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.
The lump sum option wasn't available to me when I retired. I suggest you take the money and run. :^)
Two problems with your scheme:
First, the government will continue to tax you heavily to pay Social Security benefits while you wait for enough of the baby boomers to leave the scene.
Second, there is no reason to believe that enough Gen-X/Gen-Y people will be willing to give up their Social Security benefits when their time comes. My guess is that most will demand to get their "entitlement" just as their elders have.
Your post proves his point.
We're going to. We will only be in our late 40's, though. I'm in college part time so I can start a second career. So far so good, 4.0 GPA!
I happen to agree with that sentiment. The difference is, I think that "the less well-off" (and others) should be in control of their money anyway, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Allow me to help. ALL of your money goes straight to fund the 2.6 Trillion gubmint budget.
The money is NOT used to buy TReasuries. They are special IOUs which are NOT marketable. For example, you could make yourself an IOU that says you are a worth a million, but the 'note' would be worthless, except by your income power.
In 2018 the government will lost this source of 300 - 400 billion in funds. Then real treasuries will have to issued or drastic cuts made. Interest rates will go up.
I think that's right. Given the problem is fewer workers and longer lives, they think privatizing is meant to pull their plug sooner rather than later. In short, in spite of promises, they don't believe George Bush.
I don't know why the Bush people should be surprised. AARP has been lying and lying and lying about anything to do with SS. They should have seen it coming.
"However, the true beneficiaries were the seniors that recieved benefits without paying into the system..."
Any person that receives a SS check is a beneficiary of a welfare system. Try to deny it with the above justification if it makes you feel any better. It is nothing more than income redistribution of earnings to buy votes. Why do you think the biggest welfare demographic in our country is also the most active politically?
Every generation is robbed from to pay the generation prior to them. It is nothing new now. The generation now that is blocking change at the expense of the later generations is doing nothing but saying, "hey we got robbed, so you should be robbed even more!" The fact that they will not be effected by the proposed changes and they still want to make sure we get robbed, speaks volumes.
The more welfare someone recieves, the more interest they have in ensuring their agenda is continually moving forward.
I was 46 when I retired. I thoroughly enjoy being gainfully "unemployed"!
I'm in college part time so I can start a second career. So far so good, 4.0 GPA!
That's great.
The GOP never learns. The RATS say something needs to be done, the GOP takes the bait, the RATS yank the football, and demogogue and on and on. Ever wonder why the RATS don't "take care" of the thing when they are the majority, (40 years or so)?
No kidding. Seniors have taken out so much more than they ever put in. Where is the thanks?
The older the polling sample, the less support you find for tinkering with Social Security. The younger the sample, the greater the support.
They have been exposed to liberal indoctrinaion longer.
It's the FDR / New Deal worship factor. In reality, when the Great Depression started, even Hoover did not have the stones to let all the bad debt work itself out and to resist the temptation of heavy government involvement in the crisis. FDR, seeing his opportunity, given all of the poorly financially educated minions who had leveraged themselves into the hole during the unreal days of horrible P/E ratios, knew that he could build on the already established interventionist tactics of Hoover and turn the whole thing into "economic rescue by government" on steroids. In fact, Hoover's small intervention made things worse, and FDR's major intervention made things FAR worse. But the people, now sensing something wholly new, namely, the US government interjecting itself right into the core of the economy, had their quick fix of entitlements and so was the "gimme" culture born.
FDR then went on to overspend socially and underspend militarily, setting the stage for the near defeat of the US and UK during the outset of the hottest (2nd) phase of WW2, and thereby manufactured yet another crisis which would call for even MORE government intervention. By the time the war was over, the "Greatest Generation" as well as the teenaged Silent Generation and the toddling earlist Boomers had been conditioned to accept socialism lite as well as the whole idea of a government "final safety net" to protect them from any future sudden major equity adjustments.
What a mess.
Indeed, I think there are weasel words to that effect. I remember reading that there was a current 28% shortfall on my statement.
Since we have already suffered two cuts from age increases, I say rebalance this 28% lower and spread among ALL generations.
If she thinks government should force people not to invest in the stock market, then she's not terribly Republican.
By the way, even someone who began investing for his retirement right before the 1929 crash and kept his money in would have made out better in the end, percentage-wise, than someone putting his money in Social Security throughout his working years, even in the healthiest economic times.
"So, she is not being greedy, she is just very wary."
So, she would prefer that the Government act as our parent/nanny. Does she understand that the investment portion is a CHOICE? She doesn't think I deserve to choose what to do with my own earnings?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.