Posted on 01/17/2008 6:14:34 PM PST by newbie2008
Social Security faces an enormous future deficit: Between today and 2075, the inflation-adjusted shortfall is projected to reach a staggering $20 trillion. Although the problem with the current system is due in part to changes in demographics, the root of the problem lies in the fact that the Social Security system itself is poorly designed. Workers, particularly those under age 50, are slated to receive very low benefits in return for a record amount of payroll taxes they send to the federal government. 1 These workers could enjoy substantially greater levels of retirement income if they were allowed to place the bulk of their payroll taxes in professionally managed individual retirement accounts, 2 which historically have had significantly higher rates of return.
Defenders of the current system generally admit that personal accounts would make workers better off, but they also argue that the "transition cost" of privatizing would be significant. More specifically, because a major share of the payroll taxes now used to pay benefits would be invested instead in private accounts, policymakers would need to find several trillion dollars to finance benefits for current retirees and those nearing retirement (and, therefore, too old to take advantage of private accounts).
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
Which I was forced to do, by the way.
Look at the bright side...yer young with plenty of time to build your own private retirement account.
it’s up to government to STOP SPENDING!
Republicans don’t, Democrats won’t. It’s up to citizens to vote in lower tax rates to protect us from excessive spending.
Pretty accurate summation, but it means that no one is gonna do anything until about 2025 when the shortfall begins hurting.
If we can maintain our growth of 2 to 3% GDP annually, the US can afford to make up the shortfall for a long time.
I’m not suggesting there is no problem with SS, just that there is no point in worrying about it now.
I believe you would enjoy this website, I check his figures regularly and he is usually spot on.
But I want the American people to support me. :-)
And I am building a private retirement account with a lot better return than I would've received from Social Security.
Yes. Just ask John Edwards. The solution is to make the "rich" pay more for OTHER people's retirements.
Sorry, but that is just not a good analysis. The reason for the government borrowing from the trust fund is to give the trust fund interest income, not to just steal it. It was designed that way.
Without this mechanism, the trust fund would lose value every year. In a way you are right though. It really just amounts to bookkeeping
Check out the link at post 44.
If the damn hippies and feminists baby boomers hadn’t murdered 1/3 of my Generation ( born in 1973) and those in the 80’s and 90’s we wouldn’t be having these problems.
Elect Ron Paul. He at least is the only candidate that wants to allow people to opt-out of the marxist social security system.
LOL..wow.
Hard for me to argue with that type of reasoning.
Bye the way, why is it not a good analysis? I think it's a perfect analysis.
The government has no real money and generates nothing other than what it confiscates from it's citizens.
You remind me of my Father, our latest correspondence;
> Dad,
> > My Charter Service is not working, please advance my inheritance so you
> > don’t have to retire to a nursing home. Son
> >
> > P.S. It is now working after a complete shut down of everything, I will
> > still need the inheritance.
> >
DEAR SON.
CHARTER HAS BEEN SLOW AT TIMES BUT IS NOW RUNNING OK.
I AM ALSO WAITING FOR MY INHERITANCE.
I WILL BE KICKING AND SCREAMING ALL THE WAY TO THE HOME.
THEN I WILL TRY TO ESCAPE. HAVE A NICE DAY.
YOUR FRUGAL “DAD”
That is mostly true except for tariffs, leases, and that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, we (our parents really) elected the dumbasses that came up with this, so now we're stuck with it.
He tried. But failed. And then turned around and gave away prescription drugs. It would have been a wash anyway.
As long as we’re butthead stupid enough to think the Republicans are any better or worse than the Democrats when it comes tp spending and entitlements, we’ll be good and truly screwed.
Just wait until the Federals make all distributions from private retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k), and so forth) subject to tax. After all, it's for the common good, right? /sarc
Congress does not spend the annual surplus in the trust fund. All FICA payroll deductions to Social security are transferred into the trust fund. The only payments made out of the trust fund are payments made to Social Security recipients (and I believe the administration costs). When an annual surplus occurs it appears as an accounting entry in the consolidated federal budget for that year. If the surplus were say $300B in a given year it has the effect of reducing or offsetting $300B in the federal deficit that year. While Congress may see that as a pile of available money in some sense, the funds never leave the trust fund. They are never “spent” for other purposes. They may mask additional deficit spending in the general revenue side of the budget, but they are not spent.
The SSA trust accounts should not be consolidated with the rest of the federal budget. It makes no sense that they are, but this is the federal government after all.
Three are a million things that are debatable about Social Security, this isn’t one of them.
“The trust fund is currently worth about 3 trillion...it is not going bust anytime soon.It is backed by government bonds”
Smoke and mirrors. Bonds issues by the U.S government are debts to that government, not assets. You can’t own your own IOUs.
“backed by government bonds that the US has never reneged on”
Well not yet...
http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1017237120080110?sp=true
no one is gonna do anything until about 2025 when the shortfall begins
Soon income tax rates will be raised to repay IOU’s. Though I do agree with the premise of paying it back over several thousand years.
Takin' my suckling course right now....Going on the teat around May 1, 2009...(if for no other reason, just to piss off the ear-ringed, nose-pierced Xers)
How much is owed to you for paying into a system which any accountant could tell you was unsound?
You may collect something. And I may collect something. But I would never fool myself into believing that I was truly entitled to anything.
It's all a con which has been perpetrated by liberals for a generation. It's coming time soon to pay the piper.
Unless it's a Roth or post tax dollars, they already are.
And even with post tax money, the gains are taxable.
Let's face it, they got us and the really sad thing is the young people of today are going to have a burden with SS that they cannot possibly afford. It will become a 2-1 ratio before long.
Once more I'll say that with the boomers, the Ponzi scheme has come home to roost.
Pretty soon they'll have a bounty on the scalp of anyone over age 62.
'43, I just made it too.
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