Posted on 05/25/2005 8:42:08 AM PDT by qam1
The debate over whether to reform Social Security is full of idiosyncrasies.
Here's a big one: No matter what fix we're talking about - partial privatization, raising the retirement age, means testing so millionaires forfeit benefits, tying benefits to inflation rather than wages, etc. - the most ferocious opposition comes from the demographic that won't be affected either way by any proposal being discussed at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue: Americans already 55 and over.
If you can imagine that, you're already two steps ahead of the Bush administration. White House officials seem baffled that their biggest fight has turned out to be with a group with whom the administration went out of the way to avoid picking a fight. The polls on this issue back that up. Most show the same trend: The older the polling sample, the less support you find for tinkering with Social Security. The younger the sample, the greater the support.
The more the administration tries to reassure seniors that they'll squeak by before any rule change takes effect, and so this debate doesn't concern them, the more concerned seniors get. Here's what the White House missed: This isn't just about self-interest. It's also about sentimentality. No other generation is as passionate - and therefore as protective - about Social Security as the World War II generation, those Americans now in their 70s and 80s. For that demographic, this debate is about preserving a program that served their generation well and which they hope will be around several decades from now to serve their grandchildren.
That's interesting. If they really wanted to protect their grandchildren, they'd do everything they could to ensure some generational fair play. Unless something is done, the current system will - 10 or 20 years from now - soak taxpayers with tax rates that experts say could easily top 50 percent when you combine income taxes with the payroll taxes necessary to fund Social Security and Medicare.
But there's no reasoning with the elderly on this issue. I know. I tried.
Recently, I agreed to sit on a panel here in Coronado and discuss Social Security reform. Home to a lot of retired naval officers, the well-to-do community has a reputation for being conservative. But you wouldn't know it from the way the audience - made up almost exclusively of senior citizens - seized every opportunity to tear into President Bush and his proposal to allow young people to invest part of the money they contribute to the current system into private accounts.
The way these seniors see it, this isn't about demographics and the undeniable fact that, with every year that goes by, we have fewer workers supporting more retirees. This isn't about the fact that Americans are living longer, and so it only makes sense to push back the retirement age.
For this crowd, the whole issue of reforming Social Security comes down to trusting George Bush. For those who don't, it's tempting to buy the argument that the administration is manufacturing a crisis to gin up public support for a scheme that will make a fortune for ''Bush's friends on Wall Street.''
Judging from their questions and comments, that's what many in the Coronado audience believed. And they couldn't get past it. They insisted on making the issue political, when it's really generational.
That disappointed me. So did the fact that these seniors had convinced themselves that there was no ''crisis'' in Social Security because the best estimates are that benefits will continue to be paid out for the foreseeable future. They didn't seem to care a whit about the financial strain that future taxpayers will be put under to make that happen. This is the real crisis.
You know what else was disappointing? That many of the seniors were so openly contemptuous of the idea of letting poor and working people invest their own money in private retirement accounts. To listen to these seniors, the less well-off aren't smart enough to know what to invest where, and so need the government to provide them with a guaranteed benefit.
Putting aside the rank condescension, such comments were horribly naive. Given the demographic changes ahead - beginning with the retirement of 70 million baby boomers - don't expect the Social Security system to give out any guarantees or to honor them if it does.
That's something that older generations need to understand - and which younger generations figured out a long time ago.
Are you being sarcastic? If so, I apologize in advance.
What gives you the right to take your living from me by force, using the government as your agent of confiscation? No one bothers to ask whether the young can afford it. It is just taken.
Clinton did not propose private accounts. It was more like a Defined benefit fund, which you owned but the government invests, like calpers.
This would have led to big wall street profits (which is why the dems were so cynical with REAL private accounts) and bogus activism in investing like calpers. yuk
Lets just cut ss and raise the limits to 401k and IRA to 50k - and you can have one or the other...
you are correct- the market will bunp up. The new supply of capital will also help productivity and GDP growth like it did in chile...
Everyone needs your attitude and a plan like the post office plan.
Alas, I don't have the same confidence you do that government will be willing to relinquish its power like that. If in fact the eventual goal is to let people completely handle their own money, then there's no reason why it can't be made the immediate goal instead.
We seem not to be able to cut off someone who has made foolish choices all his life.
I think "we" are quite capable of doing it. It's the politicians, abetted by the media, who don't want to let go. But ultimately, if there must be some mandatory savings program, the states are quite capable of handling that themselves. It's neither necessary nor appropriate for the federal government to be running it.
We agree in spirit, but we're far apart on details. I question if 40 is too low, and you're convinced that 50 is 50 is too low. I'm positive 50 is too late to start planning an alternate form of retirement. Even 40, for many represents more than 20 years of paying in to the syste, and IMHO, may be too late to change ships for many people that age.
No, I'm not being sarcastic at all. Personally, I find it rather disengenous to see many posters here tout the pro-family line in one thread, and then want to throw Grandma to the wolves in the next. I don't think some of you have a clue what pro-family means.
I can answer that. The reason it can't be left totally to the individual, and the reason the Bush plan doesn't leave it totally up to the individual is because a healthy, compassionate society cannot simply sit idly by an watch those who've made poor choices suffer. Americans are (thank God) a compassionate people. We're simply unable to step over the bodies of the homeless en masse who've made poor choices.
Fine. So turn SS into a real welfare system that keeps old people from starving, and let the rest of us out of the Ponzi scheme aspect.
I dont think grandma is going to get thrown in the street. The cuts could come from means testing as this is the most wealthy demographic segment of the population.
The is also reverse mortgages on the family house or grandma could move in and pay rent.
Lots of possibilities. But understand that gen xyz has thier taxes doubled, will pay more taxes, had thier benefits cut twice and will face more draconian cuts.
And after all this, the seniors are so greedy they wont even gen xyz start thier own private accounts- even if there are no cuts in the current program.
Right. Reform now will reduce the likelyhood of eurostyle death spiral.
Key reason: they are the FDR generation. These clueless twinks actually believe FDR helped the people during the Depression, rather than prolonging it. I'm pretty sure it has been proven that FDR's policies made the Depression longer than it would have been.
Swiss bank accounts or other protected havens, such as Caribbean island accounts, should help here.
Welfare is a dirty word with people of the greatest generation. If it is means tested or changed in any way, it will change the dynamics and they will be forced into accepting "welfare." It would completely crush the image of themselves as self sufficient.
I don't believe it's about fear, or trusting the government, or the depression. I think that they just can't bear to think of themselves as taking a handout from the government. From their perspective it was structured to be a government induced savings plan or they couldn't live with themselves. That perception must be dealt with before any of the rest can go forward.
What else are old people (as a group) good for? Individually, they are wonderful storytellers, grandparents and Wal-Mart door greeters.
But honestly, if they aren't working, they aren't producing, they've become pure leeches. Leeches are perfect lil Socialist Slaves.
Shoot...I can. Especially if we can unravel the tapestry of that person's life and find out how wasteful that person most likely was with his/her monies.
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