Posted on 04/17/2011 11:14:20 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
WASHINGTON — Three senators, including Utah Republican Mike Lee, say they can fix Social Security without raising taxes — and keep the entitlement financially stable for future generations to come.
Lee unveiled the proposal Wednesday — the same day President Barack Obama revealed his deficit-reduction plan to Congress — along with Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
(snip)
The plan would not affect benefits of those people already retired and those people over the age of 56.
Their proposal would gradually raise the retirement age from 67 to 70 by 2032.
(snip)
The plan also calls for a reduction of benefits for wealthier Americans. They are proposing a "means test" for Social Security benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
I never trust Lindsey Soros Graham on anything....even with Rand Paul nearby.
Someone is going to get ripped off
Great idea. Means testing will kill SS faster than anything else. Means testing will demonstrate what a Ponzi scheme it really is. The sooner we privatize it, the better.
Were we "means tested" when we were forced to pay into this ponzi scheme?
No - I didn't think so.
Social Security is already “means tested” with a tax on the benefits.
Frankly, increasing the tax on SS benefits is the smartest way to “means test” that program, in the future.
Wealth and income fluctuate. Only by tying the benefit to the year it which it is earned can we ever really have a measurement tool that makes any sense.
I do not advocate raising the tax on benefits, but if reduction of benefits is the order of the day, better to do it through taxing some of it back, rather than simply reducing the amount on any SS check!
Silly, me, and here I’ve always wanted to eliminate this socialist’s dream.
The U.S. Senate and U.S. House need to participate in Social Security like the rest of us. Get rid of their cushy retirement system and replace it with the system that most other American are required to sing into for benefits.
Eliminate all SS payouts except for actual retirement payments...no more disability, survivor payments, etc.
RE: means testing
And what exactly does that mean? If my 401K and IRA balloons to several million dollars because of my prudent investments, I am now a man of “means” and have to give up what was confiscated from me BY FORCE during my working life?
Is that what they mean by “means testing”?
“Hey, you’re a man of means, WE DECIDE that you don’t need your social security any longer!”
Complete the dots on the SS problem. It used to take 8 workers to support the person on SS. It still takes 8 now 6 of them are in other countries. And they don’t pay in to SS nor does their employer. Bringing back the exported jobs would be the way to solve SS problems or slap a SS tax on all imports.
That would go a long way towards fixing Social Security. Not all the way, but a long way.
Since modern politics is all about “fairness,” how about this? My father worked tough industrial jobs, iron-walking skeletal, multi-story structures. My parents never had a new car until after he retired. They lived in the same poorly heated, un-insulated block house for 57 years. They scrimped and saved and are now living off around 1 million dollars. They’re 94 and are paying for their own care. If they hadn’t saved and sacrificed, they’d be on the public dole as none of us kids could afford to pay for the care they need now. They get a combined $14,000 from social security, which they paid into their entire working lives. That’s $14,000 for two people.
Now, let’s look at the grasshopper (from the story The Grasshopper and the Ant.) By grasshopper I mean people who buy cars they can’t afford and live large in luxury they can’t pay for. Then, those profligate ones retire and we means-test. The grasshoppers get paid more money for having lived large and saving nothing, whereas people who scrimped and saved and sacrificed now pay for having been frugal and careful.
Where’s the fairness there?
NO to effing “means-testing” - period! That just reduced SS to a complete welfare scheme. People should only collect based on what they paid in, as applied to an actuary table. No more, no less.
If Lindsay wants to means-test, he can do it with his own money, not the money that his government has STOLEN from me and my employers for 30+ years.
SS "benefits" aren't earned, they're simply a return of the money that was taken from the earner in the first place.
Now THAT makes sense. If people want disability insurance, they should buy it separetely and WITH THEIR OWN MONEY!
God I HATE Lindsey Graham. What a limp wristed liberal pansy this guy has turned out to be!
Oh, Really....they couldn’t find $$ in any of the FOLLOWING?
TARP: Out of the $750 billion TARP, our federal government spent $350 billion in taxpayer funds to save 35 foreign banks.
A few of Obama’s 2011 budget items… courtesy of American taxpayers,
* $63 billion – US Global Health Initiative.
* $54.1 billion – USAID to other countries for FY 2011 – President Obama already sent $173.5 billion for international/foreign assistance ($90.6 billion in 2010 – a 60% increase compared to FY2008; $82.9 billion in 2009 – a 47% increase compared toFY2008).
* $30 billion – of the $100 billion per year for UN Climate Change Policy; the UN admitted global warming is about wealth redistribution, not climate change policy.
* $8 billion – US pays to IMF for Greece Bailout.
* $2 billion – to Brazil for OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING!!!!
* $1.9 billion – International Agriculture Programs.
* $1 billion – to Mexico so that they can drill in the Gulf (while Obama caused 23,000 Americans to lose their job because of his ban on US drilling in the Gulf).
* $665.7 million – International Family Planning & Reproductive Health Programs.
* $147.3 million – US pays Brazil each year in cotton subsidies to keep its mouth shut.
* $5.96 million – U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation 2010 Awards
(i.e. mosque restoration overseas). NOTE: Section 205.1(d) of title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations prohibits USAID funds from being used for the rehabilitation of structures to the extent that those structures are used for “inherently religious activities.”
The above list alone represents $510.82 billion… over half a trillion dollars. Keep this in mind when President Obama and Congress tell us they’ll be able to cut $300 billion from Medicare – a program that all of us pay into and have paid into our entire working life – or when the President proposes a tax increase to take more of America’s wealth to “spread it around” to the UN/global elites in order to weaken America and ensure an economic collapse.
There is no seperate account.
Social Security is a “pay as you go” system.
Nothing is “reserved” anywhere. Every penny paid in is and has always been SPENT, immediately.
And, no matter what nicey-nice words you want to use, you do have do do certain things to receive benefits.
Staying alive, of course, is the most important requirement.
You DO have to EARN your benefits, by meeting requirements to receive those benefits.
The 70 somethings have probably already received FAR more than they ever paid in to the system.
The 50 somethings will NEVER get all of their money out of the system.
Ponzi Schemes always screw somebody, usually the last people to get into the Ponzi Scheme!
How about we DROP the corporate income tax?
That is part of what made those companies leave the United States, in the first place.
We have the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
It is not possible for government to do anything but SPEND the money we send to the government.
Any “bonds” or “trust funds” that the government “buys” in one program are simply an accounting gimmick to transfer Social Security funds to the General Fund.
Social Security was a scam to start with, made worse by the aging population.
Don’t get mad at people trying to fix the problem.
Get mad at the scam artists who promised what government could not ever deliver over time.
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