What's the best way to save Social Security?

[struggle4progress]

Poll question: What's the best way to save Social Security?

[LiberalFighter]

1. I've been saying that the cap should be eliminated for almost 20 years

[struggle4progress]

3. Lots of people have been saying it for years. Things take time. eom

[LiberalFighter]

16. I know... which is why I keep saying it so that more people understand

and let others know about it.

Ideas need to outlive stubborn people.

[struggle4progress]

21. Or we just need to live long enough for our opponents to die.

:D

[teryang]

2. I can't answer with one vote

You've got four options which I consider to be the correct:

Quit using current SS surpluses to offset other budget shortfalls.

Eliminate the $87,900 payroll tax cap.

Just balance the frickin Federal Budget!

Stop payouts to high income retirees.

[struggle4progress]

4. Yes! Thank you! eom

[Cobalt Violet]

7. I agree with that.

I don't think it is a good idea to raise the retirement age.


Not everyone pushes pencils.

[BringEmOn]

5. Clean up electronic voting, then vote Democratic

[allemand]

6. Ask me again in about 40 years...

:-)

Inventing a Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman

[blondeatlast]

13. Agreed! There's plenty of time to fix it for my 7 year old... nt

[erpowers]

8. My First Choice

My first choice is to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes. My second choice is to stop using Social Security to makeup for budget shortfalls. In addition, I think the government should separate the budgets once again. Recently, I heard that years ago Social Security used to have its own budget. One of our Presidents decided to join the Social Security budget with the general budget so that the defecits would look smaller. Therefore, the two budgets should once again be separated.

[struggle4progress]

9. Yep. Reagan started using SS to make his deficits look smaller. eom

[Inland]

10. Raise retirement age

until it actually is the age that people retire due to age, instead of the age that people want to take social security.

Used to be, retirment was a euphemism for "too broken down to work". Now its, "the time for leisure".

Social Security used to be insurance against poverty from being unable to work due to old age. Now its just money being transferred from young to old.

And the fact that the retirement age is set too young has other pernicious effects--because nobody can claim that the only purpose of social security is insurance against inability to work due to age, Bushites are able to make it into just another investment scheme and don't have to address that they are turning an INSURANCE policy into a series of risks that will lead some into the very poverty that SS currently prevents.

The ONLY solution is to raise the retirmenet age. All other solutions either end SS as an insurance program or make it into a transfer scheme doomed to be defunded.

[Ian David]

11. Allow people to invest their savings in gold and Euros

[Inland]

18. People are already allowed to invest in gold and euros

and anything else. Doesn't have much to do with social security.

[Bridget Burke]

15. So--we really should go until we're "too broken down" to work.

Just a few years of benefits will be needed to tide us over until death.

Meanwhile, those who avoided paying their full share because of the cap on earnings will continue to enjoy their lives of mostly leisure.

[Inland]

17. Yep. That's what it is for.

And don't knock money to tide you over until death from old age. There's nothing small about the accomplishment of SS, which removed an entire class of Americans from poverty.

The people who enjoy leisure in their old age do it with their money, and that has nothing to do with SS--or at least it shouldn't. We can raise the retirement age and it will still do what it is supposed to do.

[Cobalt Violet]

20. That would be wonderful if we were all pencil pushers. n/t

[Inland]

22. Well, mostly we are

fact is, almost all jobs require less, in physical terms, than they did in the 1930s or 1950s.

All you need to do is look at the stink when part of social security income was included in the taxable income of people still working. My first question is, how many people who are collecting a "retirement" benefit are still working? Answer is, lots. The retirement age has nothing to do with retirement. It is just a number that starts the money. Which would be fine, except that allowing that paymant means social security doesn't have the money for its purpose--a guaranteed income for those who can't work due to age or disability. And the Bushites are using that shortfall to end the system entirely.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Note that the most popular option here (eliminating the cap)

is the one that pundits never seem to mention. :eyes:

[struggle4progress]

14. My Congressman said it was a better alternative when ...

... (a few years ago) I asked him to support means-testing benefits to save SS. It's been out there as a option. I've been wondering,though, if it wasn't simply the most popular option in this poll because of the Graham story on raising the cap to $200K.

BTW, love your advent calendar!

[LibDemAlways]

19. Filibuster any and all repuke attempts

to screw with it.