How do we fix the Social Security situation?
Posted by: Shaw357TL;DR: Social Security Tax is Bad. How do we fix it? ------------------As you all know, when you receive your paycheck, there is a Social Security tax that comes out of it. This tax funds the Social Security Program, a program that goes to trust funds which in turn pays out to retirees and their families, widowers, children of workers who've died, the health care costs of all Medicare beneficiaries, and benefits to people with disabilities and their families. The problem however, is that as time goes on, th
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Scrap the Cap and Expand it
Social Security has a $2.79 trillion surplus, don't cut it, scrap the cap on the payroll tax and expand benefits.2 comments
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Well there are a lot of possibilities. Some of which could include raising the retirement age slightly, privatizing parts of the plan, increasing contributions. I am not saying all are perfect ideas, but there are many.
Social security works, it has a $2.79 TRILLION surplus! Don't cut it, expand it!
@BrendanD19 Surpuls does not mean that the program makes 2.79 trillion dollars. It means that it is owed 2.79 trillion dollars, since all excess funds are used by the government for non-social security purposes (George W. Bush said it best when he said the trust is full of nothing but IOU's). Plus since 2010, costs for the program exceeded non-interest income. With interests the trust is predicted to continue making a surplus until 2019, at which point the trust will become more costly than its worth. If this trend continues and no taxes are raised or budgets cut, the trust will be empty sometime between 2031 and 2034. After that, the program will be unable to provide full benefits.
1) No, that is in the trust fund, 2) It will only run out if we stop paying into it, 3) If the government were to do that with the trust fund, they would be breaking the law
@BrendanD19 1) No, the trust is actually very empty. The Treasury constantly borrows and spends the surplus in the trusts funds, leading many to worry that the money will not be there when the trust tries to redeem the funds (and if the government can pay back their debt at all). Any funds that are redeemed are almost immediately borrowed again, leading to no real set amount of funds in the trust. 2) even the Social Security Administration says that we will run out of funds in the mid 2030's (i.E. That 2.79 trillion surplus will be gone in less than 20 years), and once we do the program will only be able to provide 75 cents to the dollar in benefits unless taxes are raised or spending is decreased. 3) This is all taking into account that the government DOES keeping paying into the fund.
Make a contingency plan to cover people already on SS and those who will be on it 20 years from now. Make it a slow process in which people are helped off of the aid of SS slowly but surely over time so eventually people learn to live without social security and are able to support themselves.
I think the retirement age will be going-up eventually. 65 was OLD when they came-up with that age. I don't know if they would go all the way up to 70 at this juncture but I can see moving the partial-benefits age to 65 and the full benefits age to 68.
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