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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (121149)	9/18/2012 9:11:27 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 149317

Mother Jones How Would You Fix Social Security? By Kevin Drum \| Sat Jul. 10, 2010 9:32 AM PDT Responding to yesterday's post showing that high-income men live quite a bit longer than low-income men, an anonymous commenter writes: [1] The data is a very strong argument for removing the ceiling on Social Security payments — that is, collecting Social Security on 100% of wages, no matter how high (while not adjusting benefits). That's because the Social Security system, now, assumes that life expectancy is the same for low-income and high-income workers, while in fact low-income workers collect benefits for far fewer years. So higher-income workers should pay more than they do today. That's an interesting point, no? Fair is fair. (Though you can adjust that 100% to 90% or 95% or whatever floats your social equity boat.) And while we're on the subject, the Congressional Budget Office recently issued a report (here [2]) that includes a nice table that allows you to play the Social Security game from the comfort of your own home. Basically, CBO estimates that Social Security is out of balance by 0.6% of GDP over the next 75 years, which means you need to come up with a basket of changes from their list that adds up to 0.6%. So choose away and build your own Social Security rescue plan! And when you're done with that relatively trivial exercise, it'll be time to move on to Medicare. Unfortunately, that's a wee bit harder and no handy little table will provide the answers. Which, of course, is why people prefer spending their time on Social Security. It's mostly grandstanding, but if they ever actually fixed it they'd have no choice but to tackle genuinely difficult problems. And what kind of moron gets elected to Congress to do that? Source URL: motherjones.com Links: [1] motherjones.com [2] cbo.gov

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (121149)	9/19/2012 2:07:15 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 149317

WR, do you realize where the "interest" comes from? The government lends money to itself and promises to pay itself back "with interest." Meanwhile the government continues borrowing more and more money by the trillions. Goodbye AAA credit rating. By the way, the current beneficiaries are getting much more than they put in, even when interest is accounted for. That's because they were never expected to live as long as they are now. The default remedies when the SS "trust fund" runs dry is to either raise payroll taxes by 33%, cut benefits by 25%, reduce the number of beneficiaries (e.g. raise the retirement age), or a combination of all three. The year when that is expected to occur is now 2033, which is pulled in from the original estimate of 2041. But I'm sure you don't give a fsck as long as you're dead before that time comes. Tenchusatsu