We are stuck supporting current retirees and those who are say 40 years old and older but anyone younger needs to be freed from the SS slavery and start saving for their own retirement.
“Many Americans see Social Security as a savings plan, albeit a coerced one....”
well, D’UH
Welfare programs ought to be means tested, and SS, Medicare, and Medicare are just welfare. The article makes that plain. The only issue is “perception”. The reality is that it is welfare.
Whatever happened to “We are all equal before the Law.”?...............
I guess some pigs are more equal than others..........
The Obama Phone -
NO JOKE
This is unbelievable !!
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, our illustrious Congress quietly comes up with a new zinger to put their hands in your pockets, and pick them while you aren’t watching. Isn’t this just wonderful ?
I was standing in line at the checkout counter at Wal Mart and as I looked at the line behind me, I saw a couple of people talking about what looked like identical new cell phones, bragging about the fact that their phones were free and so was the airtime.
The woman in line behind me had heard the same exchange and turned to the young man behind her and asked, ‘Is that a new type of cell phone?’ The young man replied, ‘Yes, this is my new Obama phone. She asked him what an Obama phone was, and he went on to say that, ‘Welfare recipients are now eligible to receive what he described as (1) a FREE new cell phone, and (2) approximately 70 FREE minutes of air time every month.’
Needless to say, I was a little skeptical about his answer, so when I got back home, I Googled it, and lo and behold, he was telling the truth. This was what I discovered:
SafeLink Wireless is a government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers. In other words, your tax dollars are being distributed to a wireless phone provider to provide welfare recipients with free cell phones and airtime. I don’t know about you, but as for me, enough is enough. We are $14 Trillion in debt, Congress is balking at continuing unemployment payments to those who want to work, and Congress is increasing the dole-out to dead beats.
The ship of State is sinking, and it’s sinking fast. The old concept of getting ahead through hard work has flown out the window. It has been replaced by Obama’s and Congress’ idea of Hope and Change. The country has changed all right, changed to “Why should I work for it, when I can get it for free?”
You can click on the link below to confirm for yourself that the Obama Phone is real.
Just have a barf bag ready.
https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/Home.aspx
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. It isn't a savings plan. Its a Ponzi scheme. Any taxes paid for Social Security went to pay general expenditures and were not put into some savings account like way too many people believe it was. The people who were in at the beginning got a windfall but they are dead and we can't get the money back from them. We are left holding the bag. A lot of people are very angry about that but it doesn't change the facts--you don't have a Social Security "savings account" that you paid into.
Quite frankly, Social Security should be means tested. It should be a welfare program. This country should not have middle class welfare. That is what is destroying us. If we want to give some money to poor old people so they don't starve--the original purpose of Social Security--fine. But it should not be a middle class entitlement.
Actually, Milton Friedman was against even means-testing poverty programs. It’s the means-testing that produces perverse incentives and make poverty programs function as the subsidization of poverty (and you always get more of what you subsidize). If a society decides that it want to succor the poor with tax revenues, it turns out to be far better to give everyone a subsistence payment (maybe in part in constrained forms like Food Stamps), treat the subsistence payment as taxable income, and slightly increase tax rates so that the whole plan costs less on net than whatever means-tested poverty programs the society thought it wanted.
The perverse incentives to not earn lest one lose benefits are gone, as is the need for poverty bureaucracies to vet people for benefits.
I believe in means testing. I you didn’t pay in it means you get no money..
Means-testing makes perfect sense. SS is not a pension plan—it’s a safety net.
Ping
This is certainly one of the most volatile issues going.
Even on FR you can see the wide range of strong opinions.
In my wildest dreams I see Democrats getting “payback” from the voters for the decades long fraud of SS and Medicare. But I know it will never happen.
The bottom line is at some point soon the debt game will be over, interest rates will take off, and the US will have to meet its fate.
At least means testing would finally lift the veil off of the scam, and show that Social Security is nothing but another wealth transfer tax, just like any other tax.
Just exempt my pre-tax 401k contributions up to the amount SS “owes” me (including the employer contribution) and we’ll call it square. That would encourage more retirement savings and still bring in income to the program. Then I don’t get the shaft on taxes when I retire and the morons that don’t save for retirement can live off SS.
I’m 60, I’ve saved like crazy, worked a job with the object of receiving a pension. Should my peers who spent like crazy, didn’t choose work with deferred payments (a pension) and earned as much or more than me, get more in Social Security. I don’t think so.