Six trillion plus in cuts needed by 2020

[Zander]

I say make retirement 90+. Just think how much we'll save in entitlement expenditures.

I'd agree to that, but I am financially independent and can live without anything from Social Security.

I think a reasonable age is 72 for early retirement, 75 for full retirement. (feel free to retire at any age you like if you can afford it. But government benefits should not start until 72)

'Reasonable' is from your perspective as in congrats that you are financially independent.
The 'mean' between life expectancy for American women and men combined is about age 78 to age 79, give or take a handful of months. Therefore, at your set age for early retirement, Americans can expect to enjoy 6-7 years of non-working golden years.
Why retire at all?

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

 

[LordBrownTrout]

I'd agree to that, but I am financially independent and can live without anything from Social Security.

I think a reasonable age is 72 for early retirement, 75 for full retirement. (feel free to retire at any age you like if you can afford it. But government benefits should not start until 72)

'Reasonable' is from your perspective as in congrats that you are financially independent.
The 'mean' between life expectancy for American women and men combined is about age 78 to age 79, give or take a handful of months. Therefore, at your set age for early retirement, Americans can expect to enjoy 6-7 years of non-working golden years.
Why retire at all?

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

How I wish that this still pervaded our society.

 

[Paulie]

I was kidding about the 90 year old retirement thing. I think we have some wiggle room for raising it, but my biggest position on it is allowing for a voluntary opt-out.

Make it be like the GI Bill, where you have only ONE CHANCE to accept or decline. The decision is permanent, so that people wouldn't just come to their decision lightly.

I'd even go so far as to add required comprehensive education about the 2 choices to the high school curriculum, complete with at the very least a basic course on investing within the market.

As long as the Feds are going to be involved in education, they can at least offer something to students with some real value.

 

[ShackledNation]

Wealth is created by producing more with the same or a lesser amount of labor. This is why the train was considered an improvement over people having to carry freight on their backs. It is the free market that allows for such wealth to be created.

In 1900, Americans had to work 9 hours to buy 1 pair of jeans. Today, they would only have to work 3 hours. In 1908, it took an American 2 full years of labor to buy a car. Today, a new car costs a worker only 8 months of labor, but the car is a technological miracle compared to those in 1908. It has air conditioning, power seats, safety devices, cruise control, a sunroof, tinted glass, a CD player, a built in radio, and so on.

We all take this for granted today. The end result of free market capitalism is more goods for less work. This is achieved through the accumulation of capital (technology, machines, tools, knowledge, etc.)

If capitalism were allowed to thrive, people would be allowed to retire earlier or work less every week. But government intervention slows down this entire process. Technology and machines are blamed for job losses and poverty, and rather than save an invest our money for retirement (money that would contribute to creating more capital goods) the money is taxed and wasted on arbitrary redistribution projects than serve to cripple economic growth.

 

[B. Kidd]

I'd agree to that, but I am financially independent and can live without anything from Social Security.

I think a reasonable age is 72 for early retirement, 75 for full retirement. (feel free to retire at any age you like if you can afford it. But government benefits should not start until 72)

'Reasonable' is from your perspective as in congrats that you are financially independent.
The 'mean' between life expectancy for American women and men combined is about age 78 to age 79, give or take a handful of months. Therefore, at your set age for early retirement, Americans can expect to enjoy 6-7 years of non-working golden years.
Why retire at all?

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

This isn't before the mid-50's. Many damned hard working Americans took responsibility, worked their asses off for meager wages all of their lives, brought you an extra napkin when you spilled your sauvignon blanc, encountered obstacles, and are faced with living a meager existence.
I see too many waitresses still working way past their physical capabilities, and now you want to insure they work to age 75?
What kind of TOTAL dollar and cents world do you live in?
Sorry, it ain't mine.

 

[william the wie]

WTF! The link to a life expectancy is 18 years. The average retirement age is currently age 62. The average American woman lives to age 82 and males 5 years less. 65+ is too high, as age 65 should be the top.

What Is the Average Retirement Age in America? | eHow.com

My position is based on life expectancy at the time of passage of these programs plus a little leeway. Life expectancy has been increasingly steadily. The biggest blooper of my lifetime was the encouragement of long-chain fiber cigarette filters. LBJ needed a way to get the 1964 civil rights bill passed so he threw a bone to the then anti-black, anti-tobacco Baptists and Latter Day Saints to keep them quiet. But he threw the wrong bone or threw it the wrong way inhaling fibers that way accounts for more than 100% of the damage attributed to tobacco.

But aside from that one exception generally speaking life expectancy has been improving steadily since the passage of social security.

 

[Wiseacre]

Freeze federal spending for 5 years and we have a balanced budget by 2016, possibly a surplus. No spending cuts required, just a freeze at today's bloated spending rate and today's tax code.

I read somewhere that if we require at least a dollar's worth of spending cuts for every dollar we raise the debt ceiling that the budget would be balanced in less than 10 years. No foolin'.

 

[rdean]

You know that if the US economy was "making" money, we might not need so many cuts.

Hilarious.

Try explaining that to a right winger. They can blow stuff up and tear things down, but without slaves doing the thinking and working, what have they ever built that's worth anything?

 

[Trajan]

Freeze federal spending for 5 years and we have a balanced budget by 2016, possibly a surplus. No spending cuts required, just a freeze at today's bloated spending rate and today's tax code.

entitlements will not stand still, they simply won't, thats why that graph though as 'true' as it appears, is a fantasy on practical terms. the dem answer appears to be, to cut defense, tax more and denude payments to care givers and institutions that deliver it, as if that will work......

my rant;
once gov. got in the business of social engineering, this was foretold.
The Europeans discovered this sooner than we did becasue we have a much more highly 'evolved ' credit economy, which bought us more time............Europe in the 70's and 80's started running flat and unemployment reached levels that they could not wrestle to the ground, there are just not enough producers to provide succor to those that have been told they will be taken care of by those producers.

once gov was in the social engineering bus., their mismanagement of the our financial affairs did not make this happen, it has just made it happen SOONER.

Freeze entitlements too. This ain't rocket science. We spend too much. The only way back to sanity is to freeze everything. Normal growth will create a balanced budget in 5-6 years.

We then need to educate people about the crafty ways of the DC Bureaucrat. Only in DC is a spending increase considered a spending cut. It's ridiculous!

Then we reform and rework all entitlement programs. We can start by raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to life match currenty expectancy. We should eliminate Obamacare and the Medicare drug benefit completely.

We can do this all with no new taxes and no spending cuts.

yes we can!

 

[Zander]

'Reasonable' is from your perspective as in congrats that you are financially independent.
The 'mean' between life expectancy for American women and men combined is about age 78 to age 79, give or take a handful of months. Therefore, at your set age for early retirement, Americans can expect to enjoy 6-7 years of non-working golden years.
Why retire at all?

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

This isn't before the mid-50's. Many damned hard working Americans took responsibility, worked their asses off for meager wages all of their lives, brought you an extra napkin when you spilled your sauvignon blanc, encountered obstacles, and are faced with living a meager existence.
I see too many waitresses still working way past their physical capabilities, and now you want to insure they work to age 75?
What kind of TOTAL dollar and cents world do you live in?
Sorry, it ain't mine.

Tough shit. It's your own life. Society doesn't owe you or dried out old waitresses squat.

PS- I drink Red Wines exclusively.

 

[Trajan]

I'd agree to that, but I am financially independent and can live without anything from Social Security.

I think a reasonable age is 72 for early retirement, 75 for full retirement. (feel free to retire at any age you like if you can afford it. But government benefits should not start until 72)

'Reasonable' is from your perspective as in congrats that you are financially independent.
The 'mean' between life expectancy for American women and men combined is about age 78 to age 79, give or take a handful of months. Therefore, at your set age for early retirement, Americans can expect to enjoy 6-7 years of non-working golden years.
Why retire at all?

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

agreed, SSI was intended as a supplement.

and if you think the greatest generation isn't ready for retirement because they bought the social engineering mantra that gov. would take care of them ( I'd say oh,m half ) , wait 50 years......scorched earth, if this philosophy doesn't change.

 

[william the wie]

Wealth is created by producing more with the same or a lesser amount of labor. This is why the train was considered an improvement over people having to carry freight on their backs. It is the free market that allows for such wealth to be created.

In 1900, Americans had to work 9 hours to buy 1 pair of jeans. Today, they would only have to work 3 hours. In 1908, it took an American 2 full years of labor to buy a car. Today, a new car costs a worker only 8 months of labor, but the car is a technological miracle compared to those in 1908. It has air conditioning, power seats, safety devices, cruise control, a sunroof, tinted glass, a CD player, a built in radio, and so on.

We all take this for granted today. The end result of free market capitalism is more goods for less work. This is achieved through the accumulation of capital (technology, machines, tools, knowledge, etc.)

If capitalism were allowed to thrive, people would be allowed to retire earlier or work less every week. But government intervention slows down this entire process. Technology and machines are blamed for job losses and poverty, and rather than save an invest our money for retirement (money that would contribute to creating more capital goods) the money is taxed and wasted on arbitrary redistribution projects than serve to cripple economic growth.

True but this is obscured by inflation and financial leverage. Most people do like to work and as long as those on welfare are not permitted to breed while on general assistance really who cares. I suspect automatic food stamps for everyone with a valid social security card would do no harm relative to the savings on administration and the costs and benefits associated with valid government services such as national defense are unevenly distributed.

 

[B. Kidd]

Retirement is a completely modern concept. Before the mid 1950s, there was no “retirement” as we use the term today. A 1950 poll showed most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled. Life did not offer “twilight years,” two decades of uninterrupted leisure courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. People worked until they died. I will do some type of work until I die. I enjoy it. I will retire when I expire!!

But if you really want to retire , then you'll have to take full responsibility for your own life and be a very prolific earner and saver. Counting on the Government for retirement is counting on living a very meager existence......

This isn't before the mid-50's. Many damned hard working Americans took responsibility, worked their asses off for meager wages all of their lives, brought you an extra napkin when you spilled your sauvignon blanc, encountered obstacles, and are faced with living a meager existence.
I see too many waitresses still working way past their physical capabilities, and now you want to insure they work to age 75?
What kind of TOTAL dollar and cents world do you live in?
Sorry, it ain't mine.

Tough shit. It's your own life. Society doesn't owe you or dried out old waitresses squat.

PS- I drink Red Wines exclusively.

Sorry.
Stats on retirement don't back up your Draconian retirement cutoffs.
P. S. -
May I suggest a good New York Finger Lakes region White Reisling?

 

[LordBrownTrout]

You know that if the US economy was "making" money, we might not need so many cuts.

Hilarious.

Try explaining that to a right winger. They can blow stuff up and tear things down, but without slaves doing the thinking and working, what have they ever built that's worth anything?

If we weren't busy fighting endless wars and trying to turn this place into a socialist/utopian/unicorn fantasyland we probably would have some money.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

This isn't before the mid-50's. Many damned hard working Americans took responsibility, worked their asses off for meager wages all of their lives, brought you an extra napkin when you spilled your sauvignon blanc, encountered obstacles, and are faced with living a meager existence.
I see too many waitresses still working way past their physical capabilities, and now you want to insure they work to age 75?
What kind of TOTAL dollar and cents world do you live in?
Sorry, it ain't mine.

Tough shit. It's your own life. Society doesn't owe you or dried out old waitresses squat.

PS- I drink Red Wines exclusively.

Sorry.
Stats on retirement don't back up your Draconian retirement cutoffs.
P. S. -
May I suggest a good New York Finger Lakes region White Reisling?

May I suggest a 2003 Caymus cabarnet.

 

[william the wie]

You know that if the US economy was "making" money, we might not need so many cuts.

Hilarious.

Try explaining that to a right winger. They can blow stuff up and tear things down, but without slaves doing the thinking and working, what have they ever built that's worth anything?

If we weren't busy fighting endless wars and trying to turn this place into a socialist/utopian/unicorn fantasyland we probably would have some money.

And doing a damned inefficient job at it. Combining ARMs, securitization and the CRA is what caused the meltdown. There are perfectly valid threads that point out that no one of these items was the cause of the meltdown and they are right. You can burn sulfur, you can burn charcoal, you can burn saltpeter or any two of the three fairly safely but three of three can get really dangerous. But that does not compute for partisans so why waste your time?

 

[ShackledNation]

Wealth is created by producing more with the same or a lesser amount of labor. This is why the train was considered an improvement over people having to carry freight on their backs. It is the free market that allows for such wealth to be created.

In 1900, Americans had to work 9 hours to buy 1 pair of jeans. Today, they would only have to work 3 hours. In 1908, it took an American 2 full years of labor to buy a car. Today, a new car costs a worker only 8 months of labor, but the car is a technological miracle compared to those in 1908. It has air conditioning, power seats, safety devices, cruise control, a sunroof, tinted glass, a CD player, a built in radio, and so on.

We all take this for granted today. The end result of free market capitalism is more goods for less work. This is achieved through the accumulation of capital (technology, machines, tools, knowledge, etc.)

If capitalism were allowed to thrive, people would be allowed to retire earlier or work less every week. But government intervention slows down this entire process. Technology and machines are blamed for job losses and poverty, and rather than save an invest our money for retirement (money that would contribute to creating more capital goods) the money is taxed and wasted on arbitrary redistribution projects than serve to cripple economic growth.

True but this is obscured by inflation and financial leverage. Most people do like to work and as long as those on welfare are not permitted to breed while on general assistance really who cares. I suspect automatic food stamps for everyone with a valid social security card would do no harm relative to the savings on administration and the costs and benefits associated with valid government services such as national defense are unevenly distributed.

Inflation is caused by the Federal Reserve, and I can assure you such an institution is quite the opposite of a free market.

And for those that like to work, great. However, welfare does more harm than good to society and the economy, and ultimately the poor are not better off in the long run because of it. Even food stamps have not been completely successful, but they are hardly the biggest problem right now. My point is that all people, rich and poor, are ultimately better off in a free market society.

In a free market, people can improve their condition with free, voluntary exchange and hard work. With intrusive government and crony capitalism like we have now, people thrive when they work the system and find every possible way to grab a piece of the government loot at the expense of someone else.