Their votes allowed that to continue.

Not everyone can serve.
Because making student loans not discharge Le in bankruptcy and backed by Uncle Sam didn’t alter the behavior or costs associated for college administrators. Got it.
Medicaid is the primary long term care payer in the country. Most people do not have private long term care coverage and then go broke paying for nursing homes.

Our employment is going up in quality and quality as Boomers finally retire.

This surprises anyone!!??

Worst generation in American history......sadly I am a boomer.

This happened to both of my in-laws. Fortunately they were in a good home that accepted Medicaid.

FIL's pension and benefits from his 50 year union career should have covered them but that went bankrupt in the 90s.

Learn from this young people...….don't be assholes who buy too many toys or spend way over your head and forget to save some fucking money.

Mismanaging funds is a RAMPANT problem in my generation from what I have seen anecdotally.

And I was an accountant for well over 30 years.

So MANY times I would say "you gotta start saving some money, blah, blah...….blah".

It was like I was talking to a wall for god's sake.

I'm not quite sure what you're ranting about. Employment is a pretty big issue for most people, if they  want to put food on the table and pay their bills.
If you're a trust fund hippy living in  a tent on the streets of NYC, maybe that doesn't matter to you because your financial security allows you to rant about how unfair the system is for the 99%.

20/20 hindsight is always clearer.
The human condition doesn't always lend itself to making the best decisions.
If it was otherwise, last call heifers who looked good  through the beer goggles would never get laid in this lifetime.

I happen to be slightly older than the "boomer" generation.

Do you really claim that you knew the "trust find" was a fraud in 1965? In 1975? 1985?
Where did you get that information?

The government lied. The vast majority of the people believed the lie because the truth was difficult to find.

When they started putting all into the general fund I would imagine most knew it was a fraud by then.

Please give us a list of all of the politicians who ran for Federal office in the last 30 years who advocated ending the Social Security program.
Also please explain why you haven't ended the program by voting for politicians who advocate doing so.

Probably the bravest political stand George W. Bush made was attempting to start the conversation, and it ended his domestic agenda.

Shit, Moynihan told us decades ago...……..yet it was most likely a candidate "killer" if it was ever pursued honestly.

The law has required that every dollar not paid out in benefits must be used to buy a US government bond since the program began.
The money received by the Treasury in exchange for those bonds went into the general fund since day one. The "trust fund" never existed.

Do you really think Joe Sixpack was paying attention to the "unified budget" plan when it was implemmented?
If so, think again.

Of course GWB didn't propose that until after he was re-elected so no one could have voted for him based on that.

This is exactly what is bankrupting the entire system.

We need more clearly defined standards for "pulling the plug" on cases that are beyond medical help. I have a whole floor filled with people who are beyond help that cost between 500,000 to 1,000,000 per year. These people on average payed in probably 10,000 in their lifetime.

Nah, they started counting those funds in the budget in the sixties when I was a kid and was used by "politicians" to mean we had "funds" as part of the overall budget.

That gave false impressions and was correctly brought back to off budget in the 90's IIRC.

Moynihan IIRC criticized that "on budget" treatment and said it gave "false impressions" on how much money we had and what the government budget really was.

When I saw them playing around with the accounting treatment I became suspicious that we were being suckered into thinking all was good...….it wasn't.

The "unified budget" was adopted under Lyin' Lyndon. It was probably the only honest thing he ever did.
But it was an accounting change, not a substantive one.
I suggest you look up the original Social Security Act and find out what was done with surplus FICA taxes.
It will be an eye opener for you.

No, I knew that but it gave false impressions of our real budgetary needs and revenue streams when they co mingled it accounting wise into the overall budget.

Whenever I see Congress doing shit like that it makes me suspicious that they want to hide something or are trying to gain more "avenues" to tax and spend, etc.

That's why IIRC, that sham accounting was reversed I think at the end of Bush Sr.'s term.

He got crushed in the mid terms and ended up Nancy Pelosi's bitch.

I never got allowance.  Started with paper routes at age 8 to earn some money.  Retired two years ago at 65 after working 57 years.  I spent 42 years of my life working for a well known company that had a pension plan with "guaranteed" benefits.  I started at a low position and worked my way up through management and engineering positions where I worked my butt off.  The company was supposed to set aside money as I worked for such things as medical a pension, medical insurance and life insurance.  Because of this there was no such thing as a 401(k) or any matching funds for contributions.  But when they started to come available I started a 401(k). as a backup plan.

Well after 42 years of working for them. no life insurance, no medical insurance and my pension that was supposed to be somewhere around $3000 a month is actually $132.53 a month.  A lot of us have been screwed out of promised retirement benefits that the companies were supposed to be setting aside money for all along.  I am making it okay at the moment, but things like a $5,000 dental implant do hurt.  The life insurance I was supposed to have in retirement I actually paid for by contributing extra while I was employed.  But is was not true insurance, but a company held slush fund.   Something conveniently left out of all the brochures.  Turns out the company was "self insured".

So, you young ones out there.   Get some whole life insurance.  Not a lot. but what you think is enough to cover your final expenses.  Life insurance is not the Satan everyone thinks it is. And the younger you are the less exp0ensive it is.  Use term insurance to cover the big expenses of your life.   My wife's policy pays for itself now.  She is covered for life at no additional expense to us.  The cash value of the policy is more than the death benefit and earns a guaranteed minimum of 3.5% interest.

Any young person who does not have a Roth IRA is a fool.   If you are offered a 401(k) at work and do no contribute at least enough for the company match, you are an even bigger fool.

My biggest advice to you young whippersnappers is do not trust one thing that your employers says about their benefits plan.  You have to count on yourself.  Take when they offer for free, but do not rely on them for any long term coverage plans.

There was nothing false about treating the surplus of Social Security taxes as general revenue. The money ended up in the general fund.
It continued going into the general fund until a year or two ago, when the surpluses ended.
Pretending that the taxes collected under the guise of financing Social Security weren't used to fund current expenditures was dishonest.

You might recall that the Democrats ran on a platform of reducing the deficit and ending the wars.

I don't think I am explaining myself very well...….when they started including SS in the total budget (accounting wise) it gave false impressions of what our general budget needs were and what general budget revenues were coming in.

I became suspicious when they started doing that accounting wise...…….what was the reason?...…...why would they do that when SS was a separate Trust fund arrangement?...……..what are they trying to hide or misrepresent, and why?

It made me suspicious.  That is when I started thinking this might all be a sham.

Then they stopped that around 1990 thankfully.  But for me it was too late...…….I was and always have been suspicious after that accounting change.

My generation has been calling for the end of it.

Again.....its not being paid by the relatives.  That is her paying for her own medical.  Once her debts are settled, inheritance can be distributed.....not before.

Again.....to be clear.....the family is not paying her medical debts.

He ran on it in 2000 and 2004.

The only previous candidate I can remember who ran on it was Pete DuPont, who was in the GOP primary in 1988.

Teaching Econ in the 1980s I had a hard time convincing students that the SS Trust Fund didn't exist.

I think the breakdown was that the last six months of life are the most expensive.

So I see that there are five classes of families and people wealth wise in western civilization, and I think this is in agreement with the teachings of Jesus:
the Rich - the rarely criminal and ultimate ingroup predator in our society.
the Independent - who can purchase a degree of freedom from social mores, laws, medical costs associated with severe illness, and national obligation.
the Cushioned Middle - who can afford a few severe illnesses.
the Sustenance-Middle - who are one severe illness away from poverty.
the Poor - the often criminal and ultimate ingroup prey in our society.

Because of bad governance (I suspect it is usually over governance, and intentionally bad governance) since the Great Depression, the American public has become increasingly jeopardized by medical expenses.

There has been a great theft of wealth in this country, it continues, and it is accelerating.

@Lumpy196
No, they didn't, and we should look at them with a degree of pity and self realization.  The generation after Z will look at Y/Millennials with more contempt than we look at Boomers.  As an aside, I think it is highly likely that Generation Z might decide to euthanize the Boomers.

As 74HC pointed out, most Boomers weren't old enough to vote for Johnson's idiot programs.   They didn't vote to remove them either, but then how has repealing Obamacare or building a Border Wall been working out for my generation so far?

My parents (boomers) fall into that category. Stepdad had to close a construction business, and declare personal bankruptcy in 2009/10 due to over leveraging business loans/ personally guaranteeing the notes. The huge drop-off in projects to bid on hurt most all general contractors and subs.
Had he not put so much of the business profits back into the business instead of retirement during the good years, bankruptcy probably wouldn't have been necessary.

Shots Fired!

but I hope so too!

61 and decided to check in. Been working since I was 15 and paying into the system since then, (part time jobs) and full time since 17. I would gladly forgo any ss payments if the fed.gov would refund all of my payments with a modest 6.5% return. However this isn't going to happen.

61 and have a mortgage payment. Hopefully will have it paid off by the time I'm 66. Was married for 35 years and had a paid off house at the time of the divorce. Daughters college tuition paid in full two weeks before her graduation. She did not have a penny of school debt. Sometimes you don't know what life holds in store for you.You play the hand that you are dealt and make the most of it.

Will work till I'm 68 or so if my health holds out. I'm happy, healthy (now) go to the gym 3-5 days a week. Shoot and fish whenever I want.

Best of luck and wishes for good or improved health to all of you.

If you can't get social handouts because you have too much cash, why not blow it all so you can enjoy nice things.

Because if not, all the money you saved up will be spent on medical and nursing homes.