Please focus on the solution and not playing the blame game!
Our national debt is roughly $9 trillion and programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc put our obligated debt closer to $60 trillion. If something is not changed soon, future generations will be working just to pay the national debt with nothing left to live on OR these programs will completely collapse leaving those relying on them with nothing. My overall goal is to provide for those now depending on Social Security to make ends meet.
A couple thoughts, taken individually or collectively, are:
- Stop additional people from collecting Social Security. Those nearing retirement can work longer to save individually.
- Remove those fully capable of self support off collecting Social Security–for example those with a net worth over $2M
Thoughts? Additional ideas?
Please focus on the solution and not playing the blame game!
Our national debt is roughly $9 trillion and programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc put our obligated debt closer to $60 trillion. If something is not changed soon, future generations will be working just to pay the national debt with nothing left to live on OR these programs will completely collapse leaving those relying on them with nothing. My overall goal is to provide for those now depending on Social Security to make ends meet.
A couple thoughts, taken individually or collectively, are:
- Stop additional people from collecting Social Security. Those nearing retirement can work longer to save individually.
- Remove those fully capable of self support off collecting Social Security–for example those with a net worth over $2M
Thoughts? Additional ideas?
Great job focusing on the issue!
Sorry about reposting the question 
ideas I got from you…
- Allow people to opt out (don't see why we can't allow this)
- Allow privatized accounts (assumes some risk but again, don't see why we can't do this)
-Increase retirement eligibility age (great alternative to simply stopping people from getting on)
-raise limits on income eligible for SS tax (good way to add additional funds for SS)
-create "lock box" for SS (don't know why this hasn't been done already!)
-put politicians' retirement in same fund (this would force them to take better care of SS)
Any more ideas?!
Related posts:
7 responses so far ↓
1 avail_skillz // Jun 29, 2008
Ummm quit worrying so much about everyone else outside our borders, and quit spending and sending so much money to them. Problem solved!
Incidentally, it would also fix gas prices.
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~jfrankel/CampbellM&CPnberNov.pdf
2 Frank // Jun 29, 2008
drastically cut the discretionary military budget, revamp our tax code to get rid of loop holes that the rich and corporations take advantage of to avoid paying into the US treasury. Hard work and skimping. Hoping we make it through the population bulge of the baby boomers which is top heavy for the next decade or two.
3 Matt // Jun 29, 2008
I would suggest allowing people to opt out of Social Security. The government can keep what I already paid, just don't take any more. The problem is that we are paying now for people who are on Social Security now, which is not how the program was supposed to work. The plan to privatize Social Security is a step in the right direction. It's unfortunate that the politicians weren't willing to get their greedy hands off that pot of money.
4 Nightwind // Jun 29, 2008
I think President Bush had a great Idea when he introduced the idea of opting out of the Social Security program and setting up a private account for people.
Granted, that idea kind of wanes now since i'm sure with the up and down of wall street that people have lost alot of money in mutual funds and other type of supposed "invest and forget" investments.
But who's to say that the money couldn't be like a Money Market account where it earns a set minimum interest and the interest rate is set by the market ?
We all knew eventually that the system would fail because its like a pyramid scheme. It also doesn't help that politicians have been raiding the funds for decades and replacing the funds with iou's.
iou's don't earn interest, and the government doesn't have the money to repay the fund.
No matter how you look at it, its a big scam, because even if the system did continue to work, you still might not get all the money back that you put into it since the money you receive from social security effects your taxes, is effected by any income or pensions you have, etc.
Not to mention that the liberal democrat congress has tried to pass measures to allow illegal immigrants access to our social security system.
When is this government corruption going to stop.
5 meg // Jun 29, 2008
the problem arises from two causes. On the government has been spending the social security trust fund so in a few years taxpayers will have to start paying in back out of current revenue. Since much of the debt was the result of tax cuts for the wealthy it is mostly their debt so it is theirs to pay back. The long term problem is that people are living longer and the obvious solution is that they should also work longer. The fact the when the baby boomer retires we will also have a shortage of skilled workers would also argue if favor of raising the retirement age.
6 ROBERT R // Jun 29, 2008
FIRSTLY, WE RAISE THE LIMITS OF INCOMES SUBJECT TO SOCIAL SECURITY WITHHOLDING. RETROACTIVE AND THAT INCLUDES EARNED AND UNEARNED INCOME. SECONDLY, THE LOCK BOX COMES BACK AND GOVERNMENT IS FORBIDDEN TO WRITE ANY MORE BLANK CHECKS FROM IT NOR CAN IT BE USED TO TRY TO BALANCE THE BUDGET. LASTLY, THE PENSION PLANS OF ALL POLITICIANS NO LONGER IS SEPARATE FROM US. THE RETIREMENT IS COMBINED WITH EVERYONE ELSES. IF SOCIAL SECURITY GOES, THEIR PLAN GOES WITH IT.
7 COOKIE // Jun 29, 2008
I like the idea of bill, HR 219.
Your Social Security contributions are set aside
in an interest-bearing account and cannot be spent.
In other words, your S.S. account
would be treated as YOUR account and not a slush fund for Congress.
It's the simplest approach to Social Security reform,
and it has the added benefit of making it harder for Congress
and the administration to mask the deficit spending
that is the real cause of our problems.
In 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
warned that the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer
generation will place tremendous strains on the nation’s
budget and economy.
He stressed that S.S. & Medicare
must be reformed sooner rather than later,
because demographic trends make the current system
unsustainable over time.
In future decades there will be
too many retirees and
not enough younger taxpayers.
I would also like to have my own choice…
not the Federal government's choice for
my retirement.
If I choose to make SS contributions…
then I gamble that there will be funds for
me when I retire and hope the feds don't
lose another $2.3 trillion [yes, trillion] dollars.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
If I choose not to make SS contributions…
then I will be totally responsible for myself
upon retirement as I will be taking my money
and investing as I see fit.
Leave a Comment