Republicans should propose to phase out SS and replace it with this proven plan.

[meaner gene]

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023

SUMMARY OF APPROPRIATIONS PROVISIONS BY SUBCOMMITTEE

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 totals $1.7 trillion in discretionary resources across the fiscal year 2023 appropriations bills.

In total, the regular 12 appropriations bills include $800 billion in non-defense funding, a $68 billion—9.3 percent—over last year. This is the highest level for non-defense funding ever and a larger increase in both
dollar and percentage than fiscal year 2022. The bills also provide $858 billion in defense funding.

 

[Hurricanelover]

How about no? How about doing the opposite and increasing the monthly payout to our seniors and disabled?

 

[meaner gene]

Chicom Joe and the Dimtards called it an "infrastructure bill", Dumbass.

Bill Summary:

Rural Development and Infrastructure – The bill provides nearly $4 billion for rural development programs.
These programs help create an environment for economic growth by providing business and housing
opportunities and building sustainable rural infrastructure for the modern economy

 

[Hurricanelover]

Like I said above these people literally believe that we should live in a stone aged world where there is no
Retirement
NO help
NO investment into your society
NO education
NO science

It is insanity.

 

[Hurricanelover]

Bill Summary:

Rural Development and Infrastructure – The bill provides nearly $4 billion for rural development programs.
These programs help create an environment for economic growth by providing business and housing
opportunities and building sustainable rural infrastructure for the modern economy

If they had their way
there'd be no roads, no education, no infrastructure and certainly no retirement. I don't know how these people live with themselves.

 

[meaner gene]

Chicom Joe and the Dimtards called it an "infrastructure bill", Dumbass.

Omnibus bill

Omnibus is derived from Latin and means "to, for, by, with or from everything"

An omnibus spending bill is a type of bill in the United States that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill

 

[meaner gene]

If they had their way
there'd be no roads, no education, no infrastructure and certainly no retirement. I don't know how these people live with themselves.

What's funny is, how they rely so strongly on the infrastructure they don't want to pay for.

 

[BothWings]

Here ya go FS.

Social Security Administration/Founded
August 14, 1935, United States.

If NOT for SS, the elderly would have NO additional income. SS is Future Forced Income.
I started contributing to SS at 16, now 61. In 1987. You?
If one dies early ( 50's 60's) they miss out on contributions versus recovery gains.
And Vice Versa, of One living to be 100.

It was started 88 yeas ago, for FORCED protection. Retirement Assurance.
If NOT for the FORCED protection, the elderly may or may have not saved in the traditional Stock Market we know of today.

Now, me being born in '61, probably would have LOVED the
'I'm not forced to pay into SS, and I can invest as I wish"
Cuz the Market has soared, regardless of POTUS.

But, Nostra , I'm accepting the FLAWS in SS to protect my Parents and Grandparents.

Are you denying this?
Waiting>>>>>>>>>>>...........Go.

If you were 16 in 1987 how could you be 61? I had my first job in 1987 at the age of 15...and I'm now 51. Did you mis-type something there?

 

[Winco]

List the disadvantages.

Social Security is not perfect.

1). If someone works 40 years and contributes $150,000 into the system, in those 40 years.
then starts collecting at 62, and collects $3,000 per month. It would take 50 months to get back that $150,000.
Now, I totally understand "Interest" and "personal Investment" but if I live 20 years beyond 62, (very reasonable) then I would collect for 240 months or $720,000.

Tell me I'm a LIAR.

 

[Winco]

If you were 16 in 1987 how could you be 61? I had my first job in 1987 at the age of 15...and I'm now 51. Did you mis-type something there?

You are correct.
I apologize.
I was 16 in 1977. Not 1987.

 

[meaner gene]

This Forbes article is form 2011, so with the way the stock market has gone since then these retirees are much better off than the numbers in the article.

Meanwhile, SS recipients rely on the occasional COLA increase.

Actually that should be the point. The stock market is stable on a scale of decades, but volatile on an annual basis. People invested saw a 20% loss last year.

 

[Nostra]

Omnibus bill

Omnibus is derived from Latin and means "to, for, by, with or from everything"

An omnibus spending bill is a type of bill in the United States that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill

Liar.

H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act​

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684

 

[Nostra]

Omnibus bill

Omnibus is derived from Latin and means "to, for, by, with or from everything"

An omnibus spending bill is a type of bill in the United States that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill

 

[meaner gene]

Liar.

H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act​

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684

Hey DUMMY, you said it would save $1.7 trillion

Today, President Biden signed H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, into law. This bi-partisan, $1.2 Trillion package

NO wonder I didn't recognize it. You said it was $1.7 trillion , when it was $1.2 trillion.

 

[meaner gene]

You LIED that it was $1.7 trillion.

 

[MagicMike]

4 counties in TX opted out of SS before Congress outlawed it. They set up their own system and the results speak for themselves.

Who here would choose SS over this plan?

But the Alternate Plan takes a different approach, one I call a “banking model.” Employee and employer contributions are actively managed by a financial planner—in this case, First Financial Benefits, Inc., of Houston, which both originated the plan and has managed it since inception.

The contributions are pooled, like bank deposits, and top-rated financial institutions bid on the money. Those institutions guarantee an interest rate that won’t go below a base level, and could go higher if the market does well. Over the last decade, the accounts have earned between 3.75 percent and 5.75 percent every year, with an average of around 5 percent. The 1990s often saw even higher interest rates, 6.5 to 7 percent. Thus, when the market goes up, employees make more; and when the market goes down, employees still make something.

Like Social Security, employees contribute 6.2 percent of their income, with the county matching the contribution (Galveston has chosen to provide a slightly larger share). Once the county makes its contribution, its financial obligation is done. So there are no long-term unfunded liabilities.

But not all of that money goes into an employee’s retirement account. When financial planner Rick Gornto devised the Alternate Plan in 1981, he wanted it to be a complete substitute for Social Security. And Social Security isn’t just a retirement fund; it’s social insurance that provides a death benefit—a whopping $255—survivors’ insurance, and a disability benefit.

Part of the employer contribution in the Alternate Plan goes toward a term life insurance policy, which pays four times the employee’s salary tax free, up to a maximum of $215,000. That’s nearly 850 times Social Security’s death benefit.

More importantly, if a worker participating in Social Security dies before retirement, he loses his contribution (though part of that money might go to surviving children, if any, or a spouse who didn’t work and therefore didn’t establish his or her own benefits). But a worker in the Alternate Plan owns his account, so the entire account belongs to the estate. There is also, among other benefits, a disability benefit that pays immediately upon injury, rather than waiting six months, plus other restrictions, as under Social Security.

And those who retire under the Galveston model do much better than Social Security. For example:

• A lower-middle income worker making about $26,000 at retirement would get about $1,007 a month under Social Security, but $1,826 under the Alternate Plan, according to First Financial’s calculations.
• A middle-income worker making $51,200 would get about $1,540 monthly from Social Security, but $3,600 from the banking model.
• And a high-income worker who maxed out on his Social Security contribution every year would receive about $2,500 a month from Social Security vs. $5,000 to $6,000 a month from the Alternate Plan.

What the Alternate Plan has demonstrated over 30 years is that personal retirement accounts work, with many retirees making more than twice what they would have made under Social Security. And that model could work for the roughly 25 percent of public employees—about 6 million people—who are part of state and local government retirement plans. It could also serve as a model for reforming Social Security.

How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered

Three Texas counties opted out of Social Security 30 years ago by switching to personal accounts, and those workers have made money every year.

www.forbes.com

Sounds like privatizing Social Security.
Bad idea.

 

[WorldWatcher]

Social Security is not perfect.

1). If someone works 40 years and contributes $150,000 into the system, in those 40 years.
then starts collecting at 62, and collects $3,000 per month. It would take 50 months to get back that $150,000.
Now, I totally understand "Interest" and "personal Investment" but if I live 20 years beyond 62, (very reasonable) then I would collect for 240 months or $720,000.

Tell me I'm a LIAR.

I wouldn't say that but I don't think your numbers work for a couple of reasons:

• You conflate individual earnings with a benefit amount. Individual earnings are based on the individuals amount PLUS the implores amount to determine SS eligible income for the year.
• It's impossible for someone to have contributed $150,000 per year for 40 years, this year is the first year that could happen. The wage cap in 2022 was $147K and the wage cap in 2023 is now $160K. The wage cap 40 years ago (1993) was $57,600.
• There is an early retirement penalty of 5/9 of 1 percent per month for 36 months and 5/12 of 1 percent for early retirement over 36 months from Full Retirement Age (FRA), which equals 30% at 62 years old.

#1 IMHO, I think your $3000 is way high given wage caps and and the early retirement penalty.

#2 Your break-even calculation ignores the ER matching contribution.

#3 Now understanding that personal situations vary, but at FRA I'll say I have a pretty normal progression of increasing incomes over the years. If I retire at FRA (67) it will take - in my case - 6.6 years to take out the principal I paid. The employer portion be would another 6.6 years for a total of 13.2 years meaning it lasts to just over 80 years old. And that is just the principal, that would not include interest since the 80's based on Treasury Bills used by the SS Trust Fund to bank money for the baby boomers hitting retirement age.

WW

 

[Nostra]

Sounds like privatizing Social Security.
Bad idea.

Yeah, who wants 2-3 times as much per month and the ability to leave hundreds of thousands to your kids when you can pay into SS for decades, die right before retirement age, and get nothing.

 

[Winco]

Yeah, who wants 2-3 times as much per month and the ability to leave hundreds of thousands to your kids when you can pay into SS for decades, die right before retirement age, and get nothing.

Yup, that ^^^ would suck, but most people don't die right before retirement.
For sure, this situation would suck.
BUT, what about the worker that lives until 90 and collects for 25 years?
That works in their favor, right?

 

[Nostra]

Yup, that ^^^ would suck, but most people don't die right before retirement.
For sure, this situation would suck.
BUT, what about the worker that lives until 90 and collects for 25 years?
That works in their favor, right?

No, it doesn’t work in their favor.