How to Prepare for the End of Social Security

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live forcing resulted project

cynericcur of DE 2:36PM October 24, 2009

Stop using ss money for other then ssi.

Ray Leszczak of NJ 12:58AM July 18, 2009

Only those who have paid into the system, should be allowed to draw on the system. Increase the amount of time to pay in, in order to get benefits. Wives should be allowed to get their husband's if the husband has paid in and dies. The ones I am against getting SS are those who have never paid a cent into the system. P. S. when a recipient passes away, what the the government do with any checks that are returned. I understand that the politicians put it into a general fund to spend as they wish. Any comments on this???????

James of AZ 12:29PM July 10, 2009

Baby Boomers actually started drawing benefits in 2008. The SSTF would be in better shape if NON-working spouses were not receiving checks every month when they didn't work; they didn't pay in; & there were no employers paying in either! 30% of married women do NOT work; yet they receive 1/2 of what their spouse receives. Why? If someone has a good answer, I'd appreciate hearing. My husband & I have each worked more than 35 yrs. & so have millions of other couples. It isn't fair to single working women or to married working women that women who do NOT work get money from Soc Sec when they're NOT "retiring."

dmereh of MA 4:10PM July 07, 2009

The end of Social Security is unthinkable. Nations without this basec social net are non-viable. They disintegrate and fall in matter of weeks! Just look at Europe. Could Europe survive the current crisis without social net? Absolutely not. There would be revolution! In America, the richest Nation on earth, the social net means nationhood! Without it, there won't be America! We will be partitioned by nations that have not aborted 45 million able body workers! We will be taken over by nations like China, which have plenty of Social Security contributors! We should have thought about this before Roe v. Wade! Now 45 million Social Security contributors are dead! I believe that America is no more! We only survive in name! The evil has killed America, the radical, atheist-feminist evil!

Bohdan Szejner, STL of PA 8:18AM June 22, 2009

Vet - Your points are well-taken. However, the contract and promised returns are simply political election slogans and massive deceptions against every American, not just GenX and GenY. $Trillions are pouring into the Social Security Trust "Fund" every year - most of the money coming from Baby Boomers. What do we all get in return? A Federal issued promise (IOU) to pay back the borrowed money that is funding the general budget deficit.
Our new administration has just made several new promises that will run the annual deficit for the next 10 years to over $1 Trillion. I have put many, many $Thousands into Social Security and Medicare since I was 13. I am supposed to retire in 14 years and I fully expect that I will never see a penny of the money I donated to Social Security.
If you want to see the value of a contract and how our politicians honor those contracts, take a look at how senior bondholders of GM and Chrysler were treated in bankruptcy. The Obama administration dumped 100 years of bankruptcy legal precedent to pay off the UAW, a junior creditor. Our Social Security "contract" has much less going for it, in legal terms, than U.S. bankruptcy laws because the regulations around Social Security get re-written year after year. Much of the problem is that our politicians for decades never paid a cent into Social Security. Even now the crooks have pension benefits that most Americans working in the private sector will never enjoy.

DanO of FL 12:11AM June 22, 2009

If the Congress and Administrations for the past several decades would have kept their hands out of the Social Security "cookie jar" there would be trillions in there for everyone. Unfortunately both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses have raided Social Security to "phony" up their budgets.

Dick Diamond of OR 5:09PM June 21, 2009

Anyone that is guaranteed a specific rate of return on their money at a bank would expect exactly the rate of return contractually agreed upon prior to investing their money. Gen X ers have plenty to be mad about seeing that the Government is breaking that contract. No one in their right mind would continue to invest if they were told that their return was being reduced to 75% of the agreed ammount. As far as the other anger towards Gen X and Y well we didn't create this problem. This could have been dealt with at any time in the last 15 years when the politicians first mentioned dimminished returns. I first read about it in a VFW magazine and the Democrat was trying to excuse away the 25% reduction while the Republican kept saying something needed to be done but didn't offer any concrete solutions. Gilbert Soto of OR also needs to appologize and in short order because some of us Gen X and Y ers are fighting this countries wars so the rest of the bums can sit at home fat dumb and happy glued to American Idol. Gilbert Soto of OR, just say thank you and walk away.

vet of FL 4:17PM June 21, 2009

To Propitiousmoment, ScottM and other ignorant souls - do some simple homework before you make your suggestions. Download reports from the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office, the IRS, and numerous other data sources. You will quickly see that:
1. Social Security was incorporated into the General Budget by LBJ in the 1960s, not by Bill Clinton.
2. In 2009 taxpayers who earned 63% of reported income in the U.S., paid more than 83% of all taxes collected including those for Medicare and Social Security.
4. To fall into that group you would have earned $75,000 or more. I do not know what jobs you have, if any, but you will learn that $75K/year will not buy you a lifestyle of the rich and famous.
Although your simple solutions of taxing those "rich people" more and giving them nothing will not fix social security, medicare, and the upcoming health care expansion efforts. What may come as a surprise to you but is well know in behavioral economics, high marginal tax rates change behavior and outcomes. Those who pay the highest marginal taxes are induced to stop doing so. They stop creating capital and wealth. You know what capital is, right? It is the productive result of hard work and it is what pays the taxes for those far less productive individuals who want "the rich" to pay for everything because "the rich" simply earned more and have more.
Stop your whining, grow up, and do something productive. We'll all be better off.

DanO of FL 3:55PM June 21, 2009

To all of you who say that there should be means testing, remove the social security payment cap and eliminate the wealthy...
They , just like you, are receiving a "refund" of THEIR money that THEY PAID!
You are the first to scream that it is YOURS, but for some reason, those who have EARNED more than you do not have the same right to claim THEIR money as you have to claim yours?
This from a Peasant

Peasant2009 of AR 7:52AM June 21, 2009