To: TimF who wrote (124 ) 6/16/2005 6:58:04 PM From: Road Walker Read Replies (1) | Respond to Tim, thanks for contributing.I don't think its a good idea to base the whole retirement systems on a small and shrinking minority (older workers whose jobs require a high degree of physical fitness). Such jobs used to be a lot more common but they are becoming less common. Fewer and fewer Americans work hard manual labor as a career. deserve to retire at 65, if they want to. Most have been working 40+ years; it can take a toll. It would barely be noticed by the very wealthy, but it would be a big tax increase for the upper middle and lower upper classes. They would really take a hit. If you where going to greatly increase the cap it might make sense to go even bigger. Increase it to $1million or $2million and reduce the percentage increase. final solution to SS. All the shortfall (and surplus) estimates are based on pure guesses. We review the discretionary budget every year and make adjustments, certainly we could review the non-discretionary budget every 5-10 years, and make adjustments. It's not a "fix it now or die" situation... in fact I suspect that we will overshoot on the revenue that is actually needed. The problem with eliminating the unified budget is that when SS starts spending more than it is taken in (15 or 20 years from now), a "non-unified" budget will make the deficits seem smaller then they really are. Ideally both figures should be considered but politicians and the media usually want one number to toss around.
