Enron is a perfect example of what is wrong with privitazation. There was no law out there the last time I looked that stops people from investing part of their income right now. Indeed, they should be doing that. And don't try to tell me they don't do it because of SS. Most people will tell you they don't believe they will get one cent from it. So why don't they invest their money?
Enron, Enron, Enron! Every time someone wants to poke holes in methods to scrap/revise/improve Social Security they use the Enron example. Corporate greed and avarice, Enron is the example. Hate to tell you, but Enron is the rarity, not the rule.
Right-o, there is no law preventing investing. The problem is that for many people, the false sense of security provided by SS makes private investing seem risky and unnecessary. For many others, the reduction of income going into the current system cuts their means of investing short. In essence either way, they don't invest because of SS. I'll tell you that, because in many ways, for many people, it's true. With 7.65% of your income going straight to the Fed, without so much as a tax deduction to show for it
does have an impact on personal investment practices.
You, if you have ever worked under SS, recieve a letter from SS every year around your birthday. Have you read it? The retirement age is going up. Every so often it goes up. By the time a twenty year old is fifty, it will be around seventy. And it may be changed to go even higher.
Not it may, it will. The solvency of SS depends on it. Or the pseudo-solvency, I should say. Yep, I get the letter every year, and I just file it away in my Big-Government-Big-Problems file. Figure it will give my kids and grandkids something to chuckle over when they go through my stuff when I'm gone.
The Republicans have been trying to get rid of SS since its inception. That is why they keep taking all the money in it. To bankrupt it. Bottom line. The American people don't want to get rid of it. Deal with it.
Not true. Many Republicans are as guilty as Democrats of clinging to this fraying rope. It's been referred to as "the third rail of politics" for decades now for a reason. NO ONE wants to tackle it, in a serious manner. Bush was the first Prez to seriously suggest it, but the smoke lingers where he got shot down in flames.
Republicans do not take the money in SS, to bankrupt it or otherwise. That is a fallacy perpetuated by Congressional Democrats (and presidential hopefuls). The problem is the surplus of SS, which under law MUST be loaned to the Federal Government. Since 1982 (as a result of the four increases from the Carter administration and the Democrat held Congress) the surpluses have ran from $89 million and $153 BILLION per year. That is money that in the SS laws HAD to be loaned. The problem is, will the rest of the Fed be able to pay it back.
If the American people had half a brain, and the ability for objective reasoning with a full set of facts, they'd be screaming to get rid of it. Or at least reform it to the very limited social safety net it should be.
It's hard to "deal with it" when the whole premise is full of falsehoods and half-truths. In 2002, Democrats were presented with such "facts" in a document with the title "Republican Budget Slashes Domestic Priorities and Spends Social Security Surplus." When this kind of drivel is being distributed to the Democratic Caucus on the Congressional level, it's no wonder that the rank and file Democrat party members and voters are misled.
