Posted on 08/13/2011 1:13:31 PM PDT by Publius804
Generation Xers and Gen-Yers like me have a hard time showing interest in what goes on in Washington. But we had better end our apathy -- and soon -- or we'll spend the rest of our lives paying for it. Members of the generation that came before us -- the Baby Boomers -- are trying to pull a scam under the guise of "protecting" Social Security. If they succeed, we -- and our children -- will be the poorer for it.
Everyone knows Social Security is in trouble (and President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security released its report on reform yesterday). But few people understand what that trouble is and whom it will affect. Understanding that is the key to understanding the scam.
Right now, Social Security is in great health. This year, like so many before, hundreds of billions of dollars will pour into it from FICA and payroll taxes, and only some will go back out as benefits to retirees. The rest will be exchanged for government bonds, which the federal government will pay back -- with interest -- to Social Security in the coming years.
But things will change in the next decade, when the Boomers will retire and start collecting benefits. By 2016, so many people will be drawing Social Security that the money needed to cover benefits will be more than what we Gen-X/Y workers will be paying in taxes. Fortunately, the program will be able to cash in the bonds that it's now buying, and will use the repaid principle and interest to keep up the benefits
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
Ping!!!!
Current headline:
Generation X punishes innocent Boomers by electing Obama.
I’m a Boomer and I don’t take any blame for the disaster confronting SS.
Exactly!
Ha! Almost all Gen-Xers or Y-ers I know are MORE Liberal than Baby Boomers. Someone brainwashed them but good.
Well, you lazy Xers and Yers have gotten plenty of warning. So get on the stick and start working a little harder and socking away more of your money for a rainy day.
Maybe by now they'll realize it can't be saved. Bernie Madoff went to jail for a lesser scam than Social Security.
Obama got 66% of the under 30 vote, so I guess that whatever he says, is OK with them.
So the Xers and Yers think Social Security is the great financial problem? Lol, better take a look at this computation of unfunded liabilities: Medicaid $35 trillion, Medicare $23 trillion and SS $8 trillion. What they really need to be worried about are the welfare programs that are just as much an unfunded mandate as any other program until those laws are changed.
More class warfare.
Get the generations fighting each other while the real criminals in Washington keep screwing us all.
Thank you!!!!
Social Security is a scheme and I cannot excuse that. But I will say, had the politicians not raided the Social Security funds for all these many years, the funds would last much longer than they shall. There never was a lock box. It was just a big pile of money and, like flies to feces, the politicians could not but help themselves to the feast.
Exactly. It is the politicians and crooks in our society who have been robbing us blind for example paying for all these things including illegals who are not entitled to our money. They also have private slush funds. This is BS.
Generation X = unemployed = no future for SS.
And the real criminals in the states and counties, taking all kinds of officious bribes (fees, etc. against any homeowner building something) and prohibiting any young men from doing real work (e.g., new, small, domestic manufacturing operations on large, rural lots. There “property values” argument is dead.
“But I will say, had the politicians not raided the Social Security funds”
Unfortunately, during the 90’s when clintoon “ended welfare” most of the change was in name only - and in where the actually money came from.
With all the numbers crap that comes out of Washington, one figure you will never hear:
How much (as a percent) of Social Security is paid to people that have paid into the system their whole life, and how much is paid to people that never paid ANYTHING into the system.
Ditto for Medicare
You’ll never hear it because it would likely cause the second American Revolution.
If if you had those percentages for today and say 1994, you’d quickly see how we “ended welfare” in 1996.
Their property values argument, even.
More Boomers cast ballots for him though. Funny that.
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