Posted on 03/09/2011 5:53:51 AM PST by reaganaut1
America's fiscal need for entitlement reform is pushing the discussion about Social Security inexorably toward "means testing," a policy both the left and the right have long avoided. Both sides realize that means testing, namely reducing or eliminating payments from the program to higher income senior citizens, would recast Social Security from its current perception by citizens as a retirement program to one of outright redistribution or welfare.
Many Americans see Social Security as a savings plan, albeit a coerced one, and a recent poll by the AARP (which certainly knows how to write poll questions geared to suggest as much approval for the program as possible) shows wide support for Social Security with equally wide skepticism about the program's future.
The fact that it's seen as a savings plan, that it has been seen as such for at least a generation despite two Supreme Court rulings that Social Security payroll taxes are not savings, not investment, not insurance, indeed not anything other than another tax levied by government, suggests that means testing in any substantial way will require jumping a substantial political hurdle.
The hurdle has been lowered by the fiscal debacle created under this president and the last one, leaving a substantial subset of both parties ready to attempt to clear it. This despite the political risk implied by AARP's poll question asking whether respondents agree with the statement that "Everyone who pays into Social Security should receive it, no matter what other income they have." According to AARP's results, 83% of Americans agree and "belief in this idea is high regardless of income, age, or gender."
America has dipped its toe into de facto means testing by making Social Security benefits partially taxable, beginning with the 1983 Social Security Amendments
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
We are stuck supporting current retirees and those who are say 40 years old and older but anyone younger needs to be freed from the SS slavery and start saving for their own retirement.
“Many Americans see Social Security as a savings plan, albeit a coerced one....”
well, D’UH
Welfare programs ought to be means tested, and SS, Medicare, and Medicare are just welfare. The article makes that plain. The only issue is “perception”. The reality is that it is welfare.
Whatever happened to “We are all equal before the Law.”?...............
I guess some pigs are more equal than others..........
The Obama Phone -
NO JOKE
This is unbelievable !!
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, our illustrious Congress quietly comes up with a new zinger to put their hands in your pockets, and pick them while you aren’t watching. Isn’t this just wonderful ?
I was standing in line at the checkout counter at Wal Mart and as I looked at the line behind me, I saw a couple of people talking about what looked like identical new cell phones, bragging about the fact that their phones were free and so was the airtime.
The woman in line behind me had heard the same exchange and turned to the young man behind her and asked, ‘Is that a new type of cell phone?’ The young man replied, ‘Yes, this is my new Obama phone. She asked him what an Obama phone was, and he went on to say that, ‘Welfare recipients are now eligible to receive what he described as (1) a FREE new cell phone, and (2) approximately 70 FREE minutes of air time every month.’
Needless to say, I was a little skeptical about his answer, so when I got back home, I Googled it, and lo and behold, he was telling the truth. This was what I discovered:
SafeLink Wireless is a government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers. In other words, your tax dollars are being distributed to a wireless phone provider to provide welfare recipients with free cell phones and airtime. I don’t know about you, but as for me, enough is enough. We are $14 Trillion in debt, Congress is balking at continuing unemployment payments to those who want to work, and Congress is increasing the dole-out to dead beats.
The ship of State is sinking, and it’s sinking fast. The old concept of getting ahead through hard work has flown out the window. It has been replaced by Obama’s and Congress’ idea of Hope and Change. The country has changed all right, changed to “Why should I work for it, when I can get it for free?”
You can click on the link below to confirm for yourself that the Obama Phone is real.
Just have a barf bag ready.
https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/Home.aspx
For SS,I would settle for a plan that allows one to get back what they paid in, then switches to a means test.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. It isn't a savings plan. Its a Ponzi scheme. Any taxes paid for Social Security went to pay general expenditures and were not put into some savings account like way too many people believe it was. The people who were in at the beginning got a windfall but they are dead and we can't get the money back from them. We are left holding the bag. A lot of people are very angry about that but it doesn't change the facts--you don't have a Social Security "savings account" that you paid into.
Quite frankly, Social Security should be means tested. It should be a welfare program. This country should not have middle class welfare. That is what is destroying us. If we want to give some money to poor old people so they don't starve--the original purpose of Social Security--fine. But it should not be a middle class entitlement.
I'd support means testing as a way of phasing out these programs. But they should be ended over time. Those of us in Generation X in beyond cannot save for our own retirements (hah) because we're being taxed to the hilt to pay for the entitlements of everyone else... and we won't even be getting any of these benefits for ourselves.
Actually, Milton Friedman was against even means-testing poverty programs. It’s the means-testing that produces perverse incentives and make poverty programs function as the subsidization of poverty (and you always get more of what you subsidize). If a society decides that it want to succor the poor with tax revenues, it turns out to be far better to give everyone a subsistence payment (maybe in part in constrained forms like Food Stamps), treat the subsistence payment as taxable income, and slightly increase tax rates so that the whole plan costs less on net than whatever means-tested poverty programs the society thought it wanted.
The perverse incentives to not earn lest one lose benefits are gone, as is the need for poverty bureaucracies to vet people for benefits.
Unfortunately, that’s like saying I would settle for a plan that taxes someone else so I can get my income taxes back. SS is just a tax. I think that the 50 plus folks will be left standing when the music stops in the evil game of musical chairs called SS.
I believe in means testing. I you didn’t pay in it means you get no money..
Means-testing makes perfect sense. SS is not a pension plan—it’s a safety net.
One thing we could do is try to eliminate the separate withholding. Just roll it into the income tax. The idea that the money is set aside is a lie. It’s just taxation. Get rid of the separate nature of it, and it’ll be easier to shrink the program out of existence.
It bothers me when those analogies are made and there is no mention of the fact that both programs require the recipient to pay into them. SS is paid for during years of active employment. Medicare is paid for during both active employment and during retirement (premiums are withheld from SS checks).
"Welfare programs" (Welfare, food stamps, Medicaid) do not receive a penny from the recipients.
“Welfare programs ought to be means tested, and SS, Medicare, and Medicare are just welfare.”
Somewhat true but grossly misleading. Since the 1996 “welfare reform” SS and Medicare have become loaded with expenses that are actually just hidden welfare costs. A distinction between the money paid out by SS and Medicare to people that have paid into the system, and the money paid out by SS and Medicare to people that have never put a dime into the system, would bring things into focus.
But don’t hold your breath to ever see those numbers!
Let’s just call it what it is, Welfare. I don’t know any retirement plan where higher premiums don’t get you higher benefits. I have yet to find a a retirement plan that pays a pension to someone who hasn’t contributed a dime. I had my forty quarters in at age 32. I was free from the bondage of FICA for two years. Then they needed more money and I was back in. I’ve now worked another 29 years for somebody else; thank you Ronald Reagan.
It is not an analogy. SS is just an income transfer from one group of people to another - just like food stamps, etc. We “paid into” NOTHING. There is no real trust fund, just IOUs th egovernment has written to itself promising to tax the life out of the next generation of victims. This evil ponzi scheme based on intergenerational theft needs to be terminated.
Ping
Grossly misleading? The distinction is no different than saying that some people who get food stamps have paid taxes in the past, while others get food stamps without having paid taxes (or as much in taxes). It is all just an income transfer. The whole system is intergenerational theft.
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