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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (218118)	2/8/2005 1:45:03 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572161

re: I'd like to see SS turn into a purely voluntary program. Let people decide whether to let the government hold the money, invest the money themselves, or keep it. There are voluntary programs; IRA's, 401K's, etc. What you are saying is eliminate SS entirely and leave only the voluntary programs? re: Too many people expecting to get more than they put into the system, and that's not right. Taxes, by their nature, are not evenly spread across society. I hate to beat a dead horse but I'm paying taxes for public schools, with no kids. People that don't drive pay taxes for roads. If you expect to get a dollar of service for every tax dollar, you are not being realistic. re: If we're worried about seniors living in poverty, we can discuss how to support them out of the general budget. OF COURSE we're worried about seniors living in poverty, that's what this is all about. You want to set up a welfare system? Where does the money come from? Won't that discourage savings? re: Exactly. Separate it out of the regular budget, and Congress will be much more reluctant to spend it. As it stands now, even smart citizens don't know what's going on, much less the average citizen. I agree, but it's a separate issue. John

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (218118)	2/8/2005 7:12:13 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572161

Did I tell you, tenchusatsu, that my father and grandparents were immigrants? My grandfather had been here for 10 years and then he died. He didn't work but a couple of those years. My grandmother then started receiving social security, since she had become a citizen. She received social security for 20 years, far far in excess of anything my grandfather had paid in. That's not all. My father has many clients who are immigrants. Many of these clients are in similar situations where abuse of social security is rampant, but perfectly within the legal bounds of today's system. Now all this is anecdotal, but it seems to be to be horribly pervasive among the immigrant population. I just think that any system that does not tag all contributions to the contributor's own account, is utterly doomed to abuse and ultimate failure. Social security as it stands now is a ripoff on all American citizens who spend a lifetime paying into it.