For decades, any problem that developed within Social Security was fixed by shifting the cost to future workers. Today that isn’t possible.
Do you want to privatize Social Security? The math is simple. There is no way to privatize a negative number. We will have to fill in the $25 trillion dollar hole before there is anything to privatize.
Significantly curtail who gets SS disability benefits. There are millions of able-bodied Americans who can work, but have scammed the system to collect disability payments. I know several of those lowlifes. They disgust me.
Politicians never seem able to grasp the First Corollary of Murphy’s Law. If something can’t happen it won’t.
Not only is there no way to privatize a negative number ... there's no way to raise tax revenue from people who aren't working in the future, either. This is why it's basically foreign workers who are indirectly financing our entitlement programs today -- through the low-interest bonds issued by the U.S. government, and purchased by foreign interests, to finance our massive (and growing) $18 trillion debt.
What does the author mean “you can’t privatize it?”
You keep the program in place for existing seniors age 60 and older.
You roll those who put their money into the system (age 30-60) into an IRA or 401(k).
You give those age 29 and under a $2,000 tax credit to invest in their own IRA or 401(k).
Massive economic growth combined with cutting spending will take care of the rest.
Brings us to reason #1 the right wing side of the professional political class (PPC) wants to legalize 30-50 million illegals going forward. To prop up SS until the current PPC are long gone.
(Reason #1 of the left is to elect democrats)
Repeal the Earned Income Tax Credit. Money not given away to begin with is money saved.
The US government interfering with YOUR income.... what could go wrong?
The problem with SOCIALISM, is that eventually you run out of (other people’s) money.
solution:
privatize /spin off government assets, issue shares to those that paid into ss. Anwar, government land, radio frequency rights, hell even amtrack could be grown into a valuable high speed rail company.
Just wait until OBAMACARE is running on EMPTY... where do you think the “cost cuts” will hit?
Give me back the money you stole from me, .gov, and we’ll call it square.
The steps to rationalize SS are straightforward and logical.
1) Stop pouring gasoline on the fire. This means to no longer bring in new people into the system of SS-Medicare, which are paired together in the FICA tax. From a given date, all the money that would have gone to the government instead goes to private, tax free retirement-health accounts.
2) Means testing will never fly, because those who are getting SS paid into the system, and they want a square deal. So the way around this is to give them a choice. If they still earn taxable income, offer them tax credits slightly greater than the money they would have gotten from SS and Medicare, *if they want to*.
This means, if they need the money from SS and Medicare, they stay in the system that year. But if they would get more money through tax credits, saving it in the first place (many of the people who would have been means tested), then they can vie for this better deal.
In turn, this would take a lot of pressure off of both SS and Medicare, so their money would only go to the people who needed it. It also slashed the *projected* debt of these systems.
3) The biggest loser in this would be the federal government, that would no longer effectively double the income tax with the lies of Social Security and Medicare, which they then immediately spent. Which means that the federal government would *have* to cut back, perhaps as much as by 25-50%.
What’s not to like?
Can be grab that money too? Smacks of ‘entitlement’...