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Topic:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor [Locked] |
theredkay1  Posts: 611
Registered: 2008-5-16 10:37:09
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:
theredkay1 posted:
SS has been changed. It is currently operating exactly as its designed to do.
SS finances are ok. There is no SS budget problem.
You need to make an argument
NO!!!!!!!! 
I just want to gut the countries retirement insurance program so we can afford tax cuts for rich people! Why pretend to have an argument?
alrighty!
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DemonicXH Title: Camelot Vault Staff
News Editor
Posts: 584
Registered: 2003-12-1 08:14:17
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
theredkay1 posted:
Bobvillas posted:
Raising the age is a great start.
Edit: Just looked and since SS began in 1935, the life expectancy has risen 26% (to 78), but the retirement age for full benefits has increased only 3%.
Life expectancy is not the statistic you are looking for.
If country A has 2 people, one dies at birth and the other lives to 100....avg life expectancy is 50 years.
If country B has 2 people, both live to 100, life expectancy is 100.
A & B are in the exact same situation with regards to a SS system.
The change in life expectancy over the last 50+ years is almost exclusively improvements in birth and a reduction in childhood deaths. Life expectancy for those people who live into their 20's (and would be working) has only increased a few years...and SS age has moved up a couple years.
Changes in life expectancy plays no significant role in the SS budget picture.
Even if you take out infant mortality the life expectancy after attaining adulthood was still in the low 60s when SS was started.
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Groucho48 Posts: 821
Registered: 2003-10-22 03:00:14
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Bobvillas posted:
Payroll taxes kept Social Security mainly at break even until ~1975-1981 when expenses began to exceed revenue.
Reforms that cut average benefits by 5%, raised tax rates by 2.3%, and increased the full retirement age by 3%(67) restored the system's stability for the next 25 years, but the demographic outlook is poor for its pay as you go funding structure.
In 1950, 100 workers supported six beneficiaries. Today, 100 workers support 33 beneficiaries.
Conclusion: If this program is not reformed again, it is not sustainable.
That is a major right wing argument against SS. Naturally, it is totally wrong. Every SS recipient funded his or her own SS. Or, their spouse did. I am collecting SS now. I paid into SS for about 45 years. Actuarially, if I live exactly as long as I am supposed to, I will have have exactly paid for my whole SS benefit. Over the last decade or so a couple things happened to cause some problems. Life expectancies extended a tad more than expected and, much more importantly, the economy blew up, cutting payments to SS dramatically. Those are the reasons SS is in trouble. It has nothing to do with the number of workers, as each worker is paying just about his or her fair share. A minor increase in the payroll tax can fix that.
Fixing the economy is a much bigger problem, especially as the right wing answer is to shrink it by cutting spending, eviscerating the safety net that many consumers need if they are going to be consumers, and to make it easier and easier to cut pay and benefits for workers so that their payroll tax also goes down, meaning they will collect even less than today's recipients do.
Now, of course, the other thing going on is that the government used SS revenue to pay for everything else and now doesn't want to pay SS back. It doesn't matter that SS has notes backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Right wingers, being fiscally irresponsible, do not want to pay back this borrowed money. Nor, do they want to suffer any consequences for not paying it back. They want the folks who have paid into SS their entire lives to suffer all the consequences of doing things like fighting two wars completely off budget and giving huge tax cuts to the rich, will using SS revenue to hide how completely fiscally irresponsible they were.
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“Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.†– Richard Feynman
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Yukishiro1  Posts: 3,243
Registered: 2002-9-20 23:52:57
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
It was 65. That's why they set it at 65. 
But that was more for political that mathematic reasons. The math is set up in such a way that we really have had almost no problem with the increase in life expectency we've seen. Modest corrections have been plenty in the past and will be plenty in the future as well. |
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
the_great_intex posted:
I don't like social security. I think people should be given the ability to opt out of it.
That's CRAZEEEE talk!!
You mean actual freedom of choice?! 
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Yukishiro1 Posts: 3,243
Registered: 2002-9-20 23:52:57
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
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What do you do with the people who opt out, squander their savings, and have nothing to live on in old age? Just let them starve?
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Bobvillas Posts: 643
Registered: 2008-11-19 12:56:18
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Groucho48 posted:
Bobvillas posted:
Payroll taxes kept Social Security mainly at break even until ~1975-1981 when expenses began to exceed revenue.
Reforms that cut average benefits by 5%, raised tax rates by 2.3%, and increased the full retirement age by 3%(67) restored the system's stability for the next 25 years, but the demographic outlook is poor for its pay as you go funding structure.
In 1950, 100 workers supported six beneficiaries. Today, 100 workers support 33 beneficiaries.
Conclusion: If this program is not reformed again, it is not sustainable.
That is a major right wing argument against SS. Naturally, it is totally wrong.
This is the argument made by the CBO. You are looking for someone to argue with and that is why you fail.
I don't care to play your silly partisan games. I do care about our countries economic future.
CBO disagrees with you and everyone else that says raising the age would not help SS.
It was used in the past and was successful conjoined with other tools.
The underfunding could be addressed through some or all of the following mechanical changes imo:
~Increase the full retirement age
~Reduce average annual SS benefits
~Increase SS tax rate
~ American's change their poor personal savings rates (It is currently at 3% of disposable income. It was 10% from 1965-1985) *My favorite*
We are looking to help SS, not argue against why it is needed. 
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Abaddon_Ambrosius Title: Retired Theurgist TL
Posts: 1,674
Registered: 2001-12-21 09:51:39
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Yukishiro1 posted:
What do you do with the people who opt out, squander their savings, and have nothing to live on in old age? Just let them starve?
We have a variety of options on the menu tonight...
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Groucho48 Posts: 821
Registered: 2003-10-22 03:00:14
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Quote:
CBO disagrees with you and everyone else that says raising the age would not help SS.
It was used in the past and was successful conjoined with other tools.
The underfunding could be addressed through some or all of the following mechanical changes imo:
~Increase the full retirement age
~Reduce average annual SS benefits
~Increase SS tax rate
~ American's change their poor personal savings rates (It is currently at 3% of disposable income. It was 10% from 1965-1985) *My favorite*
Point to anything I've ever said that denies that raising the age to get benefits wouldn't "help" SS. My argument is that it doesn't need that much help and surveys show folks would much rather pay a bit more in payroll taxes and keep the same retirement age. I've said that consistently for years. Better yet would be a booming economy. I forget the exact numbers, but, if wages went up some single digit % (adjusted for inflation), in the next 5 or 6 or 7 years and stayed at that rate, the underfunding would also disappear.
Another possibility would be to require the government pay a bit more interest on the money it gets from SS premiums and uses on other stuff. This would have the added benefit of making it tougher for the government to finance the deficit with SS funds. Fiscally responsible.
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“Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.†– Richard Feynman
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__Bonk__  Posts: 5,122
Registered: 2009-7-25 03:04:52
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:01am
Subject:
Most government benefits go to middle class, not poor - and very little goes to the lazy poor |
Its becasue the middle class votes and they are buying votes with taxpayer money
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A change in feeling is a change in destiny.
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