1. Purge the rolls of non-citizens.
2. Demand medical re-qualification for all disability payments.
3. Re-confirm and validate anyone who receives their checks out of country.
That should start the ball trolling.
Remembering when I went to enroll for my retirement check. I waited later to collect my meager monthly stipend. At the office, about 75% of those in line wanting money were very OBSES citizens, who collected food stamps, and went to WalMart and rode around on electric carts filling up baskets to get more obese. One person had gone to 3 or 4 docters til he found one that wrote him a total disability recomendation. I would say cutting out those benefits, and not allowing immigrants who came to the country who never paid a dime or nickel, should find a church, synagoue or mosque, or a Bahai Temple where kind souls can give them a meager hand out.
“So folks, let’s say you were given the authority to fix the SS problem, what would you propose to cause the least pain? “
Cut of SS to illegals and people who did not contribute. Stop the SS disability scam for people who aren’t really disabled like the children whose parents get a ‘crazy letter’ from a doctor because their children are on meds.
I would like to instead guess what they are going to do. It will be some combination of a special tax on the wealthy and simply printing more money to cover the bill.
That would lead to class warfare, and inflation. But it would also kick the can down the road another decade or two. And that’s always the safest play for politicians.
Like Singapore - require that every paycheck has a % withheld into a _private_ account. The government doesn’t have its paws on Singapore’s “social security”...
IIRC it’s 10% in Singapore - which compares favourably to our 15.65% ... plus it’s not in government hands.
My solution is not very popular, but I stand by it.
1) Immediately cease and desist all foreign entanglements (wars and conflicts and occupations), bringing our resources home.
2) Deport all illegals and punish employers with heavy fines and/or imprisonment for hiring illegals.
3) Adopt the widespread use of Thorium energy. That will not only shut up the climate change hoaxers, but give us the benefit of extremely cheap, clean, abundant, and safe energy for decades (if not centuries) to come. And it won’t produce weapons grade plutonium (much to the NeoCons’ chagrin).
4) unleash freedom on the people so they can see their way clear to be prosperous - without interference from senseless government regulations, a hostile legal environment, and the straight jacket of political correctness.
5) Identify and get rid of or neutralize the commies that have infiltrated our educational system and government.
My reply is not about least pain, it is about what I am expecting which is for Libs to cry for “fairness”. Such as it is not “fair” that military retirees double dip. They will say the two systems need to be combined to prevent the excessive drain on the retirement systems. The recipients do not “need” all that income at the expense of the more deserving.
A prime target will military officers that maxed out their SS taxes and then continued high paying jobs after retirement resulting in excessive above normal SS payouts. It is just not fair.
Since military officers do not tend to support democrats they are a prime target.
Once upon a time there was a kingdom in which the king promised to provide a trust for the elderly if they gave him a share of the money they earned all their lives. It seemed a pretty good idea at the time and, since the king demanded it, the people went along.
The people were industrious and flourished in spite of the confiscated money. Meanwhile, the king spent every penny that came into the trust. Some was spent on providing for the elderly that had not had time to chip into the trust but this showed good faith and what life would be like for the others when they retired. Most, however, was squandered by the king on a lavish life style.
Eventually the people grew old and wished to receive the benefits they had been purchasing all of their lives. They approached the king and asked for their just rewards. The king told them “There is no money. I spent it on more important things.” “Besides, you have been warned that we had already spent the money – why did you not provide for your own retirement? I cannot be bothered with your poverty. Go! Go and live on turnips and cat food for all I care.”
So, the people left, grumbling. “The king lives large, he has vast holdings of land and other things of untold value, more than enough to make us whole.” “Yes, and most of that stuff he neither needs nor should be allowed to own.” “You’re right!” “I think the king needs to hold a garage sale and give me my money.”
So the good people stormed the castle and sold or took what was rightly theirs. They also forced the king to stop robbing their children as he had robbed them and they all lived happily ever after except for the king who, having been used to arugula and Wagyu beef, didn’t like living on turnips and cat food. The end.
Unfortunately, I have enough of faith in the pragmatic nihilism of our nanny-state government to say this.
Take SS taxes out of the ‘general fund’.
IOW SS revenue can only be spent on SS recipients.
And SS recipients have to be old citizens.
Social Security represented a 10th Amendment / lawful governance crisis.
If Eisenhower had not rubberstamped FDR’s high handed lawlessness he could have taken a huge step to save the country from its ultimate ruin at the hands of damnable progressives.
Make all federal and state employees ss recipients, at the same rates as current SS recipients and add their trust funds to the SS funds. No more government retirements. And make it retroactive.
Make SS tax on all earned income and on all income over 1 million per year.
Think of how much money that would be saved for federal retirements when the top level annually would be 36K? This could be poured into Medicare and SS and get us through the baby boomers
It also would not affect the youngsters coming up any more than it does now.
So what's the big deal?
Obamas 200+ welfare programs and the trillion$ transfer from Social Security to welfare Medicaid and permanent disability for the gibesmedats is alive and well...
And hundreds of thousands more criminal illegal aliens are still killing American drivers and pedestrians... stealing their identities and education funds, and making American more diverse...
Let's not be unchristian, inhumane/ uncharitable and continue to do "what's right..."
The kakistocracy is alive and well.
The Social Security system has by law a dedicated revenue stream of about 16% of most earned income.
As long as over 130 million people in the USA work, the Social Security system will be able to pay benefits, just not as much as are currently being paid or promised.
A reduction of benefits by about 25% is going to be necessary.
What I suggest for the old age system is:
1. raising the retirement age(s) by two years to 64 early, 69 standard
2. cutting the benefits of current recipients by 10%
3. cutting the retirement benefits of future recipients by 20%
The disability system is a really big mess that suffers from great abuse. I’ve been working on a proposal, but haven’t gotten very far.
I’m 59 and I am aware of the problems.
The bankruptcy of a government system is different than that of a company. People can and do refuse to provide revenue to a bankrupt company. Social Security taxpayers can not refuse to provide money to a national retirement system as long as they continue to work in the private sector in the country.
But I bristle when I see the 48 year old husband of a friend of mine drawing SS disability for injuring his back and can't hold a job.
Well, he does anything else anyone else can do physically and yet is still living 100% off of the SS disability for a back injury that doesn't seem to bother him at all. He's gamed the system.
This is closer to home, but my son died recently from a drug overdose at age 36. He left a one year old baby, who is our granddaughter, with his girlfriend and she has managed to get a SS check for the little girl that equals over half of my SS check. She'll draw the money until the child is 18 years old. I worked my whole adult life for my SS and my son hadn't had a steady job since high school. How does that work?
The Social Security system is going broke because there are too many people drawing SS checks that go beyond what the original system was intended to do.
Handing out taxpayer-funded checks like they were candy is our problem.
1. Raise the retirement age and age for eligibility. Raising it from 67 to 79 would go a long way toward plugging the gap. This would be the least painful thing and it has been done before. In the 80s Ronald Reagan got Congress to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67.
When SS was implemented, the average age of death was 65.....the year people became eligible. Lifespans have increased considerably since then opening up a gap of many years between retirement and the average age of death. Also, people are in better health for longer nowadays due to improvements in medical care and bodies not being worn out from decades of tough manual labor.
2. Index to inflation rather than wages. Over time, wages grow faster thus increasing the required payout.
3. The least attractive option IMO is capping benefits or means testing benefits.
A massive tax hike is out of the question.
Step 1:
Immediately pass a law forbidding All Taxpayer Funded Retirement Accounts Nationwide and roll everyone into SS, All Retirement Funds to be turned over to SS.
This is probably enough to get them to fix the problem, when EVERY Congressman,Senator and Public Employee nationwide is in the SAME system, they will fix it.
It’s not a crisis if you were promised $800/month, are likely to get $600/month, but only need $400/month to live on.
Privative. Keep anybody who is already on Soc Sec, and those within 10 years of retirement, on the old plan. Then, institute a privated plan for younger folks. Put their money into a personal savings account that would go to their spouse and/or children if they don’t live to retirement. Designate a small percentage of their retirement into a pot for those not so lucky. Younger people will make out much better than we older folks.
Whatever you think of him, this was the plan that Bush 2 had proposed, but the dems used the old canard that ‘republicans want to throw grandma over a cliff” At least he had the guts to try to solve this problem. This could have been addressed then.