I would support pretty much everything in Christie’s Social Security plan and I’m of an age and in an income bracket where it would hit me fairly hard. I’d also support a fairly radical overhaul of Medicare. The money I’ve been paying in Social Security over the past 30 years is gone. Its not in some account. No one can give it back to me. the people who spent it — our parents, grandparents and great grand parents’ generations — are dead. Combine this with fairly large cuts in Welfare and other social welfare programs and we may actually put the country back on solid fiscal footing.
Christie’s plan is basically removing full retirement for many people; so many die by 69 years old, it is simply a way to avoid ever paying them.
There is no justification for taking this from our checks anymore; if they want to save it, why don’t they remove the cap (on which wages are taxed for SS)? For now they’re just creeping up the retirement age (67 for me) and understating inflation (so like the old USSR, retirees can’t buy a loaf of bread with their monthly benefit).