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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (194259)	7/18/2012 12:58:44 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543576

Steve- demographics isn't destiny. You just have to keep people working and productive. This isn't rocket science. No one deserves to party on state money forever, or for years and years, not even old people. You fix that, you've pretty much fixed the demographic "problem". It's just a culture of laziness in our older citizens. If they are old and sick, we should care for them. But if they are old and healthy, they should be working- unless they have personally saved enough to retire. I have no doubt with an expanding economy we can keep both young and old working. See? Problem solved. No doubt some people won't want to hear this- but we are already seeing older folks working longer. And imo it's not a bad thing. "Retirement" may be an outdated concept. And I'm ok with that.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (194259)	7/18/2012 6:23:11 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543576

It seems to me, Steve, that Epicure has offered at least a partial solution to the demographics problem, in suggesting that SS and Medicare benefits be means-tested. If this were done, outlays for both programs could be significantly reduced, without throwing millions into poverty. If we couple this with common-sense measures such as eliminating the cap on FICA, I think we might well end up with a far smaller problem than the one you and the people you've been reading are envisioning, if we can't eliminate the problem altogether.