Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2776592)

Of course it can be "phased out." Still doesn't change the fact that if you don't cut current benefits you can't cut current contributions.

Originally Posted by Tully Mars (Post 2776597)

I say we just tax all the neo-cons that supported the Iraq debacle until the money spent on that is payed off. Think that's approaching 1 trillion quickly. That should help fund Grandma's SS and Medicare for a while longer.

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414 (Post 2776602)

What am I missing here? I am agreeing that you can not slash benefits to people who are currently depending on that money and are on a fixed income. However, there is a sliding scale as to who will need to see any of that money. The younger you are, the longer you have to prepare for retirement. So, the new workforce isn't going to get anything, but they do have to pay into it for a short period of time. Over time, the program disappears because those receiving benefits...well, they die. Then, no one has to pay into it any more.

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Ooh, ooh! Let's tax all the liberals who supported the war on poverty, since that has been a complete debacle too. Oh, and then there's the war on drugs, let's tax everyone who supported that! Oh, and we could tax everyone who supported "No child left behind" since that isn't working either. And in 15 years, we can tax all the liberals who thought Obamacare was a good idea, because that will be another $3T back in the kitty.

I fully support punishing the people who think the federal government's stupid ideas are good ones.:thumbsup:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars (Post 2776623)

Sounds like you're interesting in "punishing" one group way more then the other.

Also- You might want to look into the history of SS and why it was started, cause..



Is highly inaccurate.

Originally Posted by dippin (Post 2776632)

No, my point is that people would have to keep paying for a long period of time in order to not cut any current benefits and not generate additional deficits. Chile did what you want to do in 1981, but for 20 years the old pension system still cost about 20% of gdp, which was a significant chunk of the government's budget.

As for the other point. I'm not a liberal in the American sense of the word. I'm more of an old social democrat. But when you look at what both self described conservatives and liberals want to cut from the budget, and what they want to keep, the only real difference is that liberals are ok with increasing taxes. the vast majority of so called conservatives are just as opposed to cutting social security, medicare, and aid to the poor as liberals.

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414 (Post 2776634)

I'm not interested in punishing anyone. You brought it up, I threw the other direction at you. Although, the war on drugs/poverty/education are equally as stupid as the war on Iraq - with no better outcome for all the money thrown at it.

Look at the age at which the SS benefit was dispersed at the time the program was created and cross-reference that value with the average life span of Americans at the time. If you did the same thing for today's life span, one wouldn't qualify for SS until the age of 84 or so. Hence, it's obvious it was only supposed to cover those who live a REALLY long time (as opposed to the current benefit which they started issuing as early as 65 and have had to move it because of the debacle (your word) it has become.)

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dippin,

I'm not focusing on just SS. That just happened to be the program I chose to counter someone's farm subsidies assertion. There are many other programs I would cut. Some of the taxes from those programs would then be diverted to offset SS until it was fully phased out.