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The prospect of cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs is making many Democrats anxious. Of particular concern is Republicans' call for increasing the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, an idea that could split Democrats.
Speaking of whining:
The prospect of cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs is making many Democrats anxious. Of particular concern is Republicans' call for increasing the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, an idea that could split Democrats.
Spending-Cut Proposals Are Drawing Democratic Flak - WSJ.com
Gimme, gimme, gimme, and make that guy over there pay for it.
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Social Security is not an entitlement program. It is money stolen from me that I will never get back as it is. And you want me to get even less of it. Screw you commie.
The problem isn't that people will be getting less, but that they're already getting unsustainably MORE. Why do you think you'll never get it back? Planning on dying early? Would help out the system,though, not enough people dying is part of the problem.
Yes, we need more loyal Americans and their are thousands of people wanting to become just that.It's either that or increase the size of the taxpaying workforce. Amnasty?
Speaking of whining:
The prospect of cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs is making many Democrats anxious. Of particular concern is Republicans' call for increasing the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, an idea that could split Democrats.
Spending-Cut Proposals Are Drawing Democratic Flak - WSJ.com
Gimme, gimme, gimme, and make that guy over there pay for it.
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yeah because you prefer the Gimmies are given to the wealthy instead huh
This is the second in my The Way Forward series. You can find the first of the series here: The Way Forward: End Tax Expenditures
We see on page 38 of the 1930 US census that 5.5 percent of the US population was over the age of 65 in 1930. 3.2 percent of the population was over 70.
Five years later, the Social Security Act of 1935 was enacted.
Thirty years after that, the Social Security Act of 1965 added government sponsored health insurance (Medicare) to the retirement benefits of our seniors. This is also when Medicaid was created, but thats a separate subject.
We see on page 6 in the US Census for that period that our national health had increased to the point that the ratio of people over 65 had crept up to 9.5 percent by then.
In todays Census, we find that the over 65 bunch has exploded to over 13 percent of the population. We have literally more than doubled the senior entitlement load for Social Security since 1935!
Plus, we layered on another extremely expensive entitlement program on top of that load in 1965.
6 percent of our population is now living beyond the age of 75.
Life expectancy in 1935 was 61.7 years. Today, it is 78.7 years.
If you went to work at 18 and retire at 65, then you worked for 47 years.
In 1935, you may not have lived long enough to even collect Social Security. As we saw above, only 6 percent of the population lived long enough to collect even one cent.
Today, you retire after 47 years, and 13 percent are living long enough to collect. And 6 percent are living long enough to collect for at least 13 years.
The idea of continuing this way is beyond ridiculous.
Raising the retirement age to 70 would back the load down to 9 percent of the population, which is almost on par with 1965.
To get to the 6 percent load of 1935, we would have to raise the retirement age to 75.
When Social Security was enacted, you were not intended to live a long life of retirement on Social Security. Medicare and Social Security were intended as a support, not as a way of life.
We are living longer than our ancestors who gave us Social Security and Medicare. We should be working longer than they did. This is just plain common sense.
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Speaking of whining:
Spending-Cut Proposals Are Drawing Democratic Flak - WSJ.com
Gimme, gimme, gimme, and make that guy over there pay for it.
.
yeah because you prefer the Gimmies are given to the wealthy instead huh
Do you take any tax deductions every year?
Then you are a Gimme.
The wealthy already pay more than their fair share.And if you have a problem with Social Security only going to six percent of the population, you need to have a word with FDR. People like you have kicked the can down the road over and over and over to avoid even the slightest bit of pain. And now we have arrived at the point where the can cannot be kicked any further and now there is going to have to be some serious pain until we get this mess cleaned up.
It's a $16 trillion shit sandwich, and we all have to take a bite. Don't expect the other guy to eat your share any more, sweetcheeks.
This is exactly the problem. The entitlements have been allowed to creep over time to include larger and larger portions of society, which means smaller and smaller portions of society have to support them.
This is total bullshit and needs to be stopped.
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OK. For people like myself, that might work. However, most are not as lucky as I am in health. To be working at 69 as a millwright in a steel mill, and still physically capable of doing the work, is lucky indeed. So what do we do with the people that, because of physcal health, cannot work to 75?
Perhaps we should look at other nations and see how they are managing their retirement funds. Germany, for instance. We know they do far better on health care. How are they doing on retirement? And what lessons can we learn, positive and negative?
It's already started. I can't collect my full benefits until I'm 66. People younger than myself will have to wait until 67. I'm sure making some work until 70 isn't too far in the future.
Yeah, but do you know how long ago that increase to 67 was set?
1983.
I kid you not.
And the legislation was written so the gradual increase to 67 would not start until the year 2000 and would take 22 years to get to 67.
That's right. It won't be until 2022 when the retirement age will be 67 for anyone born after 1960. Congress is taking 39 years to raise the retirement age by 2 years!
Our life expectancy is increasing at a faster pace than that!
The change needs to be done now. Immediately. A single bill to raise the eligibility age to 70 would probably very nearly balance the budget without taking a single other action.
Combined with my plan to eliminate tax expenditures in the first in this series, it would be a very simple matter to be running surpluses that could eliminate our debt.
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Translation: I am not going to give an inch on Republicans’ suggestions, but Republicans better start doing what we want — ’cause that’s how compromise works, dammit!As I have said, don’t even think about raising the Medicare age. We are not throwing America’s seniors over the cliff to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in America. We have clarity on that. But, again, on all these other things, go to the table and negotiate.
When I started working and for many years after, the contract I had with the federal government was for a full retirment benefit at age 65. They renigged on that once already and are prepared to do so again. What this means is many of us will never live to see our benefit. Not much fair about that.
Bottomline, the federal is going to take money from someone and give to another. Winners and losers.
A real solution would be a level of shared benfit reduction for everyone involved in SS present AND future.
yeah because you prefer the Gimmies are given to the wealthy instead huh
Do you take any tax deductions every year?
Then you are a Gimme.
The wealthy already pay more than their fair share.And if you have a problem with Social Security only going to six percent of the population, you need to have a word with FDR. People like you have kicked the can down the road over and over and over to avoid even the slightest bit of pain. And now we have arrived at the point where the can cannot be kicked any further and now there is going to have to be some serious pain until we get this mess cleaned up.
It's a $16 trillion shit sandwich, and we all have to take a bite. Don't expect the other guy to eat your share any more, sweetcheeks.
This is exactly the problem. The entitlements have been allowed to creep over time to include larger and larger portions of society, which means smaller and smaller portions of society have to support them.
This is total bullshit and needs to be stopped.
.
Bullshit. The wealthy are paying far less than their fair share. When their total tax burden by percentage, on all income, equals mine, then they will be paying their fair share.
Another point, were they not taking in such a huge proportion of the nations income, they would not being paying that percentage of the taxes, paying it even as they pay a lesser percentage of their income in taxes. Demonstrates how far the balance has moved in income between the earner and the wealthy.
A thoughtful person must conclude that raising the eligibility age for Medicare and SS is not the right thing to do. While it "seems" or"sounds" fair, given longer AVERAGE life spans and such....in reality it is entirely unfair to the people who occupy the lower and middle classes in America.
