Second, the piece I saw in NRO had no shortfall, period. This is way too far in the future, of course, for either side to present credible assessments of what "might" happen.
Surely if you've been alive for 20 years, you know that we have had this "social-security-is-going-bust" for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it is either morally supporable or financially sound. But I dismiss these "sky-is-falling" reports as more Howard Ruff/Ruff Times. We simply can't know 20 years out what economic changes will occur. For example, not ONE Detroit or Japanese automaker predicted correctly that the pickup/SUV would be the dominant auto in the late 1970s.
Not ONE economist, in or out of government, that I'm aware of, predicted the mini-boom that would occur when the "iron curtain" countries became consumers. This, in part, helped account for the 1990s growth, but none predicted it.
Finally, in just the last 6 weeks, there have been two MAJOR oil discoveries, one in Iran and I forget where the other was, that dwarf exising production. This will cause long-term energy costs to fall further, cause personal income to go up, and so on. The point is, there are people---very smart people---at universities who do this for a living, and they won't predict anything this far out.
The largest pot of money anywhere is in IRA and other retirement accounts. When the government has to go after every available dollar, they are not going to leave the largest reservoir untapped. And they won't be able to wait until you start drawing it out and it becomes taxable under current law.
"Second, the piece I saw in NRO had no shortfall, period. This is way too far in the future, of course, for either side to present credible assessments of what "might" happen.
"Surely if you've been alive for 20 years, you know that we have had this "social-security-is-going-bust" for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it is either morally supporable or financially sound. But I dismiss these "sky-is-falling" reports..The point is, there are people---very smart people---at universities who do this for a living, and they won't predict anything this far out."
Paul Oneal, as Secretary of the Treasury was chairman of the SS Trustees and commissioned the Gokhale & Smetters report in that capacity. Gokhale worked at the Federal Reserve and Smetters at US Treasury If we don't find some credibility there, why believe anything?
The SS tax that was collected in the beginning was the actuarial amount thought to be adequate to fund SS in perpetuity. It was 1% of the first $3,000 of income. Check your last paycheck stub and let me know how well government actuaries project the future and whether they tend to underestimate or overestimate shortfalls.