Not until we stop all funding to other countries.

FDR started SS with every individual having a personal account that reflected their contributions. In less than two years that was thrown under the bus and replaced with an IOU, pay as we go system. According to his considered opinion, the accounts were removing too much capital from the US economy and would be better used by circulating those resources in government projects. In the late 1930's the average lifespan was 62 for men, that meant 50% of the people eligible to receive benefits would be dead before they were able to collect them.

In the meantime, the US government under every administration, spent every SS surplus virtually on any damn thing they wanted. Now that the chickens have come home to roost and they want to raise retirement eligibility ages, reduce benefits and increase welfare to people that don't produce one damn thing but gang members and hillbilly meth heads.

You can't make this shit up.

It should at least be optional.  I should have the choice, and would rather not rely on the gov.  But SS pays for disabled folks too, so there’s that.  I know people who label their kids disabled bc they are bipolar and so get a check.  Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund that either.

Well I know that a POTUS doesn't have that authority so I would just chalk to up to poli-speak and not worry about it.

Sure.  We all paid in.  We all want to at least get paid back what we paid in.  That's not going to happen for most of us.  So do you want to keep paying in?

It needs to be said over and over, in my opinion.

I have run actuarial tables going back to average household incomes in the 1960's saving 12% (6% employee contribution, 6% employer contribution) with a modest rate of return, Government bond rates.

Any person who worked from age 18 to 67, saving and investing at these levels, would retire with well over 1,000,000 dollars. Not only would current bond rates produce over $3000 per month without a reduction in capital, if the person dies prematurely, their heirs would inherit their investments.

Investing in a S&P, Wiltshire 4500 or similar US based indexed fund, the return would be at least tripled.

Because the average person wants a security guarantee, more than market risk, we have allowed themselves to be bamboozled.

It depends on the meaning of "cuts".  No cuts to the existing participants and those too far along to use an alternative.

Then modifying it (or cuts, if you wish) for people young enough to participate in the new system.  If a change happens, it has to happen at some point in time.  It's physics.

I might also allow voluntary particpation for anyone with the caveat that it isn't going to be as generous as it has been in the past.

But none of this matters and it's really a bunch of navel-gazing.  I predict nothing meaningful will happen and the upcoming collapse will be papered over by fedgov printing.  Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

This, at least boomers paid into the system, welfare recipients by and large did not.  How about ending benefits for illegals?

Not cutting the checks people who paid into the system, no.

But, I am for trimming and streamlining the BS. No more BS procedures when you are 80 on medicate dime, no more you get daddy’s S/S check past 18, no more “you get married to someone 30yrs younger and your new wife and her kids get checks,” etc.

If you want to define "cuts" that way, I have no objection.

Oh, yeah, sure my mistake.

Why wouldn't I vote for him?

One big problem. It hasn’t been 12% back to the 60’s.

Attached File

I was asked to speak at a local junior high regarding rules regarding hiring the handicapped and several in the class were mentally challenged. There was a girl that was obviously bright and normal, I pulled her aside and asked her why she was there. She said "My parents get a check every month for ADHD".

Fraud is rampant. Once some scumbag discovers they can't get public assistance, they throw their kid under the bus to make it happen.

One of the kids in the class was severely retarded and should have been institutionalized. He was disruptive and unable to comprehend or follow anything being discussed. Most were not obviously "bad" IMO. The federal government wanted to reach out to the "future disabled community" to inform them of employment opportunities. I never volunteered to help again.

As far as I know, if you don't have a SS number, you can't get benefits. Enlighten me.

Yeah, like someone thirty years younger is going to marry me....

Yes that is true, but it has been 6.2x2 since 1990, over thirty years.

I have paid for 30 years so far and will continue to pay and never draw a dime if it ends now.  Not another person signs up under the age of 60.  To to pay this ponzi scheme off.

lets cut  funding other country's and stealing from social security, then lets add 50k to the cutoff point and see what happens, i bet it would be solvent forever

Stopping all funding to other countries would 100% make things worse as it would cut off our access to foreign resources we use in manufacturing and industry.  Not saying there isn't lots of fat to trim there; but that's not as easy as it sounds.

Gen x here. We can end it but I want my
35 years of involuntary deductions replaced with interest and adjusted for inflation.......

for the purse swinging....



.....but they can't pay the current people that are on it without the money coming in from the people just now indoctrinated in the system.....because the money supposedly set aside for them has already been spent.



I have suggested various things here in GD....were everyone gets some type of fucked.....I kept getting "I paid in I deserve it, fuck reducing my payments"...to "fuck this shit let them starve and stop taking my money"

The inevitable will be we will pay more in taxes and get nothing as the current bunch of retards in DC don't give a shit (both sides).

Because it would immediately reveal the fact that SS is bankrupt, a Ponzi scheme that is using current money to pay old debt…because they stole the old money.

I will support cutting SS and Medicare when ALL Federal and Military pensions are cut at the same percentage. Everyone sucking off the taxpayers tit takes a bite of the shit sandwich.

Until then...

No politician has the balls to do the right thing....because the we the people are too greedy or just too stupid to realize our kids/future generations are fucked at the current policies.

Which, you could have milked social security forever!  Mandatory contributions with maybe 5% growth while you earn 8%-ish on the capital invested.  Grift city.  All you have to do is not kill the golden goose.  Goose is deader than Top Gun now.

It's a non-issue. We shouldn't mess with it. We shouldn't talk about it. We definitely shouldn't make it a campaign issue. The second amendment is the only issue that matters right now. The social security non-issue will sort itself out.

Lower the age.
That way it can implode even faster.

Retirement age is any age the individual decides it is.
You don’t need an age qualifier, just money.

End the progressive benefits plan and make it one rate just like we all paid in and cap it.  I highly doubt the 12+% that has been hijacked from my paycheck (to include my employers half that I would have received otherwise) will be paid back unless I live beyond 87.  That is highly unlikely as the average lifespan in the US is falling and currently only around age 76.  

I would have done 87x better to invest this money myself but the Gov took it and paid the current SS recipients.

I don't have any kids, but if I did I would gladly give up my money so my kids could be free of this bullshit.  I planned to live without it, it would be nice but unless the country collapses I will be fine.  If that happens we are all fucked anyway.

Should be paid out just like it was taken in.  Flat rate not a progressive rate based on how much you didn't put in.

Humm, you want to punish people that signed a contract for benefits.  How about we just remove benefits from everyone if you want it to be fair.  

Now if you want to talk strictly politicians, then they failed the people and didn't live up to the contract.  Unless you go back to people that joined in the 1980's most people now don't receive nearly the retirement benefits for Federal service they used to.  Just look at the change from CSRS to FERS and now the new blended system for the Military.  You are not going to make much of a dent for just hating people that got paid by the Gov directly for work.  Anyone that joined these days will get most of their money from a type of 401k system, think called TSP.

I just looked and now FERS people are paying 4.4% up to 4.9% of their pay towards their pension.  I would do better in a 401k account as most of them will only get one percent per year of their pay back for every year they worked, based on high 3. Pay in 4.4% and get 1% back....great plan.

Social Security has been actuarily dead since the late 1960s, as soon as the Baby Bust happened and LBJ included the Trust Fund in the federal budget to help pay for the Vietnam War. That's why there were big tax increases and benefit cuts made in the early 1980s, but all those "reforms" did was delay the problem for 20 years. In 1988 Pete DuPont was in the GOP presidential primary and his big issue was future Social Security insolvency and he was mocked by the press and all other "correct thinkers" in our country.

The expenditures on Social Security are growing rapidly. In 2019 the program cost $1 trillion a year. This year it will cost $1.5 trillion. By the end of this decade it will be over $2 trillion. There is no cut in foreign aid or disability or welfare or food stamps or the Pentagon or anything else that can that can pay for this huge hole in the federal budget.

By the way, Federal workers have been paying Social Security tax since the early 1980s, and they also pay for their pensions via a four percent tax on their income and their employer pays an even higher tax on every paycheck to support the pension system. They were added to the Social Security system in part to help shore it up.

Since we don't have a time machine, I think at this point things should just run their natural course, with higher and higher taxes on workers and employers to support the system, and a federal government which eventually prints money until it's extinct. How is that end game morally justified? In two ways: 1) the younger generation overwhelmingly votes for high-tax, high-spending politicians, so they must want this and 2) the younger generation will be much wealthier than the Baby Boom or earlier generations ever were--a Millennial at retirement will have on average a real income about 15 times larger than the average Baby Boomer had at their first job. People who didn't live at the time don't realize how much poorer the average worker was in 1965 compared to today. In 1960, 15 percent of US households still didn't have indoor plumbing.

Apart from the huge budget hole created by fewer workers, longer lifespans, productivity stagnation, etc. it is still impossible to "fix" Social Security. If it ever were "fixed" and the Trust Fund had a surplus even for a year, it would be looted by the next Congress and President to buy votes thus returning it to the state we are in now.

Agree with this completely!

From the people I know that are enrolled? Who did not have a nest egg, it barely covers the basics in life.

I think the biggest drain is medicare! How about reigning in runaway healthcare costs as a start!  

No. Why is it always ok to cut spending for social security but not Midnight Basketball, studies of the mating habits of the red toed Latin American mosquito, and Clean Needles for Junkies programs?

Why do I have to be the last to the trough after 3 years of contributing?

If right now isn’t a good time to talk about it and the last r- years weren’t,….. when is it a good time?

I'm pondering the younger generation is wealthier thing while I recall my grandparents living in a 1,200 sq. ft. house (with additions my grandfather built on by hand) and a separate one-car garage carport, while I live alone in a 2500 sq ft house with a 3-car garage.  I think all told, wealthier in some ways, poorer in others.

I make just over $1700 on SSDI. I live in SE Alaska which has a very high cost of living.

Who here could live on $1700 a month?

Though I would agree with most of this, probably need to start a new thread of what Gov agencies do you think it would be wise to keep.  I personally like the traveling on the interstates and though it could be better....without the FAA I would predict a shit show in the sky.  The other parts of the Dept of Transportation could use a real haircut.

If the CDC/FDA was non biased....and not based on payments from big pharma they might be useful but as it stands they are the worst.

I choose to error on the side of total freedom. End it and I’m good, keep it and I buy steak and ammo with the money. I’m good either way.

SSDI is theoretically calculated on what you earned prior to becoming disabled and your degree of disability.  What were you earning before you became disabled?  Also, not familiar with the cost of living in SE Alaska; but surprised it is very high.  Can you tell me more about that?

We need to support a more actually funded system. Or slowly phase it out.
This is one I don’t have many good ideas on.

I’m fortunate to have a relatively low mortgage payment, but my utilities run around $450 per month. Plus $300 for condo fees. And food is really expensive due to the barge/freight costs. And gas is still over $5 a gal.

I wish I had an electric vehicle instead of my 2001 V10 F-350.