Should Generation X,Y and Z pay into social security and medicare?

[citizenzen]

Having the military that we do brings us a lot of economic benefits... what economic benefits are derived from Social Security?

Healthier, happier, wealthier old folks.

 

[GenSeneca]

I tried to save you $500 billion dollars a year.

Where are you going to get other the $1.1 trillion?

How are you going to go from deficit spending to a surplus?

How are you going to come up with $12 trillion for the debt?

How are you going to come up with the $106 trillion necessary to cover our unfunded liabilities?

 

[citizenzen]

How are you going to come up with the $106 trillion necessary to cover our unfunded liabilities?

I got yer unfunded liabilities right here, buster...

'Unfunded liabilities' a financial myth, expert says - April 1, 2009 Jan Dennis

A growing chorus of complaints about the U.S. government’s “unfunded” debts may be unsettling, but no cause to become unnerved, a University of Illinois tax expert says.

Law professor Richard L. Kaplan contends the notion of “unfunded liabilities” is merely an ominous new catchphrase coined during debates over massive spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare that is rooted in financial fallacy.

“The only possible meaning of ‘unfunded liability’ is in contrast to a ‘funded liability,’ which presumably is more financially secure and apparently morally superior as well,” said Kaplan, an authority on tax law and government entitlement programs.

But in the end, he says, a “funded” liability is really no different than an “unfunded” one...

... He suggests retiring the archaic phrase, saying it “implies an alternate state of fiscal adequacy that really does not exist at all.”​

 

[ktucan1]

As a Federal Employee myself I was automatically enrolled in the FERS and to offset that I enrolled in the TSP. So about 100.00+ dollars a month goes into TSP or roughly 5% of my paycheck every two weeks. I expect to work for the next 30+ years or so even though I'm in the process of buying back my 11 years of military service which I have to pay the federal government roughly $5,000 dollars out of my pay check to buy it back. The reason I'm buying back the military time is to have it count towards my retirement. So technically I can retire in 20 years instead of going for the full 30. Now that doesn't mean I can start to collect on my retirement right when I clock out for the last time at my job. It's just means I can collect right around 57 which for me is in like 22 years. Then again they might raise the retirement for federal employees to like 60 or beyond. SS and Medicare won't even be around long enough for my generation to enjoy yet alone sustain. FERS and TSP along with other investments that I made are the only thing that are going to keep my family afloat. The hard part is that my wife has been unemployed for almost a year now and she has put nothing aside for retirement. That right there scares the hell out of me. She's a year older then me and I know for a fact that I won't have enough from my retirement for the both of us. So the money that goes into SS and Medicare I would rather keep myself and also would like to get back what I put into them for the last 18 years. Generation X, Y, and Z need to start standing up and speaking out about this because we're the ones who going to have to pass it on to our kids and I don't want to do that. It's not right!!!

 

[GenSeneca]

I got yer unfunded liabilities right here, buster...

First, you skipped over the deficit and debt.

Second... You left off the very last sentence:

“Recent events have shown that whether we are talking about stock in General Motors or Citicorp, money market mutual funds, or even bank deposits, it is the federal government that ultimately stands behind these ‘assets,’ ” Kaplan said.

When the federal government goes bankrupt, the system will collapse.

Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009

by Pamela Villarreal

The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.

The unfunded liability is the difference between the benefits that have been promised to current and future retirees and what will be collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premiums. Last year alone, this debt rose by $5 trillion. If no other reform is enacted, this funding gap can only be closed in future years by substantial tax increases, large benefit cuts or both.

Social Security versus Medicare. Politi*cians and the media focus on Social Security's financial health, but Medicare's future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare's total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall - an amount greater than all of Social Security's unfunded obligations.

Future Payroll Tax Burdens. Currently, a 12.4 percent payroll tax on wages funds Social Se*curity and a 2.9 percent payroll tax funds Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance). But if payroll tax rates rise to meet unfunded obligations:

* When today's college students reach retirement (about 2054), Social Security alone will require a 16.6 percent payroll tax, one-third greater than today's rate.
* When Medicare Part A is included, the payroll tax burden will rise to 25.7 percent - more than one of every four dollars workers will earn that year.
* If Medicare Part B (physician services) and Part D are included, the total Social Security/Medicare burden will climb to 37 percent of payroll by 2054 - one in three dollars of taxable payroll, and twice the size of today's payroll tax burden!

Thus, more than one-third of the wages workers earn in 2054 will need to be committed to pay benefits promised under current law. That is before any bridges or highways are built and before any teachers' or police officers' salaries are paid.

Impact on the Federal Budget. The combined deficits of both programs now require about 14 percent of general income tax revenues [see Figure I]. As baby boomers begin to retire, however, that number will soar, and it will be increasingly difficult for the government to continue spending on other activities. In the absence of a tax increase, if the federal government keeps its promises to seniors and balances its budget:

* By 2020, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Social Security and Medicare will require more than one in four federal income tax dollars.
* By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the programs will require nearly half of all income tax dollars.
* By 2060, they will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.

Impact on Federal Revenues. On average, every year since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid spending per beneficiary has grown 2.5 percentage points faster than per capita Gross Do*mestic Product (GDP). In the future, Medicare spending may rise even faster than the Trustees estimate. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if Medicare and Medicaid spending continues growing annually at 2.5 percentage points above GDP growth:

* By 2050, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
* By 2082, Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.

Can Higher Taxes Solve the Prob*lem? The CBO also found that if federal income tax rates are adjusted to allow the government to continue its current level of activity and balance its budget:

* The lowest marginal income tax rate of 10 percent would have to rise to 26 percent.
* The 25 percent marginal tax rate would increase to 66 percent.
* The current highest marginal tax rate (35 percent) would rise to 92 percent!

Additionally, the top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent would increase to 92 percent.

Pay-As-You-Go. Social Security and Medicare are in trouble precisely because they are based on pay-as-you-go financing. Every dollar of payroll taxes is spent. Nothing is saved, and nothing is invested. The payroll taxes contributed by today's workers pay the benefits of today's retirees. However, when today's workers retire, their benefits will be paid only if the next generation of workers agrees to pay even higher taxes.

What about the Trust Funds? The Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds exist purely for accounting purposes: to keep track of surpluses and deficits in the inflow and outflow of money. The accumulated Social Security surplus actually consists of paper certificates (non-negotiable bonds) kept in a filing cabinet in a government office in West Virginia. These bonds cannot be sold on Wall Street or to foreign investors. They can only be returned to the Treasury. In essence, they are little more than IOUs the government writes to itself.

Conclusion. The Social Security and Medicare deficits are on a course to engulf the entire federal budget. If our policymakers wait to address these growing debts until they are out of control, the solutions will be drastic and painful.

We cannot deficit spend forever and think there will never be consequences.

 

[citizenzen]

I got yer unfunded liabilities right here, buster...

Here's another...

The "Unfunded Liabilities" Ruse - Bernard Wasow, The Century Foundation, 10/25/2004

Recently, the mainstream media have been parroting claims that the federal government, particularly the Social Security and Medicare programs, have dozens of trillions of dollars in "unfunded liabilities."...

All of the grotesquely huge unfunded liability numbers spouted by scare mongers depend on forecasts that go out many decades, often hundreds of years...​

You know what this reminds me of? Global Warming. This time it's the liberals who warn of a dire future and our need to address these problems today in order to prevent catastrophe. And what does your typical conservative say? They don't believe GW exists, or that man has anything to do with it. So they choose not to do anything about it.

So your unfunded mandates are like my melting ice sheets: easily ignored by those that don't believe they exist and are merely tools of political manipulation. So humanity will go down in flames, in debt up to our earballs and with our coastlines inundated.

We make such a lovely pair: liberals and conservatives. I think we're perfect for each other.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

Should SS be self sustainable?


They claimed it would be when it was implemented.

But if you have to take from other departments to keep its head above water then it is not.

I don't think when it started people expected people to on reg basis live to over 100...and cost of living to threw the roof compared to when started.

The other choice was, lots of realy poor old people

 

[pocketfullofshells]

Just think where we could be today , had we listened to Republicans and put all that money in the stock market

 

[GenSeneca]

We make such a lovely pair: liberals and conservatives. I think we're perfect for each other.

Does this mean you won't be offering something of substance to the discussion?

If you want to quibble about whether or not unfunded liabilities exist we can set that off to the side but that still leaves the issue of deficits and debt. While you haven't (yet) questioned their existence, you also haven't addressed them.

 

[Pandora]

I don't think when it started people expected people to on reg basis live to over 100...and cost of living to threw the roof compared to when started.

The other choice was, lots of realy poor old people

I agree with what you say, I think that is the reason they kept upping the retirment age.

But the system is not working and there is no way it will be there for people my age when they retire, so something should be done to change things.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

I agree with what you say, I think that is the reason they kept upping the retirment age.

But the system is not working and there is no way it will be there for people my age when they retire, so something should be done to change things.

so tell the old people screw themselves...get money from someone....or figure we don't get ours later....thats about the choices

 

[Bunz]

Then you should listen to Rush and Glenn. Neither of them have said what you just said. Why make up crap and call it theirs?

Pandora, I was just trying to have a little fun with the new member. You blew my cover

They can not take away SS for those currently getting it. Those people paid into the pyramid scheme and its too late for them to fix it. But there is no reason to force the incoming work force to pay a life time for something they wont get.

Well I disagree with pretty much everything you said here. If Congress wanted to end payments I think they probably could find a way to. Not at all what I am suggesting, but I think that there is someway possible to end payments, and the whole program all together.

Secondly everyone who has had a job pays into it. So while I am in my late 20's I got a statement from SocSecurity just a month ago or so(I honestly didnt really read it). So where is the cutoff? I have been paying in continiously since I was 14.

For me, it would seem best to set up a system similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund. Where it is a separate fund from the general government fund, and some of it is even invested in the private sector. I also think that there could be a tie into that system to include universal health care. It of course would take a constitutional amendment to create such a system, but it is proven and could contribute to all sectors of America. It would only cost a flat rate contribution of a single digit of income contribution. Set this aside to grow interest and continue a sustainable level of principal while paying out is the best case scenario.

 

[citizenzen]

Does this mean you won't be offering something of substance to the discussion?

It's funny how you keep on insisting that I offer nothing of substance when my posts have proven just the opposite.

I wonder how many times you'll keep repeating that? My guess is endlessly.

Maybe you should just add it to your signature and save yourself the effort of having to type it into every post.

Oh, no need to thank me. I'm a helper.

 

[citizenzen]

Maybe you should just add it to your signature and save yourself the effort of having to type it into every post.

See? Just like that.

 

[Pandora]

Pandora, I was just trying to have a little fun with the new member. You blew my cover

Well I disagree with pretty much everything you said here. If Congress wanted to end payments I think they probably could find a way to. Not at all what I am suggesting, but I think that there is someway possible to end payments, and the whole program all together.

Secondly everyone who has had a job pays into it. So while I am in my late 20's I got a statement from SocSecurity just a month ago or so(I honestly didnt really read it). So where is the cutoff? I have been paying in continiously since I was 14.

For me, it would seem best to set up a system similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund. Where it is a separate fund from the general government fund, and some of it is even invested in the private sector. I also think that there could be a tie into that system to include universal health care. It of course would take a constitutional amendment to create such a system, but it is proven and could contribute to all sectors of America. It would only cost a flat rate contribution of a single digit of income contribution. Set this aside to grow interest and continue a sustainable level of principal while paying out is the best case scenario.

Well dont have fun at Beck and Rush's expense, there is already way too much misinformation out there about what they think.

Your plan is interesting but again its as though government is some almighty god that everyone has to go to. Why is government always the answer to so many? I want the most limited government possible and right to take care of my self and family.