A fix for social security.

Why not just require everyone to give away all the money they have at 5 pm every day to SS. Then the program will be fixed.

A fix for social security?





Stop defense spending..We already have enough weapons

Hmmm...interesting thought. I've long been advocating stopping SS witholding altogether - or a least give the individual the opportunity to opt out. I feel like by the time I'm ready to retire that I won't see any of that money. I'm even willing to relinquish what I have in there now - just don't take any more out. I'll save for myself. Of course, a lot of folks may not have the means or discipline to do that. So removing that cap may be a good alternative.

My guess is that employers won't like that idea at all. But then I would think that any business that has employees making > $100K on the payroll has the cashflow to do it - but what do I know!

Converse of the Inverse wrote: I know if you tax more relative to now it is an increase in taxes, but there is a SS funding issue.

I am curious how people feel about removing the cap on the earnings that are taxed. I assume most of you know that after about $107k of income in a year that you don't pay anymore for Social Security.

Thus in 2011 at $106,800. That would result in $4486 in Employee contributions at 4.2% and $6622 in Employer Matching at 6.2%. In previous years it was 6.2% for both. This year there is a tax break. This is part the personal stimulus that everyone gets but claims they did not. You also got a big break on your 2009 and 2010 income taxes too, if you knew to take it.

But if you make 1.8 trillion dollars in 2011...the numbers do not change.

Now granted...at total of 10.4% net tax on you and your employer is pretty big, but clearly if folks like the program and it seems that everyone on the later side of life plans on collecting even if they say the program is not right or they are not desperate.

Why not just remove the caps...or if caps make sense, why not stop taxing all income at $100k and come up with higher rates.

SS is a regressive tax and it seems that many people prefer either flat or progressive ones.

Thoughts besides just saying no new taxes?

I've been saying that for years...including on this forum... I'm glad someone else said it. :thumbsup: Even if you told the employers that they would only have to match up to the same amount they do now, it would save the system.

If you stop the defense spending, there will not be anyone trained to use the weapons we have because there will be no defense spending. If you do not spend to develop the next generation of weapons, then the next time our brave men and women are called upon to defend the interests and liberty of the union's citizens they will be asked to engage superior weapons with inferior ones. There's a reason our forces vanquished Iraq's military in a few short days. There's a reason our forces vanquished the Japanese and the Germans during WWII. It had to do with superior numbers and designs of weapons - a superiority that continues to this very day. We have fewer ships in our navy, fewer men and women in our armed forces, fewer fighters and bombers in our air force than we did the day JFK took the oath of office. During the Viet Nam effort the union was spending 10% of its GDP on defense, today it is only 5% of GDP.

In short - the budget problem isn't defense related - it's charity related.

During that same time period the tax rate levied to support Social Security and Medicare has more than doubled, as has the amount of income subject to the taxation. It used to be a total rate of about 6% on $40K worth of income (adjusted so that we are talking 2011 dollars to make a comparison easier) back in the days when companies were offering pension plans to their workers. Now that the federal government has more than doubled not only the total tax rate but also the amount of income subject to the tax, the pensions have disappeared, the workers have less to save or invest for their own retirement and the Ponzi is still financially insolvent.

Raising the tax rates of the amount of income subject to taxation is just another bandaid on the problem. The root of the problem is that the program is built on a Ponzi foundation where the current workers are paying for the benefits of the current retirees instead of setting aside the money necessary for their own pensions. Fix that problem and you will have solved the problem instead of simply putting another band-aid on the symptoms of the problem.

I would be against raising the cap- there is a reason why the cap is there to begin with.

The people who make that much money pay more than their share already- and are not likely to need social security at all. They are net producers and contribute more than they will ever get out of it.

Fix the real problem- the problem is not revenue as PS correctly stated.

It's a "fair share" to you... It's not a "fair share" to the majority of the population... I want to fix the problem by funding it. Not turning it over to the "compassionate sociopaths" that want to kill it.

...And I'm ALL for cutting defense spending...at least by 50%, if not more. We're still preparing for a war with the Russians or the Chinese and the USSR doesn't exist any more, and if there's a war with either one, it won't be with tanks, and air-to-air fighters.

But hey, he got to use the words "Ponzi scheme" in a sentence....

And while we are at it, let's dismiss this myth of a 2% rate cut for the workers currently on the books. That 2% is going to have to be paid to the phantom trust fund eventually - it's delay is simply another failed Keynesian demand side SwindleUs scheme from the "progressives" that is added to the existing failed program enacted by those same "progressives".

What Social Security really amounts to is a perpetual "progressive" jobs program started by FDR trying to reduce the unemployment numbers. Get the older, experienced workers out of the workforce by offering them a modest government pension, which the workers who gain the benefit of having a job have the burden of paying. That's really what Social Security is - a failed perpetual "progressive" jobs program.

Is SS a mandatory tax or a forced retirement program? If it is a forced retirement program, then if you increase what taxes people have to pay, then you should increase the benefits. You could have billionaires getting 100K a year upon retiring.

If it is just a forced tax, increase the rates all you want.

What is SS really? A slush fund that the Feds can raid when they run short. Just like the office manager in charge of petty cash writing IOU notes and sticking them in the lockbox.

Yeah, the trickle-down supply-side mythology has worked so well.... NOT.....

You need some new material... This incessant regurgitation of your failed Sovereign Citizen, Jeffersonian b.s. is tiresome...