« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Half of the country wants out of Social Security.

"Where have you gone, Franklin Delano? A nation starts this Ponzi scheme to rue*..."

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 22nd, 2009 at 09:22 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

49% want the chance to opt out, 37% don’t. This was the sentence that jumped out at me:

A majority of voters under 50 say workers should be allowed to opt out. A plurality of those over 50 disagree.

Speaking as a voter under 50, let me say that both the under-50 and the over-50 positions make perfect sense. I’ve been putting money into Social Security for a quarter-century – and I don’t expect to see a penny of it, a quarter-century from now. Somebody retiring fifteen years from now? …maybe. Enough to roll the bones, at least. For myself, I’m tired of tossing good money after bad.

Meanwhile, the article indicates that “[o]ne of President Obama’s top economic advisers signaled this week that the president will try to reform Social Security before the end of his first term.”

Not with a Democratic Congress, he won’t.

Most of those short-sighted people applauding there in that clip are still there.

*”Woo woo woo.”

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Tags: ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • RedBeard

    Social Security is the1st Commandment of the Book of Liberalism. Thou shalt not tamper with it, lest ye be thrown into the lake of fire as a heretic.

    So what if it’s broken, morally bankrupt, fiscally idiotic? Just keep on throwing tax dollars at it, but don’t you dare suggest changing it.

    What’s that you say? Libs HAVE, over the years, changed it from what it was supposed to be into a massive government controlled retirement scheme? Well, never mind all that. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

  • redneck_hippie
  • cosmicgnome

    Liberals truly are severely disturbed people.

  • izoneguy

    I would rather stop paying today if I could.
    If they could slow down the entitlement train enough for
    folks to jump off then it might be saved from total collapse.
    But I doubt it. People are living longer & longer.
    My suggestion is to find a good retirement planner and do not
    even put SS in the equation. I look at my contributions today as paying back my father in a small way. We can never give back the people that came before us – enough.

  • Brian Hibbert

    Too bad he didn’t push it harder in the primaries.

  • VinceP1974

    I want out of SS.

    Especially because I dont want to pay a cent for the damn 60s Boomers. They ruined this country, let them suffer.

  • RedBeard

    So… all Boomers are awful people?

    Sheesh. I didn’t know. No one ever tells me anything.

  • redneck_hippie

    When I hear His Lightness spouting “saving social security” I hear “death panel” and “rationing end of life care”. See? No problem, all the socialists have to do is follow Michael Steele’s advice, “Up or down, baby.”

  • VinceP1974

    Sure .. every single one of them.

    Do you approach every generalization with stupidity?

  • bobojake

    did not have UNION Jobs or Government Jobs but the real middle class that put their children through college without government doleouts get just a little social security money that helped make their older years a little bit more enjoyable?

    If you want to see a real Pontzi scheme look at obamas’ spread the weath.

    I’ll take social security any day.

  • derhoosier

    This approach is solid advice, IMHO. I’m 56 and, I’d say at least 20 years ago, probably more, I took the attitude that any retirement calculations I made should not include social security because it would surely collapse before I reached retirement age. That approach has stood me in good stead. Depending on how badly Barney, Chris and The One destroy the currency I may or may not be able to retire relatively soon. But it’s a stone cold fact that if I’d ever factored SS into it, there’s no way. I’d for sure end up dying in the traces like an old mule.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    We probably can’t withdraw. I doubt it will ever again be solvent. I imagine COngress will do a combination of 3 things to jerry-rig SS for another 10 or so years.

    1) Higher payroll taxes and perhaps a VAT or NRST.
    2) Higher retirement age.
    3) Means testing.

    No fixes on the horizon, just a crud-load of duct tape.

  • Scope

    http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Fred_Thompson_Social_Security.htm

    The beauty of Fred’s plan was that he recognized that with any reform there would be pain. His plan spread that pain evenly amongst the age groups. Obama believes in that socialist mantra, something about from those that make it, to those that take it.

  • Scope

    http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Fred_Thompson_Social_Security.htm

    The beauty of Fred’s plan was that he recognized that with any reform there would be pain. His plan spread that pain evenly amongst the age groups. Obama believes in that socialist mantra, something about from those that make it, to those that take it.

  • Scope

    Yes we know, it’s all Bush’s fault. What an idiot you are.

  • Scope

    Yes we know, it’s all Bush’s fault. What an idiot you are.

  • Scope

    The Liberals will never go for it. Obamas top economic gasbags just ate another can of beans, and forgot to take their beano.

  • Scope

    The Liberals will never go for it. Obamas top economic gasbags just ate another can of beans, and forgot to take their beano.

  • Brian Hibbert

    The money coming in is used to pay “dividends” to previous “investors”. The continuation of the scheme depends on an ever growing pool of new investors and/or increasing the investment rate of those who are paying in to cover the ever increasing outflows.

    Obama’s spread the wealth is pure redistribution rather than a Ponzi scheme.

    I’d rather do away with both programs than take the current Social Security program**. Both programs are destructive and doomed to failure. SS is just a slower process than the rest of the redistribution programs.

    ** Doing away with Social Security has to be a phased process. We’ve had millions of people paying into the program for decades and gave them a promise of payback. We have to make the program at least attempt to fulfill the promises.

  • janis

    I’m one of those damn 60′s Boomers, dear. I’ve paid in every year since I was 18 and that was 40 years ago. So pardon me if I want to collect some of that back before Obama’s minions pull the plug on me.

  • DavidSage

    The Democrats will obstruct any reform until we hit a wall. It’s simply unaffordable, even with a big-spending liberal government.

    My guess is social security will turn into a program like welfare that will provide only basics like food stamps, government housing etc. for only the neediest. It will no longer be a “pension” that everybody who contributes gets back.

  • Xasteius
  • jeffreywturner

    I would much rather have social security benefits phase out for people with high earnings during retirement than remove the cap on the earnings while they are working.

    Remember, your benefits are based on your earnings, so simply removing the cap is only a bandaid solution until the current workers retire and would accordingly have to be paid huge benefits.

    Phasing out benefits on high retirement earners is a permanent solution however, because the ceailings can be adjusted as needed to maintain solvency.

    And let’s face it, it’s called Social “Security”, not Social “Vacation Money”. It is meant to provide security, not an extra drop in the bucket for people who already have a six-figure income during retirement.

    The reason the Dems will never accept this though, is that as soon as this is enacted, Social Security will become a welfare program, which is MUCH easier to cut, politically, than a retirement program that EVERYONE is in. The Democrats know this, which is why they will fight to make sure everyone keeps drawing some sort of benefit, even if they are wealthy. They really want to maintain this idea that we are “all in it together” when it comes to Social Security.

  • jeffreywturner

    I wish they would hurry up and make SS a program like you describe, because the Government should not be in the business of providing retirement income for everyone.

  • IJB

    Ditto Medicare.

    The (only) way to solve the ‘entitlement’ issue is to ‘de-entitlement’ them, and shift them down to safety net programs for the poor only (every one else will have to rely on their own 401k’s and HSA’s).

    There are obvious political reasons why the democrats are resistant to this.

    Ironically, the hyper-inflation that Obama’s radical deficit spending is introducing may very well be the catalyst that finally brings about the political will to ‘de-entitlement’ of SS & Medicare and fully ‘means test’ them.

    Wouldn’t *that* be poetic justice?!

  • IJB

    See my post above – Obama-caused hyper-inflation is like to be the very thing that brings about the political will to down-shift SS & Medicare.

  • Achance

    for quite a few more years then the Country can go ahead and fall apart because it has become pretty evident that there aren’t enough coming along behind us with the sense to throw pee out of a boot with instructions on the heel to keep the Country going.

    It wasn’t Boomers who enacted New Deal and Great Society legislation; the so-called “Greatest Generation” can take responsibility for that, though they won’t. The Communists had thoroughly penetrated government, academia, entertainment, media, and many industries before we Boomers were even a gleam in Daddy’s eye.

    We are guilty of coming of age in a time of unprecedented affluence and of having had a pretty good time with that affluence. Unless, however, we slid into a nice spot in government, academia, entertainment, and media, we came into our most productive years as the Country was going to Hell trying to deal with the social and financial costs of failed Democrat policies in the ’70s. Most of us were mugged by the reality of hyperinflation and extortionary interest rates as we tried to get a home and raise a family. So, it wasn’t Boomers who elected HopeyChangey; we knew better. So, talk to those young voters, those minority voters, and those divorced or never married women who voted for the one. How you liking this non-Boomer government so far?

    As for me, I really don’t much care since my wife doesn’t even have her forty quarters and the only reason I do is that I’ve maintained a good bit of self-employment; we don’t need social security. My great fear is that the first President elected by voters younger than me will manage to confiscate either by direct action or through inflation all that I’ve worked for. Six months of Comrade Obama has already reduced the value of most of my assets to essentially zero since you can’t get the credit to buy much of anything in the HopeyChangey economy. Yep, you young folks and your young communist President are doing a heck of a job so far. I think maybe we Boomers need to take the car keys back.

  • bs

    If you don’t want to be misunderstood, don’t say idiotic things. It’s a very simple formula.

  • janis

    These same ones screaming about how worthless we boomers are are the same ones who tend to borrow money from us that won’t get paid back, move back in and then out of our houses if permitted when their finances go bust (usually from overspending and stupid personal decisions), and then have the gall to complain about how “privileged” the boomer generation has been, how we’ve screwed things up all by ourselves, and how selfish we are to boot…..

    ….while standing there with their hands outstretched for even more of our filthy, but convenient, lucre.

  • Achance

    friend of our oldest, practically lived at our house when they were in school here. His family is a mess, Dad committed suicide, mom left here with a new man. He’s got that precious Certificate of Degree of Indian Birth, so he has never paid for much of anything in his life, including his college education. He’s here “this summer” working as an Indian Preference hire in a job he couldn’t possibly qualify for if he had to actually compete and he wants to save as much of “his” money as he can for when he goes back to school for his Masters at some indeterminate time.

    Anyway, something went wrong with his living arrangements – I’ve come to suspect that what went wrong was his drinking and dragging his girlfriend home – and he was faced with the horrible prospect of actually having to rent a place. Our oldest called and asked if his friend could stay with us for “a couple of weeks” while he found a new place. Well, it’s been pretty close to a couple of weeks now, I’m not seeing any signs of his looking for a place to live, and he seems to be getting awfully comfortable here judging by the fact that as I type this morning, his girlfriend’s shoes are in my living room.

    So, I guess I’m going to have to be an awful old grown up today and tell him we ain’t putting up with him much longer. Then he can get together with his peers tonight at one of the young punk watering holes and they can discuss how awful and unfeeling we old folk are. And to make it worse, the kid has a college diploma and is functionally illiterate; you couldn’t buy an intelligent conversation from him.

  • Old_Crow

    I’m pretty confident I’ll never see a dime.

    I wouldn’t mind Social Security turning into a program limited to the poor, but ONLY if the taxes collected were reduced by 50 to 70% AND if all the money collected was fenced off from the politicians, i.e. the government couldn’t borrow against it.

  • RedBeard

    Or so said Thomas Jefferson, in just about so many words:

    “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

    Well, Jefferson and every other Founding Father.

  • Scope

    to be just a couple of weeks. Empty the refrig, and he will be sure to find better digs post haste!

  • Scope

    to be just a couple of weeks. Empty the refrig, and he will be sure to find better digs post haste!

  • janis

    their apparently eon-long learning curve. I bet your guest will never stop and think that “there’s a pattern here somewhere. I wonder if it’s me?”

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    Just put a combination lock on it and don’t give him the combination. No need for Art to make it harder for him and SWMBO to get something to eat. And hide the crowbars, Art!

  • From ME to You
  • DavidSage

    In some ways I’m against means testing because I think that’s unfair to people who have contributed their whole lives to a system that was promised to be a pension plan. What I don’t want is a system that I still have to pay the same amount towards, but I won’t ever see a penny back because I’m too “rich.”

    Social Security will be easier to kill completely if it’s means tested. If only a small segment of the population qualifies, the majority will no longer want to contribute, and rightfully so.

    My ideal solution would be a system where if you can show contributions to an IRA, 401k etc, you can opt out of the social security payroll tax. I do think the government needs to force people to have a financial plan for their retirement. I know too many people that don’t have a penny saved, so I do unfortunately think the government has to force people to contribute to something.

  • Spartan4Life

    Means testing is just another liberal fix to a broken program. It really points out the idiocy of the whole program. So, what you’re saying is that everyone should pay into Social Security but those who are successful and save for their own retirement should be penalized and those that squander their savings should be subsidized? That’s ridiculous.

    These programs should be blown up and redesigned for a modern global economy with an emphasis on people providing for their own welfare. It will take 3-4 generations to wean people off social insecurity but the sooner the better.

  • Xasteius

    The life expectancy is increasing in the US. Raising the limit by 5 years could ease some pressure off of the system. And frankly, the amount of social security that you do receive is a joke as far as sustainable living (both sets of grandparents are in their 70s and still work, one full-time and one part-time).

  • Achance

    to end it. It HAS to have ever more money coming in. If you cut it off at some date specific, it then has no more money coming in from “tax” money. Of course, then there isn’t enough money to pay the benefit without direct appropriations, large ones, to subsidize the payments.

    We’re dealing with that here with our public employee retirement scheme. We switched from a defined benefit to a defined contribution system in ’06. Consequently, no more money is coming in to the legacy defined benefit system and the Legislature has to fund both much larger employer contributions and demand more from the polisubs and also, mostly as the result of market losses, directly subsidize the Plan. It is a tough transition to try to do it without reducing either the eligible participants, the benefits, or both.

  • Spartan4Life

    Sometimes I can’t believe what I read here. You are taking the liberal point of view that people are too stupid to think for themselves.

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    Bernie Madoff is spending the rest of his life in jail for running a very similar type scheme. Like his, SS depends on a constant influx of new investments/investors to keep it viable. Unlike his, SS is legal with the blessing of the Federal government.

  • DavidSage

    I’m trying to head off more government.

    There is definitely a large part of the population that won’t do the right thing, and then they become an even bigger liability. I think it’s naive to believe every American has the intelligence to properly save for retirement.

    What do you tell a person who is 75 years old that hasn’t saved any money for their retirement and can’t pay their bills. You can’t tell them to get a job, they aren’t able to work. What happens is the taxpayer will end up taking care of these people anyway, so a program that “forces” them to make these arrangements is preferable. What I want is a system that pushes people in the right direction, but ultimately empowers them to be able to take care of themselves without society having to bail them out.

    It’s sort of like when the government changed the laws regarding the leverage ratios for banks. People said a bank should be able to lend as much money as it wanted, it’s not the government’s business. What ended up happening is the taxpayer ended up bailing out these banks, with even more government control and oversight. The government now basically owns the financial industry because we thought banks were smart enough to make the right decisions.

  • Spartan4Life

    Damn, dude are you forgetting that is your money they took(at the point of a gun, no less!)?

    Don’t let your brain go soft and fall for these liberal band aids to a failed system. Raising the age is no different than a death panel. It’s just a way for them to steal more money and hope a few more people die so they won’t have to pay them back.

  • 6eorge Jetson

  • Spartan4Life

    Why not offer people like me who are not really counting on Social Security a one time buyout at some reduced rate of return? If it was even close to fair my wife and I would both take it. We would be off the countries books and you would have a have a huge infusion of cash into the economy.

  • Spartan4Life

    People took care of themselves. Families cared for their elders. Communities provided resources for those in need. We don’t need a monolithic entity telling us what to do.

  • izoneguy

    You can insure some of the people all of the time, and insure all of the people some of the time, but you can not insure all of the people all of the time.

    Looks like we are headed back to the days of 1809 medical care.

  • IJB

    The point is throwing out these programs, SS & Medicare, entirely will *NEVER* happen. (At the least, it won’t happen in *one* step…)

    De-entitlizing these programs is the necessary first step. After that, it may be possible, down the road, to phase them out.

  • DavidSage

    That’s the biggest reason why this system is in so much trouble. When Social Security was enacted, most people died before they were eligible. Now people are drawing off of it for decades after they stop working.

    Believe me, I would love it if we lived in a world where everyone was responsible, but it’s just not the case. I share the view that it shouldn’t be the government’s business, but their are consequences that are ultimately self-defeating.

    The problem is, society is not going to turn its back on millions of old people, even irresponsible ones that didn’t save their money for retirement. I personally would have no problem telling a large swath of the population, “too bad”, but I understand the political reality of the situation. If the government doesn’t force the irresponsible ones into making arrangements for their retirement, it’s going to eventually going to have to take care of these same people.

  • Brian Hibbert

    And it’s going to cost us money to undo the system without completely screwing all the people who paid into it for decades. But it must be done and the sooner done, the less it will cost. As painful as it would be, it’s still better to do the unwind than to wait for the complete collapse.

    I don’t think I’m arguing with you here, just fleshing out our agreement that it’s going to be a painful process to move to a more sustainable system.

    I liked Fred’s plan because it allowed a phased and voluntary move from the Ponzi scheme to an individual investment account based systems. It weaned us off the SS teat rather than making a clean cut.

  • Xasteius

    I reach retirement (I’m 26), and I honestly haven’t put that much into it. This could be a legitmate ‘scale back’ measure; I think that the death panel comparison is not adequate. #3 and #2 could go a long ways to gradually getting rid of SS and Medicare, as IJB suggested above.

    BTW, 6eorge Jetson, love the pictures.

  • JoeG

    I’ve put 20 years into SS. I don’t expect to see anything 25 years from now.

    I’d rather see it completely blown up and avoid 25 more years of thievery.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    I’m not expecting to get anything. I’d prefer a change, but I don’t see it happening. Even when the R’s are in power we see government expansion, only at a slower pace. People complain about handouts all the time, but aren’t about to give up theirs.

  • Praying

    the quirky habit of the libs doing an about face depending on just which party is in the white house. Remember the libs were against the war, until Obama arrived. Cindy Sheehan is protesting, but all you hear from the left is…um…well, nothing! So it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit to see them support this one – and give their guy a gold ring. He’s gonna need it after he gets pummeled on Obamacare (maybe we should call it congresscare, since Obama handed the writing of the bill off to his minions in the house and senate) and cap and tax…..

  • informado

    There you go.

  • VinceP1974

    Did the Boomers teach the next generation about Liberty and Freedom and the Constitution?

    My generation, the one after the Boomers, was the first one to be aborted, the first one to be left at home alone, yadda yadda yadda (I’m not whining, i’m describing)

    That generation lived a life of selfish indulgence and look at the state of the country and culture.

    If SSI and Medicare go broke this decade then I’m fine with that. I still have most of my life ahead of me, and I’m planning on taking care of myself. That is if this society will be able to function in the aftermath of the Worst Generation

    [disclaimer for those adults who are slow] If you didn’t contribute to those problems then i’m obvviously not talking about you.

  • Achance

    and younger are ignorant, lazy, self-absorbed, and generally useless, or, as I put it above, can’t pour pee out of a boot with the instructions on the heel.

  • IJB
  • Achance

    My stay down there a couple of weeks ago has changed all my opinions about my fellow man and expecially about all my younger betters who were just dying for me to retire or die so they could run things.

    I want all credentialing to be eliminated. I want all safety warnings and safety devices to be eliminated. I want the warning labels off EVERYTHING. I want the seatbelts and air bags and crush zones out of cars. I want everybody to be able to do whatever they damned well please.

    And in a year or two, this will be a much better place to live because the TOTALLY USELESS STUPID PEOPLE will have eliminated themselves. Unfortunately, there’ll be some collateral damage, but I think we’ll be the better for it.

  • DavidS1787

    for people under 50. They will probably raise the retirement age to 100 to make sure nobody ever gets their money!

  • IJB
  • VinceP1974

    And who’s fault that Gen X is like that? Could it be the Generation W (Worst) raised them that way?

  • janis

    We slow adults learned a long time ago that pointing the finger of blame doesn’t really solve any problems, nor does it contribute to productive conversations.

    We slow adults suggest you get over yourself and count on the fact that in years to come, your progeny (should anyone take pity on you and produce some) will be more than happy to take your money and tell you what a loser you are, too! Isn’t that a happy thought?

  • Achance

    to straighten things out. My money’s on me. I’m reasonably certain that you wouldn’t last long in my world.

  • mbecker908

    obviously doesn’t count, it must the fault of the aliens.

  • markafeller

    Look at your paycheck and note it is a tax and also understand that is what it is by law. It is not a insurance program as most people think as supreme court challenges derailed that idea when they tried to set it up. The lawyers said it was tax for the general welfare of the public. So what one gets for S.S. is in fact a gift. It could be a case of cat food for a month as by congress it would be legal. But as a direct tax it has to proportioned over the public or it would not be legal.

    When it first started for two years a person would receive if retired a single check. In it was all the that person put into it with out any interest. All your employers share was taken by the government. It by intent was a program at first to raise funding to make FDR happy. That was changed over the years.

  • jeffreywturner

    No more than your car insurance “penalizes” you by not paying you when you don’t have an accident.

    Your car insurance only pays when you “need” it (ie: when you have an accident”.

    SS should be the same way, that is, it pays when you “need” it.

    Try to think of this not as a “good” idea, and rather as the “least bad” idea, when the alternative is raising taxes.

  • mbecker908

    #4. Kill the old people.

  • jeffreywturner

    But, then again, as has been pointed out above, society did exist prior to SS.

    There is such a thing as charity you know. I know it seems an outdated idea when everyone wants governments to fix everything, but there are other alternatives, and who know, without 12.4% of our income being confiscated in this rip-off, we would probably see more charity.