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Politics : The Citizens Manifesto -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (102)	6/15/2005 10:56:25 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 492

re: we should forget about private accounts and go for an increase in the retirement age to 70, an expansion of the income limits to $150K, and/or an increase in the tax rate to 15%. The only problem I have with the 70 age is that a lot of folks work at jobs their whole life that require that you be more physically fit than the average 60+ person. I think the current ages, 62/67 are OK. The change to an average of wage and price inflation for COL adjustment is actually a benefit cut, but not severe. And a part of the reason that SS hasn't been sustainable is that it grows faster than inflation. Why not go up to $200K for the cap? Then you could lower the increase in FICA. re: My biggest problem with the current system is that it will always need to be tinkered with periodically. My guess is that the next tinkering, if we get the current situation resolved, will be to tinker to a lower tax rate. It all depends on the economy... but the echo boomers will enter their prime earning years in about 20-30 years. re: Those are too great a tempation for politicians who are in office just a few years. I'd like to take that money out of their hands permanently. That's a good idea, and maybe should be part of the SS platform. Take apart the "unified budget", and list social security outside of standard budget reporting. Do you extend that to all entitlements, or just SS? (Don't hold me to the details, but I think the "unified budget" was put in during Vietnam, to help hide the cost of the war. What can be done can be undone, and it would keep the government from cooking the books to deceive the Citizens). John