I’m continually perplexed by the division in the nation politically. Nobody disagrees that Social Security is bankrupt. (LINK to CNBC – Voice of the Liberal Media) The money that should have been restricted was dumped into the General Fund by President Lyndon Johnson to help pay for the Viet Nam War. The current Democratic majority in Congress and the president assert that it’s not bankrupt and that Republicans (who warn of dire circumstances) want to take Social Security payments from the pockets of pensioners.
No matter WHO wins when, the Social Security monster looms and everybody wants to pass the ball to the next Congress in the hopes that it won’t have to be faced by them, on their watch. This sort of irresponsibility is what we’ve come to expect from politicians. Nothing new here, folks. We can let Social Security splat on the wall at 100 MPH, or we can change the way we do business. 
People who are retired need to retain their current benefit structure.
People who haven’t retired need to face harsh realities:
  1. We need to raise the age at which people can collect Social Security benefits.
  2. We need to restrict the fund so that the Federal Government can’t steal the money to use it on this or that pork barrel project to include war, feeding welfare recipients or foreign aid to a corrupt dictatorship.
  3. We need to change the way the payments are made and the basis upon which they’re made. I’m not the expert who will make that decision in detail, but it’s clearly the way we need to approach the situation.
Or you can do what we’re doing now, and twenty years in the future there will be no Social Security benefits paid out to anyone (but the government will still take it from your paycheck the way they do now).

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9 COMMENTS

  1. It's a crappy situation alright. Now think what we all could of done with that money if we could have invested it ourselves. Don't forget your employers half. That brings you up to 15% of what you earned for around 40 years. Take the government out of that crap and we would all be millionaires. But the "takers" in this world are afraid of their own lack of discipline.

  2. The government comes up with these great ideas – Social Security for instance – and then congressmen (and women) steal money from the new idea's fund until it's broke. Then, it's "somebody else's fault."

    For a congress-person to steal from the government should be a death penalty. I leave to your fertile imagination how it should be enacted.

  3. I have to add that LBJ started the welfare program as well as steal the SS $. The blacks on welfare get cars, houses/rentals, clothes, food, cell phone, all bills paid.

    They have received their reparations already in my opinion.

    And we're talking about a lot of money.

    But yea, now there isn't anywhere enough money to pony up for:
    . SS
    . Medicare
    . Medicaid
    . VA
    . Federal and State unfunded pensions
    . Servicing of the debt !
    I don't know how it Can't come apart.

  4. I was shocked when I mentioned the Social Security debacle to my college-degreed baby-boomer friend and she said "but isn't Social Security money in it's own account accruing interest?" Need I say more about the shock to come to most people. I plan to work until I drop dead. If that is not possible, then a visit from my friends Smith and Wesson will be in order.

  5. If you were running for office, your Dem opponent would claim that you were against Social Security. A blatant half-truth. You are against the status quo for Social Security, and you are for reforming it. But they wouldn't tell that part of the story and they would attempt to frighten the elderly into voting for your opponent. We must be wary of these "straw man" tactics. Where they construct an argument with a position their opponent doesn't hold.

  7. It's amazing how they say SS will be insolvent in 2035 (close proximity) but wake up people, there isn't any money in the account now. All that's there is IOU's for the government that can't pay their own bills without China's money. This was the first year that the SS Machine had to call in some IOU's to pay out to the current holders. Nothing like my money going out the door right back to the people currently in the system.

    Steve

  8. Steve, you're absolutely right – it's bankrupt – but there remains money in the general budget allocated to Social Security. (money we're printing…) By 2035 there won't be credit left to write IOU's.

    It's voodoo accounting and reform to the ENTIRE way we do business needs to be considered to bring the whole machine under control.

  9. Hell I knew in HS that there would be no SS for me and I'm in my 40s. At minimum they need to raise the retirement age to say 70 or 72.

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