Contributors to this thread:
That's what you call letting 'em have it with both barrels!
The lady is right!
First, this was 8 years ago. Second, it is a misquote. Third, he has been out of office since 2010, Fourth, unless spending is reined in, the budget (and likely deficit, certainly debt) continue to grow uncontrolled. His statement came out of his work on a committee to reduce deficit spending where people all said the deficit should be reduced, but did not want their pet spending touched.
"But Simpson said that while every interest group that testified before his committee agreed that the mounting federal debt is a national tragedy, they would then talk about why government funding to their area of interest shouldn’t be touched.
“We had the greatest generation — I think this is the greediest generation,” he said.
“I really believe that there are more patriots in America than selfish, selfish people,” he said."
See it every day. The government is indeed responsible for creating the problem, but it is a problem nonetheless. The ONLY way to fix the problem is for sacrifices to be made. Certainly, folks who have paid in their entire life are entitled to what they are owed, but that simply kicks the can down the road. Again, there aren't any solutions without sacrifices from some group or generation, and there are just too many instances where this creates the entitlement mantra for the future.
However, fool me once, shame on you and fool me twice, shame on me. Government has sold the people out at every turn, so here we are with nobody wanting to sacrifice. Thus we sit. A little right from both sides on this one.
Sacrifice is right and the gov't is not exempt. Doesn't matter if you've paid in your entire life or just a few years. What is sitting in there is yours, not theirs. It is not a tax revenue account. It is a "mandatory" savings account you are forced to participate in whether you want to or not for the "wellfare of the general population".
Time to sacrifice? Yep. Goodbye wellfare and any and all other gov't subsistance programs. Goodbye high paying Rep and Sen salaries. Goodbye bureaucracies, namely the IRS.
I would much rather my SS donation go into one of my interest bearing accounts that I have control over...
If anyone in their 40's today is planning to depend upon SS for retirement they are going to be sadly disappointed.
Hell, if you have saved too much and do not strategically move things around and possibly limit yourself to the minimum withdrawals on your other retirement funds, then they will tax the SS benefit too...even after paying into the system for over 40 years I will probably be paying taxes on my SS when I do get it...I'm 61 1/2...Been paying into it since I was 15....I often wonder if I will collect any of it...
But to the point in the original story; SS is not an entitlement !!!
I do blame them for not making changes some time ago, but you are still right in that they are not 100% responsible. Part of being in government is making tough decisions, a fact that seems lost on most. For me they are not off the hook because we as a society are having less children, though. For one, assuming a consistently increasing workforce doesn't make sense over a large period of time. However, I could let that go, but changes should have been made upon evaluation of workforce trends.
Life expectancy is another matter, and while predictions likely favored the increase, it is just too tough to be exact. So, I can't hang that on the government totally. I'm not sure how much this has really happened over the years, but any money taken out of the coffers of these programs to use elsewhere is a big no-no.
I read somewhere that when SS was first enacted life expectancy was 62 and the SS retirement age was 65...Only the rich and those unable to physically work ever really retired...Now people act like a comfortable retirement is owed to them...If you don't save and invest wisely you won't retire comfortably (barring marrying a rich widow or winning the lottery)...Even if you save and invest wisely you still may not retire comfortably...the only guarantees are death and taxes...those you can count on...
"Social Security is indeed a "tax.""
By a tax revenue source I mean not one like and income tax to be used for other things it was not intended to. Anytime a gov't feels they need to make you do something for your own good is never a good thing.
Brotsky is correct - anyone relying on SS one day for those in their 40's today will likely be very disappointed and/or desparate one day when they find they have no retirement of any kind.
Social Security is most definitely a Ponzi Scheme that keeps old folks coming to the polls out of fear....
"A Ponzi scheme (/?p?n.zi/; also a Ponzi game)[1] is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources."
We can argue whether "state sanctioned" is indeed "fraudulent"....
"Those who say that people would be much better off self-directing their SS taxes are often the same people who say that people would be better off not buying insurance and investing the premiums instead. On average, that might work...on paper. Individually, it could, and often would be a financial disaster."
Depends on who it is and what type of account is used. I am quite certain I am not one of "those" people destined for a financial disaster if I direct my own SS funds...
"then all insurance is a Ponzi scheme as well."
Insurance is a payment to protect you "if" a triggering event happens. In other words a possible eventuality.
Social Security is a definite unless an eventuality happens, E.g. "you die" "it fails" like most Ponzi schemes are destined to do.
Calling it insurance is giving it a title of respectability it doesn't deserve. It is forcing the young to pay for the old with the promise you "may" get return for doing so....
Insurance is a contract based on knowing what you will get in return.
Social Security has no binding commitment to the investor and the state can change the contract at will. If not a Ponzi by your perspective it is sure as ell fraud. Calling something Insurance which has no assurance of future benefit is fraudulent. So that makes it a Ponzi Scheme....;^)
Social Security, one of the Progressives first blow to the nuclear family . . . . . .
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Not to undermine the unconstitutional dissolvement of the Treasury and unconstitutional establishment of the Federal Reserve . . . . . . .
"Unfortunately, for the vast majority of retirees, SS is by FAR their main source of income, and for many it is their ONLY source of retirement income. Had they not been forced into it, they would be destitute. Interestingly enough, SS is what has allowed most people to actually retire at all. Prior to SS, "retirement" was something that only the wealthy ever experienced."
I agree, and was the whole point to it at the beginning.
"Unfortunately, for the vast majority of retirees, SS is by FAR their main source of income, and for many it is their ONLY source of retirement income. Had they not been forced into it, they would be destitute. Interestingly enough, SS is what has allowed most people to actually retire at all. Prior to SS, "retirement" was something that only the wealthy ever experienced."
The state wants you to believe this^^^
Many in poverty never earned SS benefits to draw. Teachers, older Government workers, railroad employees, etc. have their own plans and the number of places that have pensions with/or offer 401K's has increased across the board. Just more of the fraud perpetrated by the state on the American people by using poor statistics....
SS was never meant to be set up the way its doled out now. One thing is getting it for "clinical depression" etc, you should see the folks that are using that card where I live, most under age 40 and having a good time with no care in the world, at least thats been my experience with the many.
Move disability from SS to Medicaid for anyone under 65.
OR...is it possible the politicians have set up the way SS is paid out now in an attempt to break the entire system, so that the future politicians (who are hand picked) can claim that it was the fault of the previous politicians, and they are now here to fix everything? But first SS needs to go away, and we will replace it with this NEW system that we will once again be forced to pay into and start the whole thing over again? Gotta think like a crooked politician in the attempt to understand what the CROOKS are up to.
