It is insurance against old age poverty, not a longevity lottery. - Edit 3
Before modification by Joel at 04/03/2013 02:02:28 AM
View original postMeans testing:
It makes monetary sense ONLY if your remove morality. Contribution to SS is forced by law. In other words the government is going to take my money regardless of my personal desire (except for certain specific occupations that are exempt). Thye are taking that money under the promise that they will return it to me some day (presumably because I can not be trusted to take care of myself). If they (the government) instead looks at me and says "Sorry, you have too much money now we aren't going to give you your money back" That is called theft when done by anyone else, and is a crime.
It makes monetary sense ONLY if your remove morality. Contribution to SS is forced by law. In other words the government is going to take my money regardless of my personal desire (except for certain specific occupations that are exempt). Thye are taking that money under the promise that they will return it to me some day (presumably because I can not be trusted to take care of myself). If they (the government) instead looks at me and says "Sorry, you have too much money now we aren't going to give you your money back" That is called theft when done by anyone else, and is a crime.
Do you give people money back each time they go a year without needing medical care? But you are concerned about compulsory participation, I understand; do you return malpractice premiums to every doctor who retires without filing a claim? No? Have you consulted your lawyer/priest about that?
Quite frankly, no, you can NOT be trusted to take care of yourself, because until SS >50% of Americans >65 lived in poverty. Today it is ~10%.
View original postContribution limits:
The contribution is capped, but so is the eventual pay-out. If you want to remove the contribution limit, go for it, but you have to remove the disbursement limit as well, otherwise you are just stealing money. Mathematically, SS can't handle the increased pay-out so there is no "fair" argument for eliminating the contribution limit.
The contribution is capped, but so is the eventual pay-out. If you want to remove the contribution limit, go for it, but you have to remove the disbursement limit as well, otherwise you are just stealing money. Mathematically, SS can't handle the increased pay-out so there is no "fair" argument for eliminating the contribution limit.
How is the eventual payout capped? Like, when people hit 95 they say, "sorry, that is all the money you contributed; no more benefits for you." No, people who live to 120 keep getting benefits every month of every year, regardless of how much they paid. Since US life expectancy is 13 years higher than when SS was created it is not only reasonable but wise to proportionally increase the witholding limit. Again, there is more money in the trust fund now than six months ago, because most people have not yet hit this years witholding limit, and no one has been stupid enough to say, "hey, SS is going broke; why not declare yet another witholding 'holiday' and pretend the people enjoying it will not have to pay for it when they are 70?" Just removing the witholding limit would fund the supposed "unsustainable Ponzi scheme" indefinitely.