There is another choice. End it entirely through a phase-out that ask something of everyone and gives something back to everyone.
Old people in this country were lied to by the media and their government their entire lives. Everything concerning those programs that imprisoned them were a fraud dressed as icing on the cake by design. It is only now that many have awakened to the truth that our very own government is, has been, and will be our biggest obstacle to regaining the liberty and freedom we were given by our nations founding fathers. Unfortunately for many, their misplaced trust in what their government and media have preached to them over and over has been abused.
I am approaching retirement age. I want social security abolished entirely. It is nothing more than government ownership of the elderly. The way to do this is simple. It must be done over a long enough period of time to be enacted in such a way that everybody wins something and gives something up in return.
1. Everyone currently on social security who actually paid into the system remains on the system until they die. Their cost of living increases would be adjusted as to amount and how often they occur. This means that over a four year time span, those who should never have been on the system in the first place, the real freeloaders, can receive a twenty-five percent reduction in benefits per year until they no longer receive anything and are off of the system.
2. Offer a one-time buyout to anyone within ten years of retirement such that they would be removed from the plan entirely and would never receive benefits. Their paychecks also would now be totally untouched by social security taxation making them an experienced, dependable, less expensive group of employees for anyone who hires them. This step alone would remove a considerable amount of future expense from the program making it a bit easier to manage as it is eliminated over time. Anyone who decides not to take the buyout will have to live with whatever adjustment are made to the plan in order to manage its cost. Whatever you borrow to fund this "buyout" will be easier to pay off and far less over time than having to pay the benefits they replace.
3. Those in the ten to twenty year range can be offered a smaller buyout or be stuck with whatever they end up with as the plan changes to contain cost.
4. Anyone over twenty years from retirement would be ineligible to receive benefits but their paychecks would still incur social security taxes until such a time as those taxes are no longer needed to fund paying recipients. Their net pay would rise as the number of those receiving social security die off. In a forty year time span, the program can be totally gone. This means that in twenty years time, you can get rid of social security and allow those who won't get it enough time to start saving for a personal retirement plan that THEY own, not the government.
Once this has been done, the real problem (the government itself, not the "old" people) will have been dealt with and permanently removed from the scene of the crime.
“ineligible to receive benefits but their paychecks would still incur social security taxes”
Yet:
“Offer a one-time buyout to anyone within ten years of retirement.”
Your plan is the worst garbage ever. As you said:
” ask something of everyone and gives something back to everyone.”
What benefit do young people get from your ‘plan’? They get to shoulder all of the cost and receive none of the benefits. The only folks who receive anything at all are the folks who are 10 years from retirement. Not only do they get a sweet deal, they get to choose.
Young people need to be given the same deal.
They can choose to decline future benefits, and receive an immediate tax relief.
What that does mean is that the generation that spent everything that was supposed to be put away would have to deal with what they spent rather than robbing young folks.
If young folks wish to participate, great. But if we don’t, we should have the option of opting out.
“This means that in twenty years time, you can get rid of social security and allow those who won’t get it enough time to start saving for a personal retirement plan that THEY own, not the government.”
Your plan would do nothing of the sort. You’ve actually offered no ‘death date’, ie, workers born after X year no longer pay in. Until that happens, you’ve done nothing to actually reform social security.
I’d actually support your plan with one change. The young people over 18 today pay in, but the young people under 17 will never have to pay social security taxes. Ever. Break the chain.