Oh, I know this. The con game was originally set up, as are all con games, so there could be few winners. Won't work otherwise. "Otherwise" you get the mess we have now.
Ethically, maybe even legally (but who knows? The gov't is one of the parties in this and guess who makes the laws>) you can't simply cut off the people who have been paying into this scam for decades and tell them to get a guitar and a tin cup.
The first mistake was indexing. That guaranteed that people would get out more than they put in. And yelling "inflation" doesn't cut it; it isn't like there's really a trust fund here that is earning interest.
Then Medicare was added. This really helps! It drives up the cost of the program enormously AND it guarantees its beneficiaries can collect longer. But to make matters worse, your hero Mr. Bush, in an election year move Gray Davis would be proud of, has now added Medicare drug coverage, driving costs yet higher and collection times yet longer.
You do know that that broken American icon, AG, said the present state is not sustainable, right?
ncpa.org
In truth, the biggest flaw in the system is the failure to index the retirement age to life expectancy in some fashion.
In truth, the biggest flaw is that it is a gov't program. Now this is going to torque some Libertarian jaws (Jorj? Where are you?) but how about:
To get a new program going, you are required to contribute X% of your net pay into a trust which, should you live past some set age, you are the beneficiary of? You are not not allowed to manage the trust in the meantime (too much temptation and invitation to abuse there).
Or simply take the same percentage that you and your employer now put into SS and put it into an IRA. But not optional. If you don't put the money in, the gov't taxes 100% of it away, so you might as well.
The current recipients and those in the stream simply get welfare payments prorated for their contributions.
What say you to this, Mr. Liberal? |
