The reason for Social Security was never to give people money so they can retire and play 18 rounds of golf with their grandchildren’s money.

Social Security was established as a safety net for when you are no longer able to provide for yourself. It started off with two main parts.
1. Social Security Survivors Insurance was set up to provide for your dependants if you died. This is simple life insurance. Three guys in my college dorm were receiving Survivors payments.
2. Social Security Disability Insurance was set up to provide for you and your dependants if you were no longer able to work. I had a boss who had brain damage in a car crash. He could no longer work. A Physician had to certify him disabled.
3. Some IDIOT decided when Social Security started that it would be easier to “simply declare all people over the age of 65 disabled”. Social Security is paid to people who are too old to work. They are considered disabled. It would be too costly to have each person certified as no longer able to work. The foolish reason they chose 65 was because at the time it was the average life expectancy. Most people would never qualify under the age clause because they would be dead already. Those who did would die after a very few years. Most work was hard labor. Driving a mule drawn plow was hard work. Very few people could do it past the age of 65. Now the average life expectancy is 78. Today most work is sedentary. Most people are able to work long past 78-let alone 65. People collect Social Security for 13 years longer than they NEED it. This is bankrupting our grandchildren. If a coal miner has black lung disease at the age of 55, he is entitled to Social Security. If you want to retire at the age of 55 and play golf all day, you are free to do it-with YOUR savings. You should be ashamed to saddle your grandchildren with debt for your leisure just because you are 65. Can you imagine a 65-year-old man taking out a loan with his two year old grandson as cosigner? Should the kid be responsible to repay the loan when grandpa dies?

A Frenchman one said: “Democracy will last until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesses from the public purse”. We have figured out we can vote ourselves money from our grandchildren. The Federal debt is staggering. It is not only the official 9 trillion dollars. It is the promissory notes for entitlements. The unaccounted liabilities are very much greater. Some say more than 30 trillion dollars. We are bankrupt. We have bankrupted our grandchildren. You can’t force your grandchildren to pay for your retirement. They could not vote on it. Talk about taxation without representation! It is a house of cards. China holds enormous quantities of our debt. They use it to blackmail us. So do the Arabs. We are no longer free. We have sold our grandchildren into slavery. You think that working eight months of the year for the government is freedom? We endure a 35% federal tax rate, an 11 % state income tax rate, a 15 % FICA tax, 8% sales tax, property taxes and countless other fees. 69% and growing.

Almost all of the money we have paid into Social Security has been spent already. It was paid for SS Survivors and Disability payments. The money is gone. The lieyer politicians spent it. In 25 years there will only be two workers supporting each retired person. These workers can’t pay the staggering Social Security payments to retirees. They can’t pay the interest on the Federal debt. Who will pay the Social Security retirement checks if young workers can opt out of Social Security? It is a Ponzi scheme. It will collapse. This will be the end of the United States. Our government will collapse. For more see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme “As a political metaphor” ¾ of the way down.

Let us be practical. I am not opposed to life insurance. I am not opposed to disability insurance. I am opposed to a “retirement age” of 65. We can fix Social Security simply by raising the “retirement age” to 78. This may be phased-in over 20 or 30 years. Doing it abruptly would never be politically practical. Eliminating the age altogether would be better.

I wouldn't mind it going up to 70, but you're forgetting one thing...

All the people who can't wait to retire, to collect that "free money" (which is really coming from the next generation). They figure, if they had to "blow" their money to pay for their grandparents, then their children better "blow" their money on THEM.

Why not 112? If we're expected to pay into it then we have reason to expect to get our money back out of it. And 78 won't come close to reimbursing what's been paid in.

__________________
Obama The Naive: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.’’ The Iranian response? “The Great Satan now has a black face.’’

Yeh, I can just picture the enthusiasm on the face of Eddy( the plumber) and Ken ( the roofer) when they hear that they might have to ruin their knees for another 25 or 30 years before collecting the soc. sec. to which they have contributed for 30 years, already!

The primary reason for the shortfall is increased life expectancies and lower birth rates with little adjustment to the age at which benefits are received. The actuary reports continue to assume LE increases with no further retirement age adjustments. The shortfall under those assumptions is inevitable. SS/Medicare simply reveal symptoms of the larger problem of rapidly increasing life expectancies associated with the industrial/technology age. This problem wouldn't go away in the absence of social insurance. SS simply smoothes out the problems.

http://ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR07/V_demographic.html#wp151333

78 isn't necessary to fix the shortfall. It would in fact create a huge surplus. Instead, simply move the retirement age up a few years. The latest actuary report states that a reduction in 13% of benefits is all that is needed to put the system under balance for the next 75 years. If the average life expectancy at 67 is about 16 years, 3 years lost represents about 19%.

http://ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html

__________________
"You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."

- President Barack Obama, 8/28/08

"To the average American who’s struggling, we’re in some other stratosphere. We’re the party of Big Business and Big Oil and the rich."

- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R)

Budget surplus inherited by Bush: $236 billion (CBO, 2000)

Budget deficit inherited by Obama: $1,667 billion (CBO projection, 3/2009)

Good statistics. But Social Security is not the major problem. Medicare will exceed its allowed 45% funding by general taxes in 4 years. Raising the Social Security age also raises the Medicare age.

__________________
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
Alexis de Tocqueville

No, there's no need to raise the SS age.

Just make it illegal for the (*)(*)(*)(*) politicians to keep raiding the trust fund.

That'll solve the problem. Trust me. It will.

This is a stupid idea. Many people will never live to see what they put into it. Instead of ripping people off of their savings, here's a better idea:

Because social security contribution rates used to so low, most old folks now run through their actual contributions in 3 years, but some collect for a lot longer. Also very wealthy oldsters collect it.

I suggest a means test: For people with greater than some specific net worth, they get only what they've put in, and then payments stop.

__________________
Blade: "more educated and literate people than Justabubba"

Justabubba: "that would include everyone"

http://politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=27847

What they put in adjusted for inflation , plus a negotiated rate of return. That would be fair.

__________________
"When I give to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, -they call me a Communist"

--Dom Haldey Camara

Whatever plan has the fewest number of old people starving to death or eating catfood, I'll go for.