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Bingo! This is the best attitude I have seen in the whole thread. Social Security is an authoritarian play, or a power play. Another way to look at it: if eve

Bingo! This is the best attitude I have seen in the whole thread. Social Security is an authoritarian play, or a power play. Another way to look at it: if every single US tax payer had to manually pay their taxes, instead of them being auto-drawn from their respective W2 employer, you'd see more people asking the question "who's money is this really?" This is why the fair tax or similar plans will never pass. The power to silently tax people is too good for big brother.

knz 10y ago
> Social Security is an authoritarian play, or a power play A more charitable view would be that social security is an attempt to provide a minimum standard of living for all seniors and the disabled. How do you propose that society cares for these people, particularly the disabled, if it's not done at a societal level? Retirement also benefits the young/middle aged by ensuring jobs open up.
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  I think the older generation should give way to the younger generation. After all, it is the younger generation that is required to run the world while the older retires. However, as it is currently, the older generation is robbing the younger generation. The younger generation is paying for entitlements that it knows it will never receive. That is not sustainable, fair, or in my opinion: necessary. It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds. That's why I said it's a power play, because if you made social security an open market with competition, you would probably see more positive support and results.
  - tunap 10y ago
    "Probably" see better results? I don't have, nor will I fetch for, the number of people who are solely reliant on SS, but my father is one of them. And he said the exact same words as you to me when I was a sprout. Now, after some bad decisions, and health issues as a direct result of long arduous work, he is glad to have that net. Please, don't tell me about my duties as a son, I've supported two family members through cancer, simultaneously. If/when it comes to it, he will be taken care of by me & siblings. How about the millions? who don't have children able to care for them? The streets is it? More welfare? I'd love to hear about a more sustainable option that doesn't include 'probably'.
    - chrisabrams 10y ago
      That's great that you've recognized your duty to your family, but what happens when your children retire? What process is in place to help them? Current projects barely keep things solvent for the retiring baby boomer generation. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't sustainable [1], but that's what social security is. Social security is not a guaranteed solution. If we have to raise taxes or collect additional taxes, that makes it a ponzi scheme. Cutting benefits is similar: you either lose the money now or later. Discussion forums such as this are one of our few hopes for generating s sustainable solution. Just because a solution doesn't currently exist doesn't mean we should be complacent with how things are. [1]: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/pf/social-security-medicare/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/pf/social-security-medicare/
      - vkou 10y ago
        It's not your money to 'lose', and welfare programs do not rob Peter to pay Paul. They are just that - welfare programs. Wealth redistribution. There is nothing fundamental about them that makes them pyramid schemes.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        We already have a sustainable solution: admit more people to the workforce via immigration. As more of the baby boomers die off over the next `03 years, the pool of retirees collecting social security will shrink back towards the mean. You seem to be under the impression that the demographic bulge is a one-way thing.
        jstx 10y ago
        This is not a sustainable solution. This is kicking the can down the road. The population of any closed system, whether country, continent, or even planet, cannot grow indefinitely. And any system that expects indefinite growth to sustain itself will invariably become exhausted when rate out exceeds rate in for a sufficient duration. Immigration alone may be a stopgap, but it is by no means a solution.
      - tunap 10y ago
  - mywittyname 10y ago
    It's not a retirement fund and was never intended to be. Social Security was always envisioned as a social safety net to provide enough support to elderly people to keep them off the streets and fed, nothing more.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      In that case it really ought to be means-tested, much more than it is now.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Well, find a way to stop retirees from voting then. It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds. Sez you. I'd like to outsource that job to them as private financial advisers often seem to put their own interests ahead of their clients', and I really don't know how to evaluate competing investment vehicles except int he most shallow way. I'd really like to delegate that job to someone, and I'd really like to join up with enough other people to feel the same way to delegate it to the same entity and enjoy the resultant economies of scale. If enough people decide they want government to perform some function on their behalf, and it seems like a majority of people over several generations of western democracy in multiple countries do want the government to run a pension system, then it damn well is the government's job.
chatmasta 10y ago
This is a great point I don't see brought up often enough. It also has a lot of implications for the "gig economy" and independent contractors. If the majority of the workforce works as independent contractors, the government will not be able to use employers to collect ("withhold") taxes automatically from workers' paychecks. The IRS will need to wait for the contractors to explicitly pay their own taxes. I suspect this will have a big impact on cash flow for incoming taxes. Also, it could give more power to the people should they ever choose to execute a tax boycott.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  My guess is the government will create legislation where it requires large marketplaces to automatically withhold taxes by default, such as ebay, airbnb, uber, lyft, task rabbit, amazon, doordash etc.
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    This has already started with fees. Fees are just a synonym for taxes, or money that does not go in your pocket.
entee 10y ago
Is that true? It's certainly true that under many of these alternative tax structures, we can't fund what we do right now. If instead there was a list that said, "Here is the amount of money that went to each of the major federal departments", maybe people would say, "really? that's cheap!" or "really? we spend that much on defense???" Who knows, but they'd be better informed. As I recall to a rough first approximation only about 1/5 of government spending isn't Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. That's the first thing to keep in mind when talking about deficits, taxation and priorities. Personally every time I look at my pay statement the taxes sting badly. However, I think the more interesting discussion to have is, "what are we spending money on?"
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  > Personally every time I look at my pay statement the taxes sting badly. However, I think the more interesting discussion to have is, "what are we spending money on?" As a self-employed libertarian I think the same thing :O I think most of the services that are offered through the government are noble or necessary..I disagree that it should be the government that runs many of them.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  If instead there was a list that said, "Here is the amount of money that went to each of the major federal departments" Yes...we could call it a 'budget.'

knz 10y ago

> Social Security is an authoritarian play, or a power play A more charitable view would be that social security is an attempt to provide a minimum standard of living for all seniors and the disabled. How do you propose that society cares for these people, particularly the disabled, if it's not done at a societal level? Retirement also benefits the young/middle aged by ensuring jobs open up.

chrisabrams 10y ago
I think the older generation should give way to the younger generation. After all, it is the younger generation that is required to run the world while the older retires. However, as it is currently, the older generation is robbing the younger generation. The younger generation is paying for entitlements that it knows it will never receive. That is not sustainable, fair, or in my opinion: necessary. It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds. That's why I said it's a power play, because if you made social security an open market with competition, you would probably see more positive support and results.
- tunap 10y ago
  "Probably" see better results? I don't have, nor will I fetch for, the number of people who are solely reliant on SS, but my father is one of them. And he said the exact same words as you to me when I was a sprout. Now, after some bad decisions, and health issues as a direct result of long arduous work, he is glad to have that net. Please, don't tell me about my duties as a son, I've supported two family members through cancer, simultaneously. If/when it comes to it, he will be taken care of by me & siblings. How about the millions? who don't have children able to care for them? The streets is it? More welfare? I'd love to hear about a more sustainable option that doesn't include 'probably'.
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    That's great that you've recognized your duty to your family, but what happens when your children retire? What process is in place to help them? Current projects barely keep things solvent for the retiring baby boomer generation. Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't sustainable [1], but that's what social security is. Social security is not a guaranteed solution. If we have to raise taxes or collect additional taxes, that makes it a ponzi scheme. Cutting benefits is similar: you either lose the money now or later. Discussion forums such as this are one of our few hopes for generating s sustainable solution. Just because a solution doesn't currently exist doesn't mean we should be complacent with how things are. [1]: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/pf/social-security-medicare/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/pf/social-security-medicare/
    - vkou 10y ago
      It's not your money to 'lose', and welfare programs do not rob Peter to pay Paul. They are just that - welfare programs. Wealth redistribution. There is nothing fundamental about them that makes them pyramid schemes.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      We already have a sustainable solution: admit more people to the workforce via immigration. As more of the baby boomers die off over the next `03 years, the pool of retirees collecting social security will shrink back towards the mean. You seem to be under the impression that the demographic bulge is a one-way thing.
      - jstx 10y ago
        This is not a sustainable solution. This is kicking the can down the road. The population of any closed system, whether country, continent, or even planet, cannot grow indefinitely. And any system that expects indefinite growth to sustain itself will invariably become exhausted when rate out exceeds rate in for a sufficient duration. Immigration alone may be a stopgap, but it is by no means a solution.
    - tunap 10y ago
- mywittyname 10y ago
  It's not a retirement fund and was never intended to be. Social Security was always envisioned as a social safety net to provide enough support to elderly people to keep them off the streets and fed, nothing more.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    In that case it really ought to be means-tested, much more than it is now.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Well, find a way to stop retirees from voting then. It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds. Sez you. I'd like to outsource that job to them as private financial advisers often seem to put their own interests ahead of their clients', and I really don't know how to evaluate competing investment vehicles except int he most shallow way. I'd really like to delegate that job to someone, and I'd really like to join up with enough other people to feel the same way to delegate it to the same entity and enjoy the resultant economies of scale. If enough people decide they want government to perform some function on their behalf, and it seems like a majority of people over several generations of western democracy in multiple countries do want the government to run a pension system, then it damn well is the government's job.

chatmasta 10y ago

This is a great point I don't see brought up often enough. It also has a lot of implications for the "gig economy" and independent contractors. If the majority of the workforce works as independent contractors, the government will not be able to use employers to collect ("withhold") taxes automatically from workers' paychecks. The IRS will need to wait for the contractors to explicitly pay their own taxes. I suspect this will have a big impact on cash flow for incoming taxes. Also, it could give more power to the people should they ever choose to execute a tax boycott.

mahyarm 10y ago
My guess is the government will create legislation where it requires large marketplaces to automatically withhold taxes by default, such as ebay, airbnb, uber, lyft, task rabbit, amazon, doordash etc.
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  This has already started with fees. Fees are just a synonym for taxes, or money that does not go in your pocket.

entee 10y ago

Is that true? It's certainly true that under many of these alternative tax structures, we can't fund what we do right now. If instead there was a list that said, "Here is the amount of money that went to each of the major federal departments", maybe people would say, "really? that's cheap!" or "really? we spend that much on defense???" Who knows, but they'd be better informed. As I recall to a rough first approximation only about 1/5 of government spending isn't Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. That's the first thing to keep in mind when talking about deficits, taxation and priorities. Personally every time I look at my pay statement the taxes sting badly. However, I think the more interesting discussion to have is, "what are we spending money on?"

chrisabrams 10y ago
> Personally every time I look at my pay statement the taxes sting badly. However, I think the more interesting discussion to have is, "what are we spending money on?" As a self-employed libertarian I think the same thing :O I think most of the services that are offered through the government are noble or necessary..I disagree that it should be the government that runs many of them.
anigbrowl 10y ago
If instead there was a list that said, "Here is the amount of money that went to each of the major federal departments" Yes...we could call it a 'budget.'