Well, we all knew that Social Security had problems. A little history on how this all transpired:
As designed, it intentionally required a bunch of workers to pay a (premium) for Insurance(Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance-OASDI)for the elderly who were not able to work or find a job during the Great Depression.
It was not a retirement system as much as it was insurance in case you couldn’t work. The insurance companies didn’t want to mess with the little individual policies for your average Joe anymore, they wanted to concentrate on more well to do clients.
A Republican Insurance Guy helped develop the original proposal. The Democrats fought it, cause the Union didn’t like it. The Railroad had a similar plan that went through Congress, and wound up at the Supreme Court. Congress has no authority to levy premiums, but they can tax. A few changes, and wahla it is all constitutional.
Had this Insurance continued as a private plan, the Insurance Actuaries would have determined for the industry changes that needed to be made to be viable: such as retirement age, premium adjustments, etc and changes would have been implemented as it went along. Congress didn’t make all these adjustments.
Fast Forward to the Reagan Era. So Reagan and Tip O’neil agreed that in order to “fix” it, the baby boomers would have to continue supporting those who were currently receiving checks, but would also need to contribute more in order to support their own “retirement” which was to be delayed by a few years.
Baby boomers were okay with that, but a bit skeptical that they would ever see a penny of that money. The IRAs seemed like a good way to reduce your taxes and help save for a scenario where the Social Security system was insolvent. then along came the 401k and company matching.
I prefer managing my own IRA/401k plan rather than Social Security. The privitization of Social Security was discussed during the Clinton years, but never really took off.
Just think, if all that money could have been invested during the 1990’s, most people would be better off today.
Any way, the government is not getting my IRA or 401K. I’ll take it and invest it in land, ammo, or food etc. As inflation heats up, you can sell the extra items to buy what you need or to pay taxes.
“A few changes, and wahla it is all constitutional”
Yes, the infamous Helvering debacle, which in part you can thank for the Obamacare debacle.
History is instructive, but the most important thing to know is that whether or not it was true of the schemes which prompted SS, it is nit now nor for 75 or so years has it been “insurance.” It is pure redistributionary welfare. My point was simply that fedguv has already stolen responsibility for your retirement from you. That it lets you keep some money in a fancy legal thingamajig isn’t any more notable than that it lets you keep other money wherever you happen to keep it.
Like I said, if the mood strikes they’ll take it. Just like when the mood struck it took our gold. When you complain, in addition to it being for the starving children and so forth, they’ll pat your head, asking, “What are you sore about? We took over your retirement way back when, remember? There’s a good boy, now run along and play.”