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4/23/2016 2:35:29 AM
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Your thoughts on Social Security?

Social Security is fine as it is.

65

Raise the retirement age.

17

Phase it out with private plans.

113

Increase Social Security Tax.

7

Results/Other

96

What is your opinion of Social Security? For those who don't know about it, let me give you a crash course. I'll try and be objective. Social Security was developed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The idea was that it would provide for people in their old age. It was (supposedly) supposed to be self-sustaining. People pay into the system, get old, and get money out of the system. People pay in by paying a Social Security Tax. This tax is not applied to an individual account. It is a giant conglomerate of tax revenue. At retirement age (officially 65), people can collect their Social Security checks. Now, objectivity aside, let me give you the problems facing Social Security. 1) Currently, Social Security and other such entitlements account for 40% of current expenditures. It's unsustainable spending. 2) People are getting more out than they put in. Thanks to medical innovation (which is thanks to capitalism, might I add), elderly people are living longer than they used to. This means more checks. 3) Fewer people are paying in. Declining birth rates mean we have a proportionally smaller amount of people finding Social Security. Libertarians have a few strong opinions on Social Security. My [i]personal[/i] thought is that FDR truly believed that SS would be sustainable. He was mistaken, clearly. However, I think he also had some ulterior motives while implementing it. Let me explain. Anybody can see that Social Security is just state-ownership of retirement plans. An intelligent and inquisitive mind should wonder, "Why even implement it? It's just a massive savings account owned by the state. Can't individuals just save on their own?" Here's the catch, and I suspect that FDR planned this: If I'm 50 years old, I've presumably put in approximately 30 years worth of SS taxes into SS. Now, if SS didn't exist, I'd have had all of that money in my 30 years of paychecks, instead. That money would go into a savings account, or it would be invested, or it would be converted into material wealth. In other words, I would own it, not the state. Imagine that I die. Does my family ever see any of that money? No. It becomes pure state revenue. That's my suspicion of SS. It's a cheap way of generating a bit of cash for the state. It's definitely backfired, however. What are [i]your[/i] thoughts on Social Security?

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  • Without Social Security, the senior poverty rate would skyrocket. Given that Republicans want to go with their Chain CPI plan, I'm really not entirely on board with corporations deciding how Social Security functions given that they really only care about profit, and nothing else. Just lift the cap on taxable income and SS will be solvent for the next 50 years. Yeah the system isn't perfect, but it's better than privatization.

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  • Allow people to opt-out of paying it, with the understanding that they cannot receive any benefits. I personally would rather have my own private insurance rather than pay money my entire life that I'll never see again.

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  • I'll probably never see mine -_-

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    1 Reply
    • If SS is canceled then elderly poverty will run rampant. Can't happen. We need to raise the retirement age if people are living longer and not give benefits to anyone who is still drawing a significant income. Let's say if you are 70 and still making 100k+ a year you are ineligible for benefits.

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    • Social security is failing because of our low birth rates (due to people being screwed out of security, rights and stuff) and the Baby Boomers dying

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    • http://www.thebiglie.net/id5.html Please read

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      • If you raise the tax cap on social security we will never run out of money.

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      • 1
        Complex issue. Sure, it's our money and it makes sense that we should be able to keep it and use it to much better results than the current one. But here's the issue.. people wont. The vast majority of Americans put zero effort into retirement planning. And that wouldn't change if SS was removed. So the result would be a dramatic skyrocketing of poverty among the elderly. Sure, we could chalk that up to "oh well, you made your choice" and let them starve in the streets. But then that affects so many other facets of society in negative ways. People have been debating and trying to come to a conclusion for this for decades. You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe the answer is going to come out of Offtopic.

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      • If you live your years of retirement off of SS alone, you messed up in life.

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        • *Ahem* [spoiler] Universal healthcare.[/spoiler]

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        • If you have an able body and mind then you should be forced to look for jobs and there should be a system where you transition out of welfare.

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          1 Reply
          • Don't tax the social security checks.

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          • stopped reading after delano

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          • [quote]Imagine that I die. Does my family ever see any of that money? No. It becomes pure state revenue. [/quote] Umm, yes they would, its called social security survivors benefits.

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          • It sure sucks to be paying into something I'll never see the benefits from.

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            1 Reply
            • Let's play guess the social security number. First, we need someone to submit theirs to the pile.

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              • Well if you're going to analyze SS you also need to look at the demographics. The baby boomers are all retiring. That's a large portion of the adult population.

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              • Private plans definitely have merit and its something that should be phased in, because it makes people more accountable and people have more power over it. However I also feel that due to the unpredictable nature of life there should be some government support for people over a certain age threshold, because its difficult to predict when you'll die. However this could be remedied by the private sector of course. I have no idea how retirement homes work so this might already be the case but if they provide care for those until they die conditional upon a payment at the start of residence then this would pretty much negate the purpose of social security. So if this isn't how retirement homes work and don't change to work this way then there should be some level of support to help stretch those savings.

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              • Good. Lots of people voted for the best option.

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                3 Replies
                • Edited by SuperStormDroid: 4/23/2016 7:54:17 PM
                  Unless only non profit organizations can replace social security, I'm not sure how privatizing social security would work. Can someone enlighten me on how this would work? Privatising something sounds drastic (almost all actions have consequences, you know) and I believe that some things should never be fully privatized (education for example, although private schools can co-exist with public schools).

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                  • You have asked the wrong group of people, sir.

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                    • Edited by Breach: 4/23/2016 7:51:19 PM
                      It needs to be given to those who are older than the average person.

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                    • Doesn't matter what we do. By the time I'm eligible for it, hell, even by the time my parents are eligible for it, it'll be obsolete.

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                    • Basically wealth redistribution for retired people. And no, it's not sustainable. A move to voluntary private ss would be smart.

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                      • http://www.thebiglie.net/id5.html Please read

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                      • ponzi scheme

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