Posted on 08/29/2011 12:04:46 PM PDT by tobyhill
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry continued his attack on Social Security over the weekend, calling it a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie" to younger Americans who should not expect to get back their contributions upon retirement.
"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie," Perry said, according to the Houston Chronicle.
"It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them," Perry told a crowd a The Vine Coffeehouse in Ottumwa, Iowa.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Looks to me like every one of us is going to have to take a whipping over it while we phase it out, reduce contributions dramatically from youngest to oldest, and cut off those that don’t “exist” on it. That allows youngest payers to save for their own retirements in time, while those in their 30s-40s — the ones who are REALLY going to be screwed — still get a tiny portion of what they put in, while having a tiny bit more during remaining working years to contribute to their own funds. Ponzi schemes run by governments never do any of those things you say. They just get refunded and refunded. It will never collapse. We’ve got to phase it out.
I guess now we have the “concern trolls” on Perry threads.
Its risky, and hurt Paul Ryan nationallyI agree with you, and that's what worries me. But I also agree with your other points, and the points others here have made.
He can turn it around - stating that more people working puts more cash into SS and Medicare.
Social security's failure has little to do with overseas jobs. It eventually fails as designed. Like any ponzi scheme, the first in get a great deal, and the last in get nothing. It started as a 1% contribution, now 15% of every dollar earned in this country is confiscated as payroll tax...mostly for social security. This was the eventuality of the situation even if jobs go overseas. In fact, the existence of this tax on employers and employees is in fact contributing to jobs going overseas. The cost of employing people is simply too high, and it is easier and easier to justify the export of jobs.
You've identified a real issue in oversees jobs, for certain, ex-snook, but I think we need to be clear as a nation what is a problem and what is a symptom. Jobs going oversees is largely a symptom of problems we have here in our own system.
I don’t know. It jarred me, too, there for a minute, and I claim dibs as his biggest fan.
I guarantee that if I was able to put my money where ever I want then I would earn at least 10 times what they “earned”.
“Even though unemployment is high, it ain’t THAT high. “
We can't do that to the younger generation?
Does anyone in that crowd have a brain?
What do they think this government did to their economy, when government bailed out big biz and Wall Street the tune of MULTIPLE TRILLIONS?
How is it possible Social Security is now broke, but corrupt bloated government continues to subsidies tens of millions of illegal aliens on the backs of the tax payers??
How is all this possible when the government announces their too broke to pay the tax payers for what they seized from their pay checks during the course of their work histories??
Government forces the U.S. tax payers to subsidize half of Mexico, bails out big biz and wall street, then tells the Americans, tough luck, there is nothing left for you?
These people are beyond belief.
Is everyone asleep??
bump.
Screw our grandkids, let’s Party!!!!
Problem with that is that seniors are very high propensity voters. Youth vote sporadically-—which is a probably a good thing given how they voted in 2008!
I see exactly what Perry is doing.Me too. Picking up Ron Paul's smart positions without the liability of being Ron Paul.
OH gee...I forgot to look at who the source was on this article...the hatch group of SEE BS...you know they’ll pick a hot button issue...to skeeeeer people...and if it is possible just make up stuff...
I have not run the numbers myself yet. I would assume your 25% number would be very solid at a minimum.
They single out SS because it is a big target.
Look everyone! The crooks in Congress for decades have spent the SS trust fund, in the beginning, then they have spent the surpluses to the tune of 2.5 trillion dollars.
Now that the system is supposedly broke, they are blaming all of the contributors, us, for getting old and draining the system.
Both my wife and I have written to our Reps. and Senators backing them against the wall. And, they have admitted to the above truth.
As far as we are concerned, the 2.5 trillion can be paid back into the system and then we can talk about other solutions.
Period!
Social Security is, like all other “pay as you go” social welfare entitlement schemes (not just in the US, but in other places like Germany, Japan, etc) dependent upon one assumption: That the number of people in the population contributing to the pay-as-you-go plans remain constant or continue going up.
We have a huge “pig in the python” effect with the boomers and a shrinking age cohort paying into SS/Medicare behind them. This is true in other industrialized countries after WWII, not just the US.
These other countries have had to cut benefits - and with some grumbling, they’ve been able to do it, because they’ve never sold their pay-go social insurance schemes as “it is your money we’re keeping safe for YOUR retirement.” Social Security stands alone in that aspect - the amount of idiotic propaganda foisted upon the population that there is a “trust fund,” or “your account” and so on is epic and is leading to policy paralysis.
The SCOTUS case of Flemming v. Nestor (1960) has already decided this issue: Social Security is a social insurance policy against poverty in old age, it is not a retirement plan, it has no defined benefit, there is no ‘entitlement’ etc. The GOP needs to start slamming this point home more than any other - ie, that the LAW OF THE LAND is that there is no ‘defined benefit’ for retirees, the “Supreme Court has already said so.”
LOL
That in itself is pretty smart.
Yeah, what have our grandkids ever done for us, anyway?
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