Social security is not socialism but it needs to be privatized

You really need to do your homework.

The government has no means of saving the excess Social Security collected from payroll taxes so it "borrows" those funds and issues Treasury Certificates that make up the Trust Fund. That money goes INTO the general fund and then when the Treasuries are redeemed, it comes OUT of the general fund to repay that debt.
Gonna pretend you didn't understand that?

 

I said I'd be fine with a choice for future generations, go the traditional SS route or go with private annuities or a combination of both. How do I deny anybody anything? You on the other hand want to force people into a government run program financed by a new tax on the rich so it just might be you who is the rigid ideologue that wants to deny people choice.

 

And once again demographics have flipped since the 1930s and that system is unsustainable. Gonna pretend you don't understand that?

 

Then change the system. See how easy that is

 

So in some sense current taxpayers have to come up with the shortfall in Social Security. Then why is it misleading to say "Social Security costs the taxpayer..." or "The Trust Fund is just full of a bunch of IOUs"?

Social Security advocates always acted as though the accounting of it somehow redeemed it and changed many critics' intuition. To me, this just confirms that the Trust Fund is just full of IOUs.

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Well it's hard to change the system if some people don't even think there's a problem.

 

Your "choice" is to ruin your kids' retirement

Nice

 

Play word games all you want but the bottom line is that Social Security is a valuable program that has been providing a decent retirement for this nation's elderly for almost 100 years and will continue to do so as long as people like you don't have their way

 

Oh, I forgot! If one does not completely agree with a historical figure's political views, one cannot quote him him or her regarding any issue under any circumstances! You caught me!

And if you didn't catch my drift, that was biting sarcasm.

Since you think you are so slick, why don't you substantively respond to what I directed at you instead of making a weak dig about something that is completely unrelated?

 

Oh brother. You guys confirm exactly what the critics accuse it of. I don't really think that's word games.

The worst part is that we got bogged down in this huge accounting debate, when the facts on the ground are the following--

1) Current taxpayers have to come up with the money to pay current retirees. There is no money in the Social Security Trust fund, only IOUs. (Even if you want to refer to them as something else, like T-bills...)

2) There are no savings in the Social Security Trust Fund.

Imagine we write a new law, called "vehicular homicide." We define that roughly as purposefully murdering someone with your car. Then, one day someone comes along and says, "Oh, vehicular homicide? That's murder."

You retort, "No, you're playing word games."

We can call it T-bills or whatever, but I was under the impression there was some money saved in the Trust Fund and you guys are saying-- as the critics allege-- that that money has been borrowed, not saved, and that there's nothing in the Social Security trust fund besides T-bills.

 

So apparently you're NOT a follower of Paine?

 

I already explained in very simple terms how Social Security is funded and why and how little it would take to "fix" it...and you continually spin off into the ozone

Yes...you're playing word games.

Just admit you are idelogically opposed to Social Security and move along

 

I'm definitely ideologically opposed to Social Security. But I also think it's a pretty unsustainable program, but it's mostly it in conjunction with Medicare and Medicaid (mostly Medicaid). My profile picture shows a graph you can get right from the CBO showing that these three entitlement programs will exceed ALL federal revenues by around the year 2030.

Again, I think you guys lose this argument on how it's funded because it confirms everything the critics say about Social Security.

 

Giving them a choice between government run SS and a private annuity company or a combination of both ruins their retirement how? Care to explain that reasoning?

 

I'm a young adult. I would prefer to "opt out" of Social Security and neither pay payroll taxes, nor collect benefits. I am quite sure I can invest my money better than the federal government, so it wouldn't be ruining my retirement.

(Worst case scenario, I'll put it into Social Security. But I might do better!)

 

He has been cornered with facts and logic and has nothing left but to lash out like a wounded animal

 

I was genuinely expecting there to be a little more nuance to this whole thing, since every time you discuss Social Security they want to go into the accounting of it. I thought the accounting of it would help their case.

 

They lose in honest debate and always end up name calling and accusing you of wanting to hurt people. It encourages me that not everyone in your generation is a snowflake though, you must have good parents. It's kind of like my generation, we weren't all hippies but we are the hippie generation.

 

I still need to hear from the other guy. He likes Social Security but disagreed with Lesh on how it was managed.

I appreciate your kind comments.

 

The US has a very progressive tax system. The only thing keeping the marginal tax rate for top income earners at around 50% instead of 65+% is the fact that payroll taxes only go to $110k. If you raise the cap, you're putting us in the category of the socialist European welfare states.

I don't think that's a good thing, you may think it is.

 

So apparently you DON'T know how to respond substantively?

No, I don't agree with Thomas Paine on every single political issue. But again, I don't see how that is relevant as I merely quoted him one time in this entire discussion.

Why don't you stick to the topic and respond to my previous post that addressed YOUR claims specifically? Or would you prefer to engage in a ticky-tack argument about famous quotes?

 

One of my favorite Thomas Paine quotes:

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Sounds like he'd want the government spending 40% of GDP.

 

In its inception SS made sense. At its essence it was a Ponzi scheme but it had the benefit of mandatory enrollment and a seeming never ending supply of new people signing up as the population grew. It was assumed at the time that this would go on forever but that hasn't worked out. As the country shifted from a largely agrarian uneducated, unsophisticated and relatively poor society to the educated, sophisticated largely urban and wealthy society we have now the demographics have completely changed and there is no longer an ever expanding source of new enrollment to pay current retiree's benefits. It's a model T system in an f250 world and just can't keep up.

 

Even when it was established, you only started receiving benefits at the average life expectancy. You were basically expected to be dead before you could receive benefits.

 

Good point and all part of the shifting demographics. We live far longer now.

 

We've been through the "shifting demographics" and it was debunked. Life expentency of 100 in 20 years?

Please.

And all the rest of this has been nothing but ideological nonsense attacking a program that has worked for 100 years and will continue to do so as long as people don't buy the BS people like the above are peddling.