HappySqurriel said:
Social Security is (pretty much) an unfunded pension ... The only way to fix it is to scrap it and replace it with something better which (basically) means that a large group of people have to pay into it without getting any benefits from it. |
Social Security is still in the green. What are you talking about? Unfunded does not mean you are running yearly surpluses. It is projected to go into the red in the future, which can be easily solved by:
1) Raising the age that people can initially collect at to correlate with the increase in average life expectancy (doesn't take a statistician to tell you that).
2) Increase the amount of income that is taxable by payroll taxes on people making over $100,000.
3) Decrease benefits, especially for those who were in a higher tax bracket (at least until the baby boomer generation passes since they have offset the balance)
4) Potentially increase payroll taxes across the board as needed if you are still running low, and then drop them back down when the boomer generation passes.
Its no different than anything else. You decrease spending and increase your income and you will remain solvent.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
