Should We Have the Right to Opt Out of Social Security?

[Skull Pilot]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

 

[billyerock]

No but I'll tell you what I, as a young American, would be willing to do and sacrifice in the name of the greater good.

I would be willing to pay into the system for the next 20 years and forgo my benefits when I retire as part of a plan to keep checks going out to those currently receiving and soon to be receiving SS but with a clear path to ween us off SS and eventually end it. After that I would no longer have to pay into the system and use the money as I see fit.

First of all, you might be financially able to pull it off, but the vast majority of people your age and younger could not. Secondly, if everyone opts out, someone still has to pay benefits to those who are counting on those benefits. And last of all, if we allow people to opt out, what we'll end up with is a bunch of retirees with zero income and the government will end up coming in to support them anyway, because we're not going to let them starve in the streets.

The bottom line is that we cannot just shut down SS. It is a decent program that makes sense. What does not make sense is the fact that we have not raised the retirement age since its inception. People are collecting too soon. If we raised the retirement age to 70 or 71, a great deal of pressure would be taken off and most likely we could fund SS without increasing taxes dramatically. The same holds true for Medicare.

People need to work longer now because they live longer. If they want to retire at an earlier age, then they should do it on their own savings. SS is the greatest safety net we have, but it is covering Americans for too many years. That is the basic problem.

The only issue that needs to be addressed is the fact that companies don't like retaining older workers, at least in many industries. One thing that should be looked at is making it easier for employers to reduce the salaries of older workers, assuming there are justifiable reasons for doing so, as in a lower capacity to produce.

Our society has changed a great deal in the last fifty years. Life expectancy has increased by almost nine years. There are so many solutions available, but nobody wants to give anything up. Everyone thinks they have a right to this and that, but in truth, they only have a right to what is available.

i don't agree with your analysis of retiring them at 70 ...thats a bad Idea very bad Idea ... all we have to do to make social security viable is to take it out of the general fund ... that would totally solve its cash flow problems ... when you have republicans an democrats borrowing money from it constantly that pretty much cause the problem that we have now ... if the government went back a paid the money it owes social security, we would have more money for social security... until we do this then there could be problems ... stop the government from raiding the social security trust fund an you have solve all its problems

 

[billyerock]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

idiots every where you go ...

 

[WorldAHope]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

Well, that is okay for folks who DO invest in a disicplned manner, and do so wisely, and for folks who DO save for their retirement,
what about those who don't ? Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, spend everything don't invest or save, and any extra cash or that annual tax refund - blow it in a couch or a car or a vacation.
.....30, 40 years later.........what then ?
That small contribution to SS, if you can think of it this way, is contributing to the nation and to the future. Were it to be disbursed as cash, it likely will be wasted by most Americans.
Sounds "socialist", but having grown up with SS, and seeing how Americans are , no insurance, no health care benefits, barely able to check their oil and fill up the gas tank at the right time,
I see we are better off with that deduction adn investment.

Statistics show that Americans would just blow that SS %, and would end up penniless, be destitute and on relief in their later years.
And the taxpayers would be paying for their care, or the streets would be full of homeless old folks, or the morgues.
We could always build big "Poor Houses"
or would that be communism ?

SS has exceeded all expectations, it is one of the best programs this nation has ever done.
Thank God we did not privatize SS fund so it too could, like the Pension Guaranty fund,
lose sight of its purpose and allow the managers forget their fiduciary responsibility and
take the SS fund to the poker game. And they could piss away 25 - 35 % of its value in risky investment instruments the 'genius' experts said were "Can't Lose !!" vehicles to incredible wealth.

I consider myself a decent investor, and some of my portfolio that I thought was safe and protected, balanced in a diversification strategy - went south. Gold funds are doing well, real estate I own is okay, my stocks did terrible.
Putting all that money I put into stocks to short term CDs at very low rates would have been better than losing all that book value and dividend value and collateral value. I hope it comes back.

Point is: even the best 'experts' lost fortunes.
What would happen if billion$ of the SS Fund had been plopped into stocks and Swaps and Derivatives ?
POOF .

 

[Old Rocks]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

Yep, and if it all goes down the drain, we will be supporting your ungrateful ass on welfare.

 

[raceright]

ya know, after the crash of 01 the option of ss going in the stock market didn't make sense to me. After the current meltdown I'm not quite sure how anyone can make the argument it's a good idea now. Every 7-10 years there will be a crash, history tells us this.

No No No crashes are caused by incumbent parties

 

[Skull Pilot]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

idiots every where you go ...

you call me an idiot because you're too fucking stupid to protect your own money.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

Yep, and if it all goes down the drain, we will be supporting your ungrateful ass on welfare.

no worries mate. unlike most of you sheep, I save more than I spend

 

[Annie]

If you don't agree with the laws and rules of the nation please move. You don't have to pay if you aren't here. Bye.

PS SS is one of the wonderful things we do as citizens. Keep doing wonderful things and let the greedy move someplace where they will be happy.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith

Are you just here to start fights?

I know this may be too difficult for you to understand but like it or not, we will reach a point where the number of working people will not be able to support the number of retirees... I assume you believe that we should give up to 100% of our pay to Social Security if that is what it takes to support retirees....

Why not allow people who will not get these benefits to invest money for themselves?

The day seems to be upon us. Links and tables at site:

Pajamas Media » Social Security Crisis to Arrive Six Years Early

Social Security Crisis to Arrive Six Years Early
Posted By Tom Blumer On April 3, 2009 @ 12:30 am In . Positioning, Money, Politics, US News | 48 Comments

[1] A year ago, I wrote:

Think Social Security will be solvent until 2041? Think again. The next president will face rapidly growing problems by the end of his or her first term.

At the time, the concern was that the substantial Social Security surpluses we have experienced during the past 22 years would begin to shrink.

An updated version of a Congressional Budget Office chart I presented last year shows that the shrink has indeed begun (information is at the “data” link [2] at this CBO page): ...

Social Security’s surplus for the year ended September 30, 2008, fell to $180.2 billion, reducing its subsidy to the rest of the government.

What? That’s right; I said “subsidy to the rest of the government.”

Social Security’s surpluses have been raked off by Uncle Sam and have subsidized the rest of the government since 1968, [3] when President Johnson began “including Social Security and all other trust funds in a ‘unified budget.’”

At that point, as I wrote last year, “Social Security’s Trust Fund, instead of being a separate, untouchable stash of cash and investments (i.e., instead of being run like a normal pension plan), thus became money that the rest of the government could raid.”

And raid it they have, as you can see above. Since 1986, Social Security surpluses have subsidized the rest of the government to the tune of over $2.3 trillion, enabling reported deficits to be lower than they really have been. Social Security’s so-called “Trust Fund” consists of a stack of IOUs from Uncle Sam, who is now [4] over $11 trillion in debt....

 

[Iriemon]

Because we have lots of "sheeple" in this country as some call them, we need social insurance. Unless we think living in a country with hordes of elderly and disabled living under freeways and begging at stoplights is utopia.

If you let people opt out, everyone will opt out, still won't save enough, and in a couple decades we'll have that utopia.

SS should be a means tested basic survival benefit for those too stupid too poor or too unlucky to have sufficient income of their own to live on. Our country could afford that. It can't afford paying rich benefits to wealthy people who don't need them.

 

[mash107]

If you don't agree with the laws and rules of the nation please move. You don't have to pay if you aren't here. Bye.

PS SS is one of the wonderful things we do as citizens. Keep doing wonderful things and let the greedy move someplace where they will be happy.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith

That is an abject lie. You have to pay taxes for ten years if you move. Social Security is the worst ponzi scheme ever devised. It's like Madoff's but so much bigger, and we're forced into it with a gun to our heads.

 

[007]

If you don't agree with the laws and rules of the nation please move. You don't have to pay if you aren't here. Bye.

PS SS is one of the wonderful things we do as citizens. Keep doing wonderful things and let the greedy move someplace where they will be happy.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith

That is an abject lie. You have to pay taxes for ten years if you move. Social Security is the worst ponzi scheme ever devised. It's like Madoff's but so much bigger, and we're forced into it with a gun to our heads.

Bull shit. SS was a great program when it started. It didn't get in trouble until the stinking government got their filthy fingers in it and took all the money and left worthless IOU's. Had they left it alone it would still be OK, but like everything else the sons a bitches in Washington get their greedy little fingers into, it's now fucked.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Personally, I think we should do away with SS altogether and let people use that 15% of their lifetime income to save for retirement in an account that they own privately and cannot be pilfered by the government to run its "legal' Ponzi/ Madoff scheme.

Bite the bullet and everyone under 40 should be off SS. the government can cut spending somewhere else to pay benefits to everyone over 40 and when that last person croaks, that's it.

But hey, you already can choose to opt out of a large portion of SS if you want. I do.

Start your own business and incorporate. Now the government tells you that you have to pay yourself some sort of salary, so pay yourself the minimum you can legally get away with and pay your SS taxes on that small amount. take the rest of your income as a distribution and avoid, payroll and SS taxes on that money.

Well, that is okay for folks who DO invest in a disicplned manner, and do so wisely, and for folks who DO save for their retirement,
what about those who don't ? Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, spend everything don't invest or save, and any extra cash or that annual tax refund - blow it in a couch or a car or a vacation.
.....30, 40 years later.........what then ?

People will get a 15% increase in pay. That increase is for the sole purpose to save in a retirement account. Legislate it with severe penalties if people do not comply.

That small contribution to SS, if you can think of it this way, is contributing to the nation and to the future. Were it to be disbursed as cash, it likely will be wasted by most Americans.

I don't call 15% of my income a "small amount"

Sounds "socialist", but having grown up with SS, and seeing how Americans are , no insurance, no health care benefits, barely able to check their oil and fill up the gas tank at the right time,
I see we are better off with that deduction adn investment.

We are better off if people are taught to be responsible for themselves. If people actually had to live or die based on their decisions, do you not think people will start making better decisions and that right quick?

Statistics show that Americans would just blow that SS %, and would end up penniless, be destitute and on relief in their later years.
And the taxpayers would be paying for their care, or the streets would be full of homeless old folks, or the morgues.
We could always build big "Poor Houses"
or would that be communism ?

Again require that the 15% be saved in an account individually owned, free from government pilfering and we won't have to worry about that will we?

SS has exceeded all expectations, it is one of the best programs this nation has ever done.
Thank God we did not privatize SS fund so it too could, like the Pension Guaranty fund,
lose sight of its purpose and allow the managers forget their fiduciary responsibility and
take the SS fund to the poker game. And they could piss away 25 - 35 % of its value in risky investment instruments the 'genius' experts said were "Can't Lose !!" vehicles to incredible wealth.

If by best you mean the best slush fund ever devised by a government, I would agree.

I consider myself a decent investor, and some of my portfolio that I thought was safe and protected, balanced in a diversification strategy - went south. Gold funds are doing well, real estate I own is okay, my stocks did terrible.
Putting all that money I put into stocks to short term CDs at very low rates would have been better than losing all that book value and dividend value and collateral value. I hope it comes back.

Point is: even the best 'experts' lost fortunes.
What would happen if billion$ of the SS Fund had been plopped into stocks and Swaps and Derivatives ?
POOF .

Life does not come without risk does it? it is not the government's job to attenuate my risk with someone else's money or someone else's risk with my money. (think bail out too as that also applies)

Save enough, be self sufficient and all the ups and downs of the economy can be weathered.

 

[Iriemon]

Life does not come without risk does it? it is not the government's job to attenuate my risk with someone else's money or someone else's risk with my money. (think bail out too as that also applies)

Save enough, be self sufficient and all the ups and downs of the economy can be weathered.

Great advice. I recommend everyone follow it.

And for the hordes that will not, there's living under freeways and begging at stoplights. And the rest of us can just get a darker tint on our SUV windows to deal with that situation.

 

[editec]

I say yes. After all what are the chances that I have at age 37 to get any Social Security money when I retire.

I suspect that you'll very quickly be talking out of the other side of your mouth if you find yourself unable to work because of some unfortunate accident or illness.

I can't blame you for worrying about it, though, I'll grant you that concern.

The boomers paid and paid and paid to put Social security back into the black.

They paid long over due debts and they funded Social Security to be in good fiscal shape through 2050.

Now we're informed that the money is likely to run out by 2017.

Where's it all go?

Good question.

 

[Annie]

I say yes. After all what are the chances that I have at age 37 to get any Social Security money when I retire.

I suspect that you'll very quickly be talking out of the other side of your mouth if you find yourself unable to work because of some unfortunate accident or illness.

I can't blame you for worrying about it, though, I'll grant you that concern.

The boomers paid and paid and paid to put Social security back into the black.

They paid long over due debts and they funded Social Security to be in good fiscal shape through 2050.

Now we're informed that the money is likely to run out by 2017.

Where's it all go?

Good question.

Congress spent it.

 

[Iriemon]

I say yes. After all what are the chances that I have at age 37 to get any Social Security money when I retire.

I suspect that you'll very quickly be talking out of the other side of your mouth if you find yourself unable to work because of some unfortunate accident or illness.

I can't blame you for worrying about it, though, I'll grant you that concern.

The boomers paid and paid and paid to put Social security back into the black.

They paid long over due debts and they funded Social Security to be in good fiscal shape through 2050.

Now we're informed that the money is likely to run out by 2017.

Where's it all go?

Good question.

Congress spent it.

Or more accurately, it was used to finance the deficits the Govt ran over the past 30 years.

 

[Iriemon]

I say yes. After all what are the chances that I have at age 37 to get any Social Security money when I retire.

I suspect that you'll very quickly be talking out of the other side of your mouth if you find yourself unable to work because of some unfortunate accident or illness.

I can't blame you for worrying about it, though, I'll grant you that concern.

The boomers paid and paid and paid to put Social security back into the black.

They paid long over due debts and they funded Social Security to be in good fiscal shape through 2050.

Now we're informed that the money is likely to run out by 2017.

Where's it all go?

Good question.

The boomers paid extra into SS to fund a trust to help pay for their retirement benefits.

SS was never in debt, it always had enough money to pay current benefits. The concern was that when the boomers retired, there wouldn't be enough then current workers to pay their benefits.

So with some amazing foresight, Congress passed a law in 1983 increasing SS taxes to more than was necessary to build up a surplus. The last few years, workers have paid about $200 billion a year in extra SS taxes.

The crime is that the Govt stole this money to finance the deficits that the last three Republican adminsitrations have run. So rather than having $3 trillion in a fund to pay for the boomers' retirements, there is nothing but worthless IOUs. Thanks Ron, George and George.

Now prepare for an intergenerational war between the boomers who will want their benefits and following generations who will not want to pay the very high tax rates to pay for it.

IMO, the boomers who elected politicians that pandered tax cuts and got us into this situation should not benefit from it. SS benefits should be means tested. The wealthy who got the advantages of tax breaks and thus paid less taxes should not get government benefits as well.

 

[Annie]

I suspect that you'll very quickly be talking out of the other side of your mouth if you find yourself unable to work because of some unfortunate accident or illness.

I can't blame you for worrying about it, though, I'll grant you that concern.

The boomers paid and paid and paid to put Social security back into the black.

They paid long over due debts and they funded Social Security to be in good fiscal shape through 2050.

Now we're informed that the money is likely to run out by 2017.

Where's it all go?

Good question.

Congress spent it.

Or more accurately, it was used to finance the deficits the Govt ran over the past 30 years.

Which was NOT the purpose of SS. Now let's just get our money back and not strap our kids and grandkids with the government piggy bank.

 

[editec]

WE didn't strap our children and grandchildren.

WE didn't make the thousands of stupid decisions which bankrupted this nation.

Detail, folks, detail.

Means testing is, I think the only possible solution to the current state of affairs.

And even that depends on the economy recovering, something that I think is basically fairly unlikely.