Ryan can drop dead.
Welfare, food stamps, WIC, ‘free” school breakfasts and lunches, Section 8 housing, Obamaphones, Medicaid, SSDI “crazy checks”, government services for illegal aliens, etc., etc., on infinitum. ...AFTER you cut off the Democrat party’s base of moochers, bums, deadbeats, and parasites, THEN talk to me about trimming back benefits for seniors who dumped their hard-earned money down the government toilet their entire working lives.
Until then, STFU.
Aside from ending SS, I prefer floating the retirement age annually to maintenance annual break-even solvency.
(And to those who want their money back: sorry, it’s already stolen. The question is whether you’ll be getting benefits that those whose earnings are funding have no hope of themselves getting.)
Eggzackly. GOPe at work here...screwing the people the Dems are afraid to.
Well, all of us conservatives have been pushing for entitlement cutbacks. This is just the beginning of what has to take place or we are going to destroy the country.
But, before you flame me, means testing simply means that if a person has a hoog of money available (pensions, savings, stocks, etc.) and they have a substantial income flow (perhaps $ 500,000 per year?), then they have little need for another $ 30K of SS. A fellow I know made $ 2MM per year (80 years old) and collected $ 50K more per year in SS and used it for greens fees. I have heartburn with that. It was Social "Security", not another retirement plan, folks.
Im on SS..didnt ever plan on taking it early but had no choice. But lets be honest...the system stinks! Id suggest folks look at Chile and Colombia for inspiration.
Chile started int the 80s and Colombia started in the 90s.
Could be a death wish by Mr. Ryan!
Funny- I ran into him (Ryan) at a gun show last weekend. Him and Cuccinelli.
That is horse&%it.
People paid into this system for years and have come to rely on it. You can means test a future generation who did not pay in, but you need to give them a date in the future when this would begin. To do this to people who have already paid into the system would be grossly unfair.
sorry my friend, but SS is a soviet-style welfare program instituted by the arch-socialist, FDR. it needs to be abolished if were are to preserve our liberty in this great republic
it is no accident that these relics of the “great society” such as SS, medicare (LBJ) and obamacare have been foisted on us by the crypo-communists in the demoRAT party
DIL HAD A MASCETOMY 2 WEEKS AGO, SHE WILL BE OFF WORK A YEAR UNTIL THE CHEMO AND ANOTHER 6 WEEK DRUG PROGRAM IS COMPLETED. HER ONCOLOGIST TOLD HER TO APPLY FOR TEMP SS DISABILITY AS SHE IS A CNA AT A NURSING HOME AND CANNOT BE AROUND ALL THOSE SICK PEOPLE UNTIL SHE IS DONE WITH THE CHEMO!! THEN IT IS DOUBT FULL SHE CAN PERFORM THE JOB AFTER THAT TIME PERIOD BECAUSE SHE WON’T BE ABLE TO LIFT. SHE IS JUST 47, A PATIENT KICKED HER IN THE BREAST, AND EXPLODED THE WALNUT SIZE TUMOR. WHAT IS SHE AND MY GRANDSON GOING TO DO FOR FOOD, SHELTER, ETC. She has a lousy $500 40lK they want her to cash in and they want her to sell her car. HOW IS SHE SUPPOSED TO GET TO HER CHEMO TREATMENTS WITH OUT A CAR? LIQUID ASSESTS.
It’s already means tested in that those who earn less get a disproportionately high benefit. If you earn the cap every year and therefore pay the absolute maximum in taxes you will get a certain payment. If you earn and pay half that amount you will get 75% of the benefits, or 1.5 times the proportionate amount. Who would invest in a retirement account where you put twice as much in but only got 33% more out?
THERE ARE ONLY IOU’S LEFT IN THE COOKIE JAR, CONGRESS ‘BORROWED IT AND REFUSES TO REPAY IT!
I am not happy with this. I’ve been getting up and dragging my butt to work every day for the last 42 years. It’s come to the point where idiots like me are working so the other half of the country doesn’t have to. I’m planning to pack it in while the gettin’ is good. Not doing it any more.
Means test = soak the rich. Applying means tests to S.S. is a very short term fix (plus a sop to the jealous poor) as there simply are not enough “rich” to soak.
S.S. is so broke, has so over promised benefits that the only real fix is to cut all benefits by one-half now and to tell younger wage earners/S.S. taxpayers that they should start individual IRAs or 401Ks as S.S. won’t be there for them.
ObamaCare may have to rachet up the death panel quotas as well to cut down on the benefit drawer numbers.
I think we need to rename SS “Socialist Slavery”, and then our brethren will more accurately understand its nature.
Plenty here believe benefits are sacrosanct in a world where we’re already broke.
Social Security is already means tested, in that the percentage of it subject to tax increases with income.
Paul Ryan is a phoney. He caught the DC disease pretty quick.
Means testing, in my opinion, is socialist and very un-American.
Let me get this correct:
1) I start working in my 20’s
2) The feds put a gun to my head and forcibly take 6.2% of everything I make up to $113,770 for 2013 and my employer has to match it (or I pay the other half if self-employed)
3) I live a good life, work hard, grow my income, save and invest, buy a house, etc. and achieve the American “dream”
4) OOPS, how dare I retire and expect the money FORCED from me and PROMISED to me I can’t have because of #3?
Wow, yet another lie told to me by the government, imposed by Democrats over decades (and the program ruined by same) only to have a so-called Republican “conservative” tinker around the edges.
Sickening. Why can’t these cowards just admit it’s a STUPID ponzi scheme and start weening folks off of it. Instead of means testing use arbitration...the trust fund is dead anyway so pay them off now. I’ll take 20% of everything I’ve put in so far if I 1) don’t have to pay into it any longer and 2) won’t ask for benefits later.
Only way to cure this foul stench of entitlements is to disallow from voting anybody who is on welfare, period.
They need to “means test” welfare for “ability to work.”
Looking at a 401K calculator, somebody starting out at $40K at 21, and saving 10% of gross (the combine SS for employee and employer is 12.4%), and seeing a rate of return of just 5% and no salary increases, at the age of 65 would have $629,375 in his account.
The money taken out by SS, if it had been invested in a retirement account, would have earned a FAR higher rate of return.