Posted on 03/07/2005 9:24:05 AM PST by Cagey
Then we just disagree on the definitions. I consider any forcible transfer payment to be welfare, regardless of the relative wealth of the victim and the recipient. Further I consider it more morally objectionable when the recipient is wealthier than the payer.
Everyone who works pays into social security, so it aint like we're trying to milk the govenment out of money that someone else put in.
You've paid a lot of payroll taxes, true. You've also paid a lot of income taxes, but would you argue that you're entitled to receive them back as well? It's not a retirement plan, it's just a tax.
Like Big Grey Tabby, i'm one of the ants.
As am I. But the injustice done to me in the form of taking 12% of my income and handing it to largely wealthy retirees doesn't justify me inflicting a similar injustice on future generations.
I have shared your view for years, that the retirement age for Social Security should NOT be raised, and for the reasons you cite: The worn out, abused bodies of hard working manual laborers simply can't last long enough to receive their Social Security benefits.
My Dad installed air conditioning units on roof tops, out in all weather, lost a hand when it got chopped off in a huge fan, but continued to work, and word hard, hook and all, until he was able to draw SS at age 65. He died 2 years later.
Lawyers, politicians, reporters, and other glib talking, fat assed buffoons with clean hands and manicured nails, who've never done a hard day's work in their lives, and who don't want to retire....ever, even when they become senile, (because they love the limelight)..raise retirement eligibility on these gasbags, but not on people who must work for a living.
I hope President Bush never supports raising the requirement age for receiving social security benefits. It's the only thing he could do that would disappoint me.
You're not forced to be an airline pilot or a river captain. Start looking for a different career at age 30 or 40 if you don't want to be forced out at 60. People change careers all the time.
Your solution to age discrimination is ??? Right - being a member of the younger generation you haven't encountered this problem yet. Don't worry - you will.
And your solution is to keep imposing higher and higher taxes on the younger crowd so you can have a 20 year retirement? The demographics can't sustain that. The economy can't sustain it. The age discrimination your friends are experiencing now is going to be nothing compared to what's going to happen if the current situation continues.
Well said. It will more than disappoint me in Pres. Bush and the Republicans....it will likely drive me to register as an Ind....I am so sick of them spending money like Democrats that this may be the final straw for me.
Marvin Zindler, of Houston, Texas, said it best, "It is hell to get old."
You are, of course, perfectly correct. But I don't think you're going to have too much luck convincing some people around here of that. They appear to have a view of Social Security that is a creation of their own imagination, rather than being predicated on what the law actually provides.
As concrete evidence of your statement that Social Security payroll taxes are simply that, a federal tax, I direct your attention to Title 26, Chapter 25 of the U.S. Code, entitled "General Provisions Relating to Employment Taxes," which provides that the "taxes imposed by this subtitle shall be collected by the Secretary [of the Treasury] and shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States as internal-revenue collections." 26 U.S.C. sec. 3501.
Put simply, the monies raised by Social Security payroll taxes go straight into the U.S. Treasury just like federal income tax payments. And it's always been that way. As enacted in 1935, section 807 of the Social Security Act provided that the "taxes imposed by this title shall be collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury and shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States as internal- revenue collections." The only thing that's changed is that this language was subsequently moved from the Social Security Act to the Internal Revenue Code.
Exactamundo.
I wish that Congress would reinstitute the IRA of 1981-1985 while they are twiddling their thumbs. Let everyone put in 5 or 10 thousand dollars after tax, and grow without being taxed. The socialists will never allow this thing Bush wants to happen. They will have to be dragged kicking and screaming because it means they are loosing more power. Give me MY money back to Me. Quiet stealing My money for your own selfish purposes of buying votes. Let Me leave, a little money to my kids, so they can have just a toe-hold on life. Congress, get your filthy hands off of the working Americans money.
"transfer program" = "welfare"
Two different sets of words for exactly the same thing. I'm not turning anything into anything...I'm just describing current reality.
Put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig...even if you want to call it Mariyln Monroe...
Wow. If only some here could get your posts through their thick SS-propagandized heads, maybe we could be at the beginning stage of being able to have a sensible discussion about this issue...
Because confiscating wages from poor workers and handing them to wealthy retirees is fundamentally wrong. Although if you don't agree with that, nothing I can say will convince you.
Do you really think there's enough Bill-Gates-type rich people that you can screw out of the system to balance the books?
Considering that senior citizens as a group are the wealthiest Americans, I'm going to say yes. And to clarify: I don't advocate immediately eliminating all benefits for those over a certain level. There should be a sliding scale of benefit reductions, and it should be phased in over many years.
That justifies nothing and I take strong issue with the premise anyway.
So you acknowledge that there is no trust fund, that all SS benefits are paid by current tax receipts, and still have no problem with minimum wage workers buying yachts for Warren Buffett? Look, there's no question that we got screwed, but that doesn't make it right for us to screw future generations.
Indeed. FDR was a political genius.
Nope - my solution is to do away with SS.
I'd give up 25 years of contributions if I could just keep the 12.4% I'm currently paying for the next 17 years. I'd come out ahead of anything SS would ever pay me.
You wouldn't pay for my retirement, I would. Easy.
And no one is forced into any type of employment - but you don't get a traditional pension if you don't put in a bunch of years, thereby negating the ability to switch jobs at age 30 or 40.
You say that is "morally objectionable" for wealthier people to get money, however inderectly, from those who are poorer. And you further state that you are one of the "ants." By that I assume you are well off.
Please feel free to assuage your guilt by writing a check payable to the U. S. Treasury at your earliest convenience. I assure you they'll cash it. Every time.
But don't assume all the rest of us ants feel the same guilt you do for being thrifty and wise investors during our working years.
Furthermore, FICA is not "just another tax." The entire concept from day one to this day is that those who worked and paid in would receive a benefit when they retired.
Yes. And in the case of the bill of goods called Social Security, his brilliance was of the same type as Bill Clinton's 'political genius'...
....but not necessarily robust enought to keep working....
This is true and always has been.
The point is that with the increase in livlihood there has been a corresponding lengthening of the ablebodied years. On average, people are in much better condition at 65 now than previously. The same is true for 70 and perhaps 75. It is the range beyond 65.833, the current benefits age up to some undetrmined age say 70 or 72 that is in question. The argument will come about when. That is why the indexing to average age is of interest.
Based on me, I suspect there will be many boomers who are revolted at the thought of retirement at 65 and will like me opt for some second career after formal retirement from their first career.
I mentioned 65.833. That is a precedent and the guide for future congressional actions. Several on this thread have mentioned 65 but that is a thing of the past. The fix has been in for some time now.
It is, and your whole argument is based on one thing and one thing only: The promises of a generation of politicians, first and foremost Democrat politicians.
Talk about a foundation laid on shifting sand...
Why not have Congress pass a law requiring that moneys collected for social security be held in a productive account (S & P 500). If they spend it the loss would be offset first by the government confiscating their personal fortune, and that of their posterity....say 3 generations forward. My desire is not to confiscate a relatively small amount of wealth, but to embue the individual Congressmen and Senators with a sense of personal loss rather than to have an abstraction of numbers that they deal with. Make them and their heirs personally responsible for their acts. But, alas, it will never, ever happen. Wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fill up the fastest.
I agree with ya there.
And no one is forced into any type of employment - but you don't get a traditional pension if you don't put in a bunch of years, thereby negating the ability to switch jobs at age 30 or 40.
Very few jobs are paying pensions these days and as for those that are, very few people stick around at one place for 20 years. Actually, if you've been at one place for over 10 years, interviewers look at you funny.
Hey, i'm just telling you what we were told all these working years. "You pay in money while you're working, you get a check when you retire."
Now colectively my wife and I have paid nearly 200K into FICA from day one. Just because we were thrifty doesn't mean we're gonna roll over and play dead while the redistribuitonists tell us what is "morally right."
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