes.
The bigger the government, the closest we come to “perfect” collectivism. So we need to fight to shrink the beast while we still have a chance, and to extent we fail, inflation will eat whatever is left of our own wealth. This is because the ill inspired obligations will be met with freshly printed dollars when the dollars representing authentic value created earlier will prove insufficient in number.
Whatever demographic cohort you are in, it will be worse for our children that it already is for you, so let’s roll up our sleeves!
Rolling up the proverbial sleeves sounds good, but who is going to do it? The big 3 (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) are sacred cows that no one has the courage to touch. There is no turning back, I am afraid, without having another civil war. I just don’t see how else such drastic changes can ever take place.
“By some estimates, a typical 66-year-old couple today will get back double what they paid in.”
However, if that couple had invested that money and all the money paid in by their employer at AAA Bond interest rate over that period, they would have gotten back much more than just double what was paid in. Instead the corrupt government took that money and gave it away in social programs that were used to buy votes.
Hiding behind politics by placing party victory above national interests is what got us here. Continuing to lie to the public that socialism can somehow be “fixed” is the antithesis of what we need. This isn’t a football game.
If America isn’t grown up enough to accept the truth that becomes more painfully obvious everyday then let America continue to elect socialists, but let them ALL be democrats.
The ONLY hope for your nation is if politicians grow a set and start telling and acting on, the truth. Sooner or later, enough people will realize this truth and set things straight. “Winning” by lies just delays our recovery. The cold, hard truth is that socialism does not, and can never work. It is a poison in any amount and must be completely expelled if our nation is to survive.
And, as always, the responsibility for the problem with entitlements, the debt, the economy, etc, lies with the wicked and lazy sovereign of this nation, We the People. For decades we have allowed and encouraged our legislators to blatantly disregard the explicit text of our own foundational Law, the Constitution. At the Fed level, all so-called ‘entitlements’ are grossly unConstitutional. Anyone who claims differently is either ignorant of the actual text of the Constitution, or in denial concerning it.
But We the People don’t care. Not one in a 100 of the few who actually vote can tell you anything intelligent about it. It should be considered treasonable to vote w/o knowing, and insisting that legislators follow, the Constitution. But we don’t care. This does not end well.
The SS age already rises for future retirees. As a working 61 year old, I will be eligible for full SS retirement at age 66. This age requirement can be raised to add an additional six months or so for everyone to the formula without causing undue hardship. I am an old white lady so I know I am in the demographic that chiefly benefits from SS. My husband has had major health problems in the last few years and at 61 now, will likely not collect what he has paid in. But, who knows? It might be me that is short lived. That is why we have paid for disability insurance, life insurance, 401k and pension savings for years, and putting more of our modest income towards old age security. What bothers me is that we had hoped to leave our child and her family more than was left to us. The house we have paid for would be her legacy. No longer…
It will be impossible to reform entitlements without a Civil War? Hahaha…
People over the age of 50 fighting against people under the age of 50… We will slaughter you…
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it…
Who said anything about who would win? While you’re thinking about that, how about coming up with how these changes can take place without going into battle, (in between your paroxyms of laughter of course).
The entitlements will stay the same. Nothing will change. The status quo will continue. The people will vote out any politician who cuts Medicare and Social Security (and food stamps etc.). We have a deadlock of democracy. It is impossible to solve the problem at the ballot box/politically. What will happen is Helicopter Ben will run his printing presses in the middle of the night…and everyone will get “their” government checks — in worthless dollars. It will end with hyperinflation — a Wiemar Germany solution. The middle class will disappear, savings will be wiped out, the US Dollar will no longer be the world’s reserve currency, etc. But everyone will be happy — and get all of “their” government benefits. Don’t fool yourself. No one is going to solve the problem. Nature will run it’s course…
Old age, treachery, and wealth; at least two are assets and we old folks have a lot more of them than you young’uns. Most of you are still dumb enough to charge straight up hills and beat your chests and pound your weenie on the table; we hire people to do that stuff.
I wouldn’t bet on that in that I as well as most over 50 years old are possibly Vietnam Era Vets and can handle their own, there are some that have PTSD and you do not want to screw with one of them because anything could happen to you but not them.
No sonny don’t mess with those like myself that are legally armed and disciplined from military service to be able to handle anything you have to offer adverse to my or their well being!
Bring it on. You best understand that most of us over 50 are better armed than you and in many cases in as good of physical condition as some of you. Senior citizen’s who care about retaining the liberties given to us by our founding fathers may be silver haired, but understand we have nothng to lose as we are going to die in the nest 20 years or less anyway and we are ARMED AND DANGEROUS. Did I mention, mad as hell too!
As a freedom loving young man, I will fight along my senior fellows for the defense of our liberties.
Hah. I live surrounded by college aged students in the greatest concentration of colleges in the world, and tell you the truth, I have not ever felt intimidated by any those little weenies. At 53 and a Veteran, I should feel intimidated by a pack of self-gratifying, loud, arrogant, pampered little sots who’ve never been anywhere, and never done anything of significance?
Careful what YOU ask for. You WILL get it.
Refund EVERYONE back EVERYTHING they paid into this Socialist/Commie ponzie scheme and END the system. Period.
Create a minimal poor tax for the elderly who fall on hard times.
Why is that such an unfathomable idea?
Hell, we are already trillions in debt. Like the ‘FED’ can’t print up a few more worthless dollars to send to the people they screwed?
Entitlements need to be ended, the sooner the better. Thank you Mr. Ghate for an excellent article.
Dirty money and undeclared income is piling up in shoe boxes and underneath mattresses, it adds up to trillions. That money can be put into circulation to jump start the economy. A presidential decree to immediately change the color of money from green to blue would cause the money hoarders to open up their “Hidey Holes” and spend that dirty money before it is worthless.
Go ahead change the color of our money it is worthless paper already. All the rich would do is put their money into safe investments. The one thing the rich can do is pickup and move to a better location for their investment money, we the middle class can not do that. Just look at all the money and rich people that have left Ca. and New York!
This article would be entirely worthwhile even if the above were the only sentence in it. The refusal to disaggregate (Thomas Sowell) is what makes collectivist duplicity possible at all; the countermeasure should be obvious.
Concerning the ending of Social Security, I have my own ideas, but bravo, Amit! all the same.
entitlements? how dare you $%^&#@ lump honest Americans, who paid a lifetime of SS payments into a purposefully polititian broken system, in with this current corrupt crop of do nothing turds that are constantly whining for more, more, more.
blacks rioted, burned and scared the weak kneed polititians of the day, and they then listened to idiots who said it was all just government $$$, so they took the SS trust fund (people’s $$) and handed it out as ‘the great society’ funding to pacify the ancestors of the same scum still wanting constant handouts today. they put an i.o.u. in place of all those billion$. sound familiar? i believe they call it redistribution these days. i call it theft by taking.
afraid of rioting? yeah, right. chw. there is one more good thing we can do to help our children and put America back on track. its coming.
I was hoping to see two categories of proposals from Mr. Ghate
1) Short-term semi-realistically achievable policy changes, which is what Mr. Ghate did (although even here I feel as though there could be plenty more possible reforms, the ones he lists seem sparse)
2) Ideal-world policy structures that may be pie-in-the-sky with no hope of being realistically achievable sometime in the next 10 years, which Mr. Ghate didn’t seem to do (but if his proposals are in this category, our economy & political structures could be doomed).
Frankly, in my view on of the most interesting, revolutionary, achievable, and effective proposals would be to create public trust funds that give each citizens equal dividends each year – a bunch of funds (or one combined super fund) modeled after the Alaska Permanent Fund that collects oil revenues in an investment fund, sort of like pension funds do, gives some of the profits back to all Alaskans each year, and reinvests the rest of the profit, while not drawing down on principal. Basically, we need sovereign wealth funds like the ones that many oil-rich countries (e.g. the emirates of the UAE) have. While I do not believe we need to be combating global warming, so I’m not on board with some progressives’ Sky Trust proposal, I would like that concept applied to all the natural resources on public lands, and to see regular tax revenue invested.
This is just one proposal. Maybe it’s bad. But I’m sure there’re many, many, many more possible reforms than just those listed by Mr. Ghate.
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