Let's Talk About Social Security

The supposed "third rail of American politics", it is political suicide to touch it. Supposedly the Conservative Ogres in the Republican party want to "take your social security" and let the old people starve. I think it is time for a little truth here.

When Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised that participation in the program would be completely voluntary; he promised that the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the program. He promised that the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year, that the money the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other government program, and That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.


The truth? It is no longer voluntary, and wow 7.65% of the first $90,000 of our income is confiscated for this redistribution program. This extra tax is no longer "tax deductible". Under Johnson(democrat) the money was moved to the general fund and spent. Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your social security can be and is taxed as income.

Now many people have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month
and then finding that they are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government(which was already taxed as income) to "put away", to save for us since we are obviously incapable of saving for ourselves.

So now, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away. Then the democrats freeze social security cost of living raises, so they can put out more food stamps to the people who vote for them

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the
independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the
general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the
'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

Q: Which Political Party decided to start
giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65,
began to receive Social Security payments The
Democratic Party gave these payments to them,
even though they never paid a dime into it

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


S+F for you. The part that really gets me is that with the current economic state of Social Security, I doubt I'll ever see a dime of it. I'm 42 and fully benefits would start at age 67 I believe. I remember sometime in the 90's that financial planners generally started saying you can't rely on social security for all your income. I guess they saw it for the ponzi scheme that it is. Even more frightening is the Medicare fiasco. Talk about waste and bloat and fraud. As far as what happened on whose watch, it's the same old political hot potato. Privitize a portion of SS and let the recipients decide what to do with it.

reply to post by peter_kandra

as far as privatizing it...
well, would they accept me buying gold and silver bars and storing them in my safe as a valid investment...
not little paper saying I have these stored in vault x of some bank, not little pieces of paper saying that I own a share of vault x. and not stocks, or bonds, or the like....the actual silver, or gold, in my hand...
because, to tell you the truth, those little pieces of paper aren't any more trustworthy than the gov't is!!!
I'm at the tail end of the boomers, and I am lookiing at things realistically....
by the time I go to cash in my IRA, the many before me will have already done that...and the demand will have broken the system, my IRA will be worthless, same with bonds, same with just about everything, including social security probably.
Unless of course, the younger generations make super, super paychecks, so they can go hog wild paying the taxes to keep social security alive, investing manically into the stock and bond markets....
there is no way, that I see around this....

Thanks for posting. This whole thing with social security really pisses me off. It was bad enough as originally intended, but what they have done with it is truly unconscionable imo. At least if it had been left as a "trust fund" set aside for no other purpose, you could look at it as a forced savings account where you pay in and it is there when you retire. What we have now is nothing less than a ponzi scheme. A massive vote buying fraud perpetuated by a soulless system of bureaucrats as a means of frightening old people into keeping them in power. It is wholly about control and power. Nothing else.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776

well, technically the gov't owes the trust fund a ton of $$$$...and is legally obligated to pay it back...
if they did that, the fund would be rather healthy....
it's just that the old "you should pay your bills" bit that they keep telling the peons, well, they don't think it should pertain to the big fishies!

if social security dies, it will be because one group of people in this country wants it to bad enough that they tanked the whole system to get rid of it, all the while consolidating the wealth into a small group of people, thus taking it out of the fica taxable pool.

here's another interesting fact.....
the value of all those tax breaks that are written into the tax code, EXCEEDS the total amount of revenue that is taken in by the same tax code!! what does that mean...
well to me it means that we have a tax code that just doesn't work!! and they know it doesn't work, thus all the exceptions to the rules (tax breaks) for those who play the game the way they want it played!
the recent group of tax breaks that everyone has been squabbling about don't affect my family one bit, matter of fact, they are a big headache since what they giveth through the year, they take back at tax time!!!
give us a tax system that works!!! one that doesn't need a million and one exceptions to keep the economy running!
this might help solve some of the problems surrounding the social security issue also.

Originally posted by dawnstar
reply to post by sonofliberty1776

 

well, technically the gov't owes the trust fund a ton of $$$$...and is legally obligated to pay it back...
if they did that, the fund would be rather healthy....

Do you actually depend on a bankrupt creditor to pay their bills? much less provide the money to pay yours?

it's just that the old "you should pay your bills" bit that they keep telling the peons, well, they don't think it should pertain to the big fishies!

Yeah, do as I say not as I do.

if social security dies, it will be because one group of people in this country wants it to bad enough that they tanked the whole system to get rid of it, all the while consolidating the wealth into a small group of people, thus taking it out of the fica taxable pool.

Like politicians and babyboomers maybe?

here's another interesting fact.....
the value of all those tax breaks that are written into the tax code, EXCEEDS the total amount of revenue that is taken in by the same tax code!! what does that mean...

It means be a good slave and stop questioning your betters.

well to me it means that we have a tax code that just doesn't work!! and they know it doesn't work, thus all the exceptions to the rules (tax breaks) for those who play the game the way they want it played!
the recent group of tax breaks that everyone has been squabbling about don't affect my family one bit, matter of fact, they are a big headache since what they giveth through the year, they take back at tax time!!!
give us a tax system that works!!! one that doesn't need a million and one exceptions to keep the economy running!
this might help solve some of the problems surrounding the social security issue also.

Personally, I support the Fair Tax, at a minimum it should be a flat tax exactly the same percentage for everybody with no exemptions or loopholes.

reply to post by dawnstar


The point is that the government should not be buying anything on behalf of retirees, they should be buying what they want to invest in.

It would be terrific if one of our Australian members could give a description of their Super Annuation plans. My understanding of them is that the employers are forced to contribute cash, given directly to the employee which is to be used for their retirement. When someone gets a job they give their employeer two numbers, checking account for direct deposit for pay and super annuation for their retirement.

The government regulates many different plans which can be used for superannuation, but the employee has thousands of choices along the risk curve. Think about the government regulation as a more liberal ERISA. If the retiree can invest alone or with the assistance of an investment advisor. There is a ton of advice available to them.

If they invest foolishly, they have a chance of living a poor retirement. If they are wise about it, they can become quite wealthy. The deal is, it is all about them.

I spent a bunch of time in Australia a few years ago and one of the great things I found was that everyone, from the janitor to the banker had some decent understanding of financial markets. They read about it, watched the financial TV programs, they took responsibility for their lives and in so doing were much more educated. It is difficult to read economic stuff and not become knowledgable about domestic and world affairs - for example to understand whether or not you should invest in mining stocks, you will learn about demand around the world and what is causing it, environmental impact, etc.

Its a better system. The Australians are much more mature about it, have significantly more personal accountability and the government is not there to hold their hand.

An ancilliary benefit is that the super annuation business is a massive business. Investment advice, processing, education. Its a win/win.

If someone from Australia can give a better explanation (I could very well be wrong on the details a bit) that would be great.

I agree DF. However, it sounds a lot like "privatization" and we all saw how well that was received by the liberal bedwetters when it was floated previously.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776

It is not a ponzi scheme if it is run as intended. I like the idea of paying into something now for my future. I am on disablity myself and work part time.

There are millions of americans on social security, I think it just needs to be managed better. Come on now how badly do you really miss $7 or $8 per paycheck. I never even noticed it myself. Why are people so desperate to hold onto that little money when it does a lot of good for people?

You pay more in income taxes so how come you are not complaining about that. If you make more than $20 an hour it really would not even effect you. I worked jobs from minuim wage at $4.25 in 1991 to jobs that paid me $10 per hour. Sure I struggled but the ss and medicare tax gave me some peace of mind that when I am older or too disabled I will have money to support myself.
I really think the government is lying to us about social security. I think they have been stealing from it that is why it is supposedly going broke. My other theory is that the government wants people to ask to get rid of it. Of course if the program ended and another program was not its place that would be mass murder.
What will they do with all these people? They will be upset; fema camps maybe? Do not attack social security but support it and encourage it to be strengthened. People on disablity did not get a raise for 2 years now. By being against SS you are really against the poorest and weakest in society. SS is not a welfare program but something everyone pays into.
As far as privatizing I am not for that either. I would my tax money go towards helping others then supporting a fruitless war or rebuilding the roads 10 times and still not getting it right!

reply to post by sonofliberty1776


Which political party never repealed the claims you made in the OP?

It isn't about political parties. It is about a system in need of fixing.

By fixing it I hope you mean strengthening. They need to recalulcate benefits based on the real cost of living. Maybe there should be different levels social security disablity and new rules. Here are my ideas:
There would be a full disablity level for people who are blind,in a wheelchair and permantly disabled with no hopes of working. These people would get full benefits of $1200-$2000 per month depending on which state you lived and the cost of living.
The next level would be partial disablity. This is where a person can work some but can't work full time. The person would get at least $800 per month. In the partial disablity as person can work up to 32 hours a week with no lose in ANY benefit. The person can make up to $1,000 extra as is the standards with current law.
The last level would be the elderly; they would get benefits the same as fully disabled between $1200-$2000 per month. They can still get a pension of up to $1,200-$1500 per month. We should not punish the elderly for their pensions and allow them to get both because minuim wage is not enought to live on. This would depend on what the cost of living is and what meds a person needs.
The new rules would be:
A raise of 2% or greater would be guarnteed every year. There would be a new way to calculate this. It would be base on actual cost of living such as rents,utlities,gas prices and medicare costs.
Futhermore they would be stricter rules on who can get ssdi. A person must have either a mental or psychical disability that impairs their ablity to work full time. Drug addiction and alcholism would not count as a disablity. Some learnining disablities would count but it depends on a person's ablity to work. There would be less people getting on the SS and SSDI system this way.

reply to post by dreamseeker


If you don't mind the $7/8 a paycheck to go into a program, then you could easily place that money into an investment account. If you don't want any risk you can take a 30 year bond and get your 2.5%.

The point with the system is that it is and has always been used for other purposes. The government can not resist using the money for pork. There is no "lock box" on the program, despite what Al Gore said they were going to put in place during the Clinton administration.

Place it in private hands. The notion of "privatization" is bogus. What "privatization" means is placing the money into private, e.g. citizen hands, not handing the cash over to JP Morgan.

The system is socialist. Why should a 25 year old person place their money into a system that is going to generate a lousy return to fund some program when at that age he should be investing in things with a bit more risk? Why should my SS be used to fund giving cash to illegals? If the money was in my hands, it would not happen.

Everyone today pulls more out of the system than they put in. It is economically unfeasible.

As far as someone like you who are on the system and need it, you should not be impacted. The change should impact people much younger, say under 30. They get the current return on what they have put in, but then are on their own. The system needs to be means tested. There is no way that a person who has a retirement account of $1M at age 65 should be given a few thousand dollars a month. Is that breaking the "contract" maybe, but we are going to have to do it. Should some gent who has a government union pension that is 80% of their pay for the rest of their lives get SS? No, he should not.

The challenge is that to fix it you have to deal with the entire system and both sides only want to deal with the elements of the system that suits them. This is a problem where the solution will anger a bunch of folks and someone needs to have the stones to do that.

reply to post by dolphinfan


I don't want the young people to suffer either. Maybe the government should it leave it up to the indivual. They can chose to privatize or not privatize.
The whole thing is really a sore subject because we live in a system based on money. As long as we live on a system based on money there really is no good solution.

Originally posted by jam321
reply to post by sonofliberty1776

 

Which political party never repealed the claims you made in the OP?

It isn't about political parties. It is about a system in need of fixing.

I agree, but the reason I list it the way I did is because everyone acts like it is the repuklicans attacking SS, while the demoncrats have actually done "most" of the damage.

reply to post by dreamseeker
7 0r 8 dollars/check? Try $70 each week. That is almost a tank of gas each week. I have my own bills to pay.
Saying that "if it was done correctly it would not be a ponzi scheme" is just wishful thinking. It is and always has been a ponzi scheme. The very first people to collect paid absolutely $0.00 into the system. They were getting "their money" off the sweat of other workers.To be honest, if I had known at 16(when I got my slave brand number) what I know now, I never would have gotten one. I would have just kept cutting grass and fixing cars/lawnmowers and continued doing that forever.

I have paid in all my quarters to receive full SS benefits, just as the government told me to do. They said, you pay in all these quarters while you are working fulltime, you will get your full SS. Ok....so I had no choice to not pay in. I started working when I was 17years old and am still working at age 54.
Well, talk about the governement being an oily snake salesman...now it turns out when I reach retirement they don't want to give me what I faithfully paid into, mind you, again, not an option to NOT pay in.
I had paid in all my quarters. The plant I worked in shut down...hard to find a job...so I found a secretary job at a local community college. I didn't know squat about teacher retirement, all I knew was I needed a job and not being a slacker took the job offered me.
So, now I find out after several years working for this college as a secretary, that the SS department is NOT going to be paying me my full SS. WHAT the HELL...they are going to take some of my SS as it is called a freaking "windfall", yeah, it is a windfall...it is money I will need to survive after I retire. Not live a lifestyle of extravagence, just enough to get by as a single person with no other income in my household.
If I was being paid a pension from a private company I would draw full SS ALONG WITH THE PRIVATE PENSION...but apparently you can't do that if it is a teacher retirement pension.
The system is so unfair. Thieves.

Havent you read the bible? it all will fall-everything-ss is the least of our worries
After 911- nothing can be done except fight-and nobody has the guts to start a firht with the government
.history says fight or be slaves
egypt showed that a good fight doesnt have to be so bloody-just a lot of guts
Till there is a 911truth march on the nations capital over the lie-nothing after that matters. till then i say 4th of july would be a good day for such a march-so lets go spread the word-start threads-get these evil polititions out and all truths back-
I still ask WHY WITH SO MANY THREADS ON 911 IN SO MANY PLACES, HAVE WE NOT MARCHED???
i think easy living causes cowardly traits!!!

reply to post by itsawild1

I have read the Bible. However, are you 100% sure that these are the end times? I am about 70% sure, but that is not enough for me to just give up. If I were 100% sure, then things would be different, meaning my actions would be different.

reply to post by dolphinfan

not everyone gets more than they put in....alot, and I do mean alot...will die before they reach retirement age...

neither my mom or my dad got more out than they put in....
just saying....

reply to post by dolphinfan

soo... I would need an investment advisor...................................
okay, what will I be advised to buy????
I want to invest in gold and silver.....of which, I want to hold actual gold, not pieces of paper, since I don't know how australia's markets function, but here in the states.....there's a good possibility that for every bar of gold and silver out there being held by the banks, has a few pieces of paper attached to it!!!
trust the gov't, trust the wall street tieives.....
don't see much difference. many people in american thought their homes would part of their retirement investment, ya know, sell the house when you get of age, and move into smaller living arrangements....
well, the wall street thieves stole that retirement fund from us now, didn't they?
Disband social security, and I expect all that I put into the system returned to me, not in bogus, devalued paper, but in physical gold and silver!!!
otherwise, the danged gov't can just pay their debts!! just like they've been griping and preaching, and britching that we, the people do!!!