Beating Democrats on Social Security Reform: The Republicans' strategies to get reform through the door have failed. This one might work.

American Thinker ^ | 03/04/2023 | David Barulich

[House Atreides]

“ Social Security wouldn’t be a problem if the Democrats hadn’t stolen all the money out of it for social programs and replaced it with a bunch of IOU’s.”
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Hey, those IOUs will be good. After all, who do you think current tax money will go to if there’s not enough to go around … us or the Ukrainians?

Oh….wait, don’t answer that. NEVERMIND.

[stremba]

That is not really true. While raising the trust fund by using it to purchase treasury bonds might have been a bad idea, that is NOT the current problem. The reason that there is a trust fund is not to provide funding for SS, but rather because during the early years of the system, the worker to retiree ratio was high. This meant that more money was coming into the system in payroll taxes than was being paid out as benefits. This surplus formed the trust fund, which was set aside to help cushion the system during economic downturns when tax revenues declined.

The trust fund was never meant to fund SS benefits. Benefits were meant to be fully funded by payroll taxes. You are not contributing to the system to fund your own retirement; you are being taxed to fund the retirement of older people. Your retirement will be funded by future workers. The actual problem arose because as the Boomer generation aged and as birth rates fell, the worker to retiree ratio shrank. This led to a deficit rather than a surplus in the system. The trust fund has been used to make up for this deficit, but it is running out. The fact that the trust fund is made of Treasury bonds is irrelevant. Even had it been kept in cash, it would be running out.

Think about it - you stash $100,000 in cash under your mattress. I buy bonds worth $100,000. Assuming these bonds will not default, which of us is wealthier? (And T-bonds can’t default; the government can issue money to pay them). I can sell my bonds for the same $100,000 you have, so we are equally wealthy. If I’m spending more money than I earn (like the SS system is), my savings will quickly dwindle, and it makes no difference whether it’s cash or bonds.

[stremba]

I’m old enough to remember when GW Bush was talking about this very idea of personal accounts for SS. Krugman and his fellow idiotic Dems soazzed out and scared crap out of all the old people then and convinced them that they would lose their SS checks. Imagine how much better off we would have been if these idiots had listened then instead of reflexively opposing the idea because it came from a Republican

[FlingWingFlyer]

No reform needed. Just a rule saying if you haven’t paid into it for at least fifty years, YOU DON’T GET IT. If you came into America illegally with your adult kids, YOU DON’T GET IT. If you are not a natural born citizen, YOU DON’T GET IT.

[GailA]

Fixing the Fraud would help a lot. Same with Medicare and DSSI.

SNAP needs to be revisited to eliminate cashback and junk food. Ask why our lower rank Military needs it, pay is too low, they don’t qualify for base housing, Commissary to expensive. Then you have Single REAL HEALTH ISSUES ADULT Males, with no young children who don’t qualify. GET HANDED $25K HOSPITAL BILLS, when they have no ins, no income, and can’t work again. Discrimination, as females with kids, get SNAP, and WIC.

You are a single male, 52, no small kids, Type 2 Diabetic, CAUSE YOU DON’T MAKE ENOUGH YOU EAT THE CRAP FAST FOOD from the job; the boss won’t let you go eat, and you end up in the ER with a Heart event. the heart is only pumping 25%. You have no choice but quit, No UE. No income. You didn’t get FJB’s stimulus money. You now need to add heart meds to your diabetic ones. Heart Catherazition is next to determine Stent(s) Bypass or both. You were living paycheck to paycheck in a Rented trailer.

Yet ILLEGALS show up and are handed a SNAP CARD.