http://washingtonexaminer.com/ap-gfk-poll-raise-taxes-to-save-social-security/article/feed/2027608

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"WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans say go ahead and raise taxes if it will save Social Security benefits for future generations. And raise the retirement age, if you have to. Both options are preferable to cutting monthly benefits, even for people who are years away from applying for them. Those are the findings of a new Associated Press-GfK poll on public attitudes toward the nation's largest federal program. Social Security is facing serious long-term financial problems. When given a choice on how to fix them, 53 percent of adults said they would rather raise taxes than cut benefits for future generations, according to the poll. Just 36 percent said they would cut benefits instead. The results were similar when people were asked whether they would rather raise the retirement age or cut monthly payments for future generations — 53 percent said they would raise the retirement age, while 35 percent said they would cut monthly payments. "Right now, it seems like we're taxed so much, but if that would be the only way to go, I guess I'd have to be for it to preserve it," said Marge Youngs, a 77-year-old widow from Toledo, Ohio. "It's extremely important to me. It's most of my income." Social Security is being hit by a wave of millions of retiring baby boomers, leaving relatively fewer workers to pay into the system. The trustees who oversee the massive retirement and disability program say Social Security's trust funds will run out of money in 2033. At that point, Social Security will only collect enough tax revenue to pay 75 percent of benefits, unless Congress acts."

I find it sad how money was taking out of Social Security towards military spending over the past years. Rather than automatically going for more tax increases, why doesn't the federal government cut all the extra bloated spending? It seems like a government's solution to everything is to throw more money at it.

I'd personally see the federal government cut some of the bloated spending and try to fix the deficit before talking about increasing more taxes... always ignoring the problem of our federal deficit.

[Edited on August 26, 2012 at 3:33 PM. Reason : f]

8/26/2012 3:31:30 PM

Increasing taxes can help fix the deficit...

8/26/2012 3:49:54 PM

after we spend most of it on propping up crony business partners and pipedream cars that run on walrus burps

8/26/2012 4:16:41 PM

You're right. Let's just live in total anarchy. Our lives will be shittier, but at least we'll be free, the way human beings were 8,000 years ago.

8/26/2012 4:21:15 PM

yes thats exactly what I said. fine observation skills

8/26/2012 4:51:22 PM

So you're allowed to exaggerate, but I'm not?

8/26/2012 4:55:23 PM

His weren't really all that exaggerated.

8/26/2012 5:00:32 PM

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"pipedream cars that run on walrus burps"

The conversation ended here. If this is your actual view on government, there is no point in arguing with you.

8/26/2012 5:04:39 PM

i find it sad that folks haven't got enough sense to save money on their own and would actually depend on the fucking government for their retirement

8/26/2012 6:36:32 PM

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"Increasing taxes can help fix the deficit..."

I wasn't trying to suggest we should increase taxes to fix the deficit... I meant that they should cut wasteful spending to reduce the deficit and potentially down the road with any surplus, that can be put towards SS without increasing taxes. I think they said it will be out of funds in ~2033-2039.

I always find that rather than fix the problem, government will just suggest to raise the taxes without looking at really big issues with current spending.

[Edited on August 26, 2012 at 6:44 PM. Reason : fed govt]

8/26/2012 6:43:16 PM

Here's an idea. How about we stop mailing SS checks to millionaires?

8/26/2012 6:52:47 PM

i'd rather shut it down than continue the ponzi scheme

8/26/2012 8:16:58 PM

too bad it's not a Ponzi Scheme

8/26/2012 9:45:31 PM

In what way is it not? The moneys paid in are not being invested, they are immediately being paid out. Previous "investors" are being paid with the money put in by current "investors." I suppose if you wanted to be kind you could call it a pyramid scheme instead. Maybe it wasn't started as a ponzi scheme, but because all the money in the SS fund was spent on other things it most certainly is one now. The very fact that it is going to run out of money in the near future makes it obvious that it is not being run as any kind of savings or retirement plan should be run.

8/27/2012 12:07:49 AM

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"Here's an idea. How about we stop mailing SS checks to millionaires?"

how much money do you think that would save? .05% of the total payout?

aside from that, how is it fair to contribute your entire life and then get nothing back? that is stealing.

millionaires should be able to opt out and get a tax deduction if they so choose. this isnt the Soviet Union.

8/29/2012 10:10:12 AM

Its definitely a ponzi scheme.

And I find that the solution is generally somewhere in the middle. My personal view is we should pay the lowest taxes possible. Im all for limited govt, staying out of our lives, etc. The govt role is for military, roads, police, education, etc.

With that said, I would be okay with increasing taxes to pay down debt if there was a 1 for 1 decrease in govt spending. Also, specific to SS, its going to take compromise from all parties. Meaning increasing retirement age, decreasing amounts, and capping based on income. The system is clearly broken and the solution is to not JUST increase taxes and throw more money at the problem, we need to fix the causes to the problem.

8/29/2012 10:22:35 AM

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"too bad it's not a Ponzi Scheme"

it's the classic definition of a ponzi scheme.

meaning it's the easiest ponzi scheme you could ever possibly identify

8/29/2012 10:43:40 AM

Taxes should be increased on the wealthy. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Pre-Reagan days, go away and look into it.

8/29/2012 11:51:59 AM

^ Done. It was a period when the rich paid a far smaller share of income taxes. What of it?

8/29/2012 12:21:58 PM

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"Taxes should be increased on the wealthy"

nope. this bullshit about "he wants to raise taxes for the rich, he wants to raise them for the middle class" is ridiculous. they should be equal for everyone, from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. the tax rate is what should be up for debate.

america: land of equality (unless you make more money; in that case, you can afford to pay more, 'cause other people say so)

[Edited on August 29, 2012 at 12:59 PM. Reason : .]

8/29/2012 12:58:49 PM

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"in that case, you can afford to pay more, 'cause other people say so"

?

they can afford to pay more because they have much more to pay. not because "other people say so".

8/29/2012 1:04:53 PM

^who are you to say how much someone can afford to pay in taxes?? honestly? there is zero justification for making one person pay more than another solely based on their income. especially when a large portion of the population doesn't pay shit.

bitching and moaning about taxes being unfair then saying the rich should pay more is retarded. flat rate for all or GTFO.

8/29/2012 1:25:55 PM

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"zero justification for making one person pay more than another solely based on their income"

Then why are you arguing for a "flat rate"? A flat rate would make the rich pay more than the poor based on their income.

Your statements are hard to take seriously when you contradict yourself on basic concepts.

[Edited on August 29, 2012 at 1:54 PM. Reason : ]

8/29/2012 1:54:29 PM

i'm just saying, if a mom has to work two jobs to feed her kids, i don't think she should have to pay as much as a millionaire who has enough money to raise a family and buy a yacht and a vacation home (that's only an example)

8/29/2012 1:55:35 PM

^ So you agree we should cut her taxes? Payroll tax at 12%, she's paying far more than she should.

8/29/2012 2:15:02 PM

49% of the country pays ZERO income tax. The solution is to expand the tax base, not increase taxes on a certain group

8/29/2012 2:17:35 PM

But if I have to pay more in taxes how will I ever afford the top end monocle polish that I currently use. I'm no millionaire, but considering how much more I pay in taxes than most people I think I should at least get some free monocle polish out of it.

8/29/2012 2:23:51 PM

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"there is zero justification for making one person pay more than another solely based on their income. "

So then I guess it's valid for me to say...

there is zero justification for making one person consume less than another based on the perceived value their employer thinks they contribute.

I mean, it's as intellectually sound as the argument you made.

8/29/2012 2:29:49 PM

What makes it morally correct to take by force that which is not yours?

Even dropping that basic premise, what makes anyone other than the person who earned the money the arbiter of how much they can afford to do without?

8/29/2012 2:33:59 PM

Because the United States is a (somewhat) democratic and civilized society?

[Edited on August 29, 2012 at 2:45 PM. Reason : ]

8/29/2012 2:45:11 PM

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"What makes it morally correct to take by force that which is not yours?"

What moral grounds do you have to "own" something and exclude others use of it by force? Is it yours because you "made" it? You can't really make anything, all you can do is combine and reuse existing capital, things that have existed long before you or have come into existence through no effort of your own. Or you can stop that entire line of thinking and realize that the way we distribute goods is more or less fairly arbitrary from the start, and that the rules of ownership are defined by the entity with the power to enforce them. The "moral" society would probably require everyone to share and no one to hurt one another, but that society certainly won't exist in the forseeable future.

8/29/2012 3:59:32 PM

greed is good.

amirite, my brothers?

8/29/2012 4:01:57 PM

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"what makes anyone other than the person who earned the money the arbiter of how much they can afford to do without?"

But you haven't formalized the assumptions you're working from. Yeah, I know what you are speaking of, which is a free market between individuals. Did you ever prove to me that such a thing existed? No large system on the surface of the earth has operated as such an economy. The very libertarian rhetoric you espouse has frequent mention of government power being enforced by guns.

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"the person who earned the money "

From whom did this person earn the money? From another consumer? Ok, not a consumer but an intermediary (like a company), I guess that's okay. Did every individual have equal opportunity to act as such an intermediary? Or were the people who could have operated as this intermediary restricted by government intervention? Were there artificial standards placed on the product that the consumer didn't ask for?

Would these non-free market forces affect the distribution of compensation between workers? Why yes, they would.

Your assumption that the person earned the money is based in the assumption of a fair market. This is an incorrect assumption.

Let's say there is a product I am ready and willing to provide a product to another individual for a price. Let's say prostitution to make it fun. You, through government, have used the threat of force to prevent me from earning the money I'm entitled to (by your logic). And then you're going to lecture me about your entitlement to the fruits of your labor?

It is a defensible argument for me to maintain that I would be a fantastic prostitute, but now I'm working as a secretary. Making less money. It's your fault, so I'm justified in asking for government redistribution of wealth. We must conclude that government restrictions on personal liberty and economic involvement in people's lives are inseparable.

World governments today are nowhere close to lessening their involvement in our personal liberties, so the assumptions with which you argue that people should be entitled to exactly the amount they earn is obviously wrong.

8/29/2012 4:12:38 PM

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"What makes it morally correct to take by force that which is not yours? Even dropping that basic premise, what makes anyone other than the person who earned the money the arbiter of how much they can afford to do without? "

I hope realize that you, everyone like you, are greedy, selfish, arrogant americans.

8/29/2012 4:46:07 PM

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"What makes it morally correct to take by force that which is not yours?"

That they have the guns allows them to take whatever they want. That society at some-point managed to shame them into only taking so much was a miracle, but that is all it is, their own self restraint.

8/29/2012 4:49:26 PM

Somebody will always "have the guns". The idea of a free and peaceful world is a fabrication of the human mind. We live in an interconnected world.

The only way to have a peaceful world is to have a non-free world and vice versa. The absence of one necessarily implies the other. You also have the option of the level you want to imply the order on. We don't yet have world government, and this is accompanied by the fact that we still fight occasional wars. If all the governments agreed on policy generally (which is somewhat true for the Western world), it would become effectively world government.

Every meal humans have consumed since the first one of us walked the face of this planet has been taken by force from an unwilling participant.

You can point to the different forms of evolutionary relationships like
- parasitic
- predatory
- symbiotic
and apply your own feelings to each of these, but that ignores the reality that your feelings don't matter. No organism ever consented to the relationship it found itself in.

So the universe isn't free market. Everything about free market ideology also completely ignores the natural tribal state of humans. Our natural social contract never had anything to do with people being fairly compensated for what they do. It had to do with organizing as a group and becoming more competitive collectively. The derivation of the concept of entitlement to one's own labor is impossible from such a starting point.

8/29/2012 5:25:25 PM

The only problem with Social Security is the retirement age. It simply needs to be raised.

When Social Security was passed during the Great Depression, the retirement age was greater than average worker life expectancy by about ten years. Now it is the reverse, with average life expectancy over ten years greater than retirement age.

8/29/2012 5:35:20 PM

Ohh, how I long for the New Deal days

8/29/2012 6:23:06 PM

Kill old people

8/29/2012 11:31:05 PM

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/

Quote :

"An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: life must end at 30."

8/30/2012 12:33:12 AM

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""Right now, it seems like we're taxed so much, but if that would be the only way to go, I guess I'd have to be for it to preserve it," said Marge Youngs, a 77-year-old widow from Toledo, Ohio. "It's extremely important to me. It's most of my income.""

Easy for you to say when you aren't paying taxes and you sit around collecting those checks.

Quote :

" Here's an idea. How about we stop mailing SS checks to millionaires? "

Because we fucked them enough over their working lifetimes by taking all that money from them only to return it at minimal real gain. You wanna talk about penalizing success and/or personal investment? That's an extreme example. Shit, If I amassed a bunch of wealth, I'd just retire early and live on my savings to draw them down below the cutoff by SS age (right after I bought a bunch of silly shit instead of smartly continuing to invest).

8/30/2012 1:17:43 AM

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"What moral grounds do you have to "own" something and exclude others use of it by force? "

Hahahahahaha

You must be high.

8/30/2012 1:20:59 AM

^would you refute his question substantively?

8/30/2012 1:55:20 AM

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"When Social Security was passed during the Great Depression, the retirement age was greater than average worker life expectancy by about ten years."

so what you're saying is hard-working folks have been getting fucked by social "security" since jump street?

8/30/2012 8:10:22 AM

^AHAHA

But seriously, it seems like raising taxes a bit, cutting benefits a bit, and raising the retirement age a bit is the way to go.

That set of changes, however, does represent a lot of sacrifice, and I don't want to be played for a fool. And I think that's why people are resistant to making the sacrifices. There is this sense that the system is currently favoring the wealthiest among of us, and as long as that's the case, average folks are going to feel like total patsies if they accept cuts in benefits and a higher retirement age.

But I think we're going to have make sacrifices in spite of the super wealthy leaches. We're also going to have to make sacrifices in spite of the small amount of people who leach on the other end of the spectrum, opting to live off perpetual underemployment and paltry sums of government money.

8/30/2012 8:58:51 AM

I would say that SS screws rich people in some ways and poor people in others

8/30/2012 9:51:10 AM

Look, I would be all for ending SS payouts to anyone currently below the age of 35, continuing to pay benefits to those now drawing and then grading down by percentage (i.e. current recipients get 100% of their payout, those within 10 years of eligibility get 75% of currently projected payout, those within 20 years get 50%, etc.) and in addition doing means testing for those currently drawing.

For everyone below 35 (my generation, probably yours too if you're reading this, and future generations) you pay into SS to fund it for the next 30 years but receive no benefits. It will suck, it will be a sacrifice, but it's probably the best solution. We make the sacrifice to pay for the boomers and we don't pass along a burden to our children. If you're currently 35 or younger you have plenty of time to plan for your own retirement. I would also argue that we should create some kind of incentive for companies to begin funding pensions again since they won't be paying any SS tax in a few decades. Those pensions would be a huge help to people who might not be able to invest a large enough amount to retire comfortably.

OK, so I've not done the math on this plan, but I bet with some tweaking of ages and percentages we could still fund current and future recipients without adding a massive burden to the next generation.

Any objections?

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 12:10 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

8/30/2012 12:03:56 PM

^ are you joking? ...seriously? company pensions? really? have an entire generation pay into the system and not get anything out?

Here's the one thing I have to add:

To whatever extent we recognize that SS funds the general budget, this talk about federal income tax burden has to go. Social Security is then a tax, not a fund. The middle class pay a waaay larger fraction of their income into the SS system, so when we're talking about the tax burden of different people, the current scheme is smoke and mirrors.

8/30/2012 12:30:45 PM

Well, I don't know about you, but I already expect to pay into the system and get nothing back.

8/30/2012 12:34:43 PM

^i think a better solution is for our generation to put their contributions in a private account they control. Pay for current retirees with the employers contribution and deficit spending. Might be the easiest way to go, other than screwing our generation or savers completly.

Having a private account is a great way to generate real wealth over generations, but you cant let the govt have that money or they will piss it away on something else. See the SS "trust fund". The knock has been that minorities dont live as long. Private account helps with that. If you die early your balance goes on to your kids, thus building their accounts more. After all it is YOUR money, you should decide who gets it. imo

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 1:19 PM. Reason : .]

8/30/2012 1:19:11 PM