Pensions Lost: Finally, a return to Americanism ?

Heck, how far in the future is anyone's guess. I don't think it's going to collapse in the next 30 or 40 years but it can't survive another 200 years as it is either.

I think the CBO estimated that payments (outlays) would exceed revenue starting in about 2017 based on current population rate increases/decreases. That doens't mean SS goes broke in 2017 but it means that they are drawing down on the trust fund (which would have to be covered from general revenues). They estimated that the trust fund would then be delepeted somewhere between 2040 and 2060 (I think they used 2052 as their "now we're totally broke" year.)

Tweaking could extend all of those timelines (maybe a decade or two) out but IMO, you need a major structural change to have a permanent system that doesn't require constant tweaking by the Congress.

Personally, I'd throw in a means test (multi-millionaires don't need a monthly retirement check from Uncle Sam) and remove the cap on payroll taxes. I'd also put a means test on Survivor's Benefits for anyone that isn't a minor, establish a cost-of-living type of adjustment to the minimum retirement age and get rid of early retirements entirely. One other thing I'd throw in that would be entirely new is an increase in the minumum number of quarters worked for foreign workers (right now they only have to work in the U.S. for 10 years to be able to collect from SS.)

Outside of SS I'd like to see some improvements to eliminate the confusion over private retirement accounts (Roth vs. Conventional, 401k vs. IRA, etc..) and get rid of some of the rules that discourage people from saving for retirement on their own.

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edgarblythe wrote:

When they can throw away billions or trillions on a wasted war, give the rich big tax cuts, do everything for the rich and continually make sure the poor get less and less, they can't even talk to me about needing to quit paying SS. They need to hang the bastards from a tree and live up to the promises made in the past. The Bush plan is a make more rich people richer plan, not a thing to benefit anybody.

Yes, yes... We've all heard your "Give me mine!" speech before...

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fishin' wrote:

Yes, yes... We've all heard your "Give me mine!" speech before...

In politics, every speech is a "give me mine!" speech.

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If we're so worried about the future solvency of SS, shouldn't we be worried about our current lack of solvency in our entire gov't?

We didn't pay 30% of our bills last year. And yet we keep trucking right along. Why the panic about SS going into negative returns in thirty years, when we're in negative returns on general revenues right now?

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

If we're so worried about the future solvency of SS, shouldn't we be worried about our current lack of solvency in our entire gov't?

We didn't pay 30% of our bills last year. And yet we keep trucking right along. Why the panic about SS going into negative returns in thirty years, when we're in negative returns on general revenues right now?

Cycloptichorn

i heard a day or 2 ago, that the u.s. is borrowing 2 billion a day, most of which is from china.

hence the incredibly irresponsible trade deficit.

a few months back, frank made a comment that i agreed with, and still do;
"bush is doing to the u.s. what reagan did to the soviet union".

is it 2008 yet ???

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

If we're so worried about the future solvency of SS, shouldn't we be worried about our current lack of solvency in our entire gov't?

We didn't pay 30% of our bills last year. And yet we keep trucking right along. Why the panic about SS going into negative returns in thirty years, when we're in negative returns on general revenues right now?

People ARE concerned about the national debt. Beyond that, SS isn't discretionary spending. If push came to shove the Congress and drop funding for highways, eductaion, 50% of the Pentagon, etc... in fairly short order to balance the federal budget (if they had the balls to do it!). SS is an entitlement program that can't be dropped.

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fishin' wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
If we're so worried about the future solvency of SS, shouldn't we be worried about our current lack of solvency in our entire gov't?

We didn't pay 30% of our bills last year. And yet we keep trucking right along. Why the panic about SS going into negative returns in thirty years, when we're in negative returns on general revenues right now?

People ARE concerned about the national debt. Beyond that, SS isn't discretionary spending. If push came to shove the Congress and drop funding for highways, eductaion, 50% of the Pentagon, etc... in fairly short order to balance the federal budget (if they had the balls to do it!). SS is an entitlement program that can't be dropped.

that 18 billion "for the reconstruction of iraq" would come in pretty handy about now... so would the 9 billion that "disappeared" from the bremer shindig...

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joefromchicago: regarding your reply:

Quote:

From the Shiller paper:

President George W. Bush has outlined a specific plan for personal accounts within Social Security, allowing workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in exchange for a reduction in their traditional Social Security benefit. The plan is similar in spirit, but different in important details, to a plan proposed by President Bill Clinton in 1999, which relied on a government budget surplus at the time. Bush has not yet unveiled an entire plan to restore solvency.

(emphasis added). I repeat: there was no Bush "plan" for social security reform.

Hopefully, this is not meant as a rebuttal to my referral to President Bush having a SS plan and an attempt to validate your assertion that the President had absolutely no plan. Even had you added the qualifying phrase that Shiller was careful to use: "an entire plan to restore solvency", such efforts fall short of that end. The existence of a partial plan does not negate the very plan it strives towards. Further, in your excision of the Shiller paper we find he uses the word "plan" no less than three times. Additionally, in the very first sentence we see Schiller recognizing that President Bush outlined "a specific plan for personal accounts within Social Security".

To flatly state: "I repeat: there was no Bush "plan" for social security reform." is simply disingenuous. That the President did not have a complete plan is valid and noteworthy but any such plan or proposal must endure a synthesis informed by the Treasury dept, various government agencies, and popular opinion. The result is then finalized and codified by Congress (Indeed, it is only at this point that we will find the hard and fast "devil" of details for which there will be much "weeping and gnashing of teeth"). The President should at least be given credit for trying to start a dialog that would have hopefully led to a solution down the road. The fact that SS solvency and reformation has again been pushed to the back burner is testament to SS's ?'Third Rail' attribute. But the problem will not go away and the longer the politicians are allowed to avoid its solution the more painful the actual solution will be. However, to be explicit, the blame is not rightly on the politicians for it is their constituencies' responsibility to demand a solutionthe sooner the better.

JM

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JamesMorrison wrote:

Hopefully, this is not meant as a rebuttal to my referral to President Bush having a SS plan and an attempt to validate your assertion that the President had absolutely no plan. Even had you added the qualifying phrase that Shiller was careful to use: "an entire plan to restore solvency", such efforts fall short of that end. The existence of a partial plan does not negate the very plan it strives towards. Further, in your excision of the Shiller paper we find he uses the word "plan" no less than three times. Additionally, in the very first sentence we see Schiller recognizing that President Bush outlined "a specific plan for personal accounts within Social Security".

If you think that bits and pieces of a plan amount to a plan, then I have bits and pieces of a structure that amount to the Brooklyn Bridge I'd like to sell you.

JamesMorrison wrote:

To flatly state: "I repeat: there was no Bush "plan" for social security reform." is simply disingenuous. That the President did not have a complete plan is valid and noteworthy but any such plan or proposal must endure a synthesis informed by the Treasury dept, various government agencies, and popular opinion.

That, I respectfully submit, is utter nonsense. The president is quite capable of submitting a plan all by himself, just as the White House is quite capable, every year, of submitting a budget to congress. Just because the plan faces inevitable changes once it is submitted doesn't mean that it isn't a plan until it undergoes those changes.

JamesMorrison wrote:

The result is then finalized and codified by Congress (Indeed, it is only at this point that we will find the hard and fast "devil" of details for which there will be much "weeping and gnashing of teeth"). The President should at least be given credit for trying to start a dialog that would have hopefully led to a solution down the road. The fact that SS solvency and reformation has again been pushed to the back burner is testament to SS's ?'Third Rail' attribute. But the problem will not go away and the longer the politicians are allowed to avoid its solution the more painful the actual solution will be. However, to be explicit, the blame is not rightly on the politicians for it is their constituencies' responsibility to demand a solutionthe sooner the better.

Bush himself admitted that, whatever it was that he was proposing, it would have no effect on the solvency of social security.

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If they would give me mine, I wouldn't have to keep boring you with my little speach. Some can wax philosophical til doomsday, but others want justice today instead of some mythical future.

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Pensions Lost: Finally, a return to Americanism ?

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