Social Security: Why?

[Surlethe]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young. This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption. Moreover, a social safety net still exists if an old person should fall into poverty. This handily eliminates the problem of the increasing aged population straining government funds and opens up the possibility of decreasing social security taxes or replacing them outright with a different sort of tax in order to use that money (70% of government expenditures, IIRC?) elsewhere.

Now, I think I understand how social security works, but I'm not entirely sure. If I'm wrong somewhere, I am sure someone will correct me. What are your thoughts?

[Phantasee]

You don't hate old people, do you?

Social Security will last until either we're broke, or someone finds a way to kill everyone over 60. Too many voters in the range of 40+ who are looking forward to getting their piece of the pie for politicians to get rid of it.

Fucking addicts, if you ask me...

[SirNitram]

My immediate and central thought is: Define 'poor'. Define poor today, define poor tomorrow, and define poor in fifty years.

Okay, now how do you prevent it from reaching downwards as inflation continues, given the resistance to any attempt to index even minimum wage to the inflation rate?

Beyond this, I need to think on it. If we are talking hypotheticals which don't exist in a real world where someone will try and gut this program, indexing a cutoff above a certain income would be okay, but that leads back to the question of 'why?'.

[Patrick Degan]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Uh huh. And when they can't work anymore from age or disability and can't contribute to society, what then? Kick them to the curb?

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young. This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption. Moreover, a social safety net still exists if an old person should fall into poverty. This handily eliminates the problem of the increasing aged population straining government funds and opens up the possibility of decreasing social security taxes or replacing them outright with a different sort of tax in order to use that money (70% of government expenditures, IIRC?) elsewhere.

You do realise, don't you, that your proposal effectively opens a trap-door on millions of people who won't be poor enough to qualify for poverty assistance, who for one cause or another lose their nest-egg (or make poor financial planning decisions, because millions of ordinary people do so not out of carelessness or even bog-standard ignorance but in many cases because they have to devote their entire concentration upon their jobs, their families, and the immediate day-to-day struggle to keep up with the cost-of-living), on people who become disabled and unable to work —in a not-trivial percentage of cases reaching that state long before retirement age. Who will be faced with a Hobson's choice to keep working until they're about ready to die in the hopes of having enough money to cushion their last few broken years in their own homes, or to lose everything before reaching the poverty level which qualifies for state assistance.

This doesn't eliminate the problem, it only transfers it onto a far more politically-vulnerable programme which will fall under continuing attack from Rightards who see any form of government assistance and taxation as evil (and of course by the shills for Big Business).

[Winston Blake]

In Australia at least, your pension IS your nest egg. It's Pay As You Go - the superannuation part of your tax is held for you until you're of pension age. It's enforced saving. Your nest egg can't be wiped out by bad decisions. Also there are already payments for poor people, young or old.

Shouldn't the title of this thread be something like 'State pensions: Why?'. I thought this was going to be a libertarian screed against welfare bums.

[Patrick Degan]

In Australia at least, your pension IS your nest egg. It's Pay As You Go - the superannuation part of your tax is held for you until you're of pension age. It's enforced saving. Your nest egg can't be wiped out by bad decisions.

And you've got socialised medicine as well, which obviates the danger of personal financial ruin from medical expenses —which of course we can't have in America because it's Communism, or Satanic, or... something like that.

[Broomstick]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees?

Social security originated in the Great Depression and was part of FDR's New Deal. At that time a lot of people had lost their nest egg's due to the stock market crash and economic crash. The young and the able-bodied were having trouble finding work, much less the old and feeble. The idea was to ensure that, no matter what, a retiree had some sort of income instead of being utterly destitute. The only way to get Congress to pass it was to include ALL retirees, and not just poor ones. In other words, the universal coverage aspect is due to politics as much if not more so than logic.

I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves.

Ha! Apparently you've never been dependent on government programs. For certain categories of people - the elderly disabled - government handouts are nowhere near adequate which is one way poor elderly people wind up in pestilential state-run nursing homes.

But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

If the trade-off for making sure the poor are covered by the program is to include the not-poor then the net benefit to society may justify it.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Apparently you are laboring under the assumption that everyone is economically successful in life. That is not true.

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young.

Except our society views poverty as a sin to be punishment more than an unfortunate state. Our society takes the position that if you are poor you are doing something wrong and you require "incentives" to be forced to get off your lazy ass and work. Nevermind that illness and disability can render you unable to work AND devastate your finances, or that a woman who devoted years of her life to raising children will not be able to find high paying work in the job market, or that after years of working in an industry you can find your skills suddenly obsolete but schooling for new skills priced out of reach, or that if you're laid off past the age of 35 or 40 you face age discrimination, or anyone besides white males faces discrimination in the job market (outside of something like nursing, where it's white women who have the advantage).

If you're not at least middle class you're shit, you're lazy, you're a bad person, you're irresponsible, and you probably deserve whatever misfortune befalls you.

This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption.

Except for people like my husband, who is disabled but has spent months (with more to come) on the byzantine process of applying for disability, which will nowhere near replace the income he once earned. I was laid off last November, drastically cutting our income despite the fact I was working TWO jobs for several months. Meanwhile, because we have no health insurance (because I was laid off) our pathetic nest egg is slowly dwindling to buy him the medications he needs to stay as healthy as he is - HOW THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO SAVE MONEY FOR RETIREMENT?????? Statements such as yours completely ignore the fact that we are NOT completely in control of our lives. I am working two fucking jobs to replace the one I lost, PLUS cooking everything from scratch to save money - HOW MUCH MORE FUCKING PRODUCTIVE AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?

A year ago we were solidly middle class despite my husband's problems... then my company laid off everyone at my level in the department. Now we are poor and slowly sliding further down the ladder. Where, exactly, did we fuck up? It was not my choice and no fault of mine I lost my cushy job, though it WAS my "fault" we were frugal enough that when such a thing did happen we had resources to fall back on (savings, no debt, vehicles paid off, etc.)

Actually, if you want to solve the "problem" of social security raise the retirement age - it was pegged at 65 back in the 1930's, when life expectancy was lower. It should have been scaled up as life expectancy increased - probably to 70 or 75 (maybe even higher). However, politics being as they are, it is extremely unlikely this will occur.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

You don't hate old people, do you?

Social Security will last until either we're broke, or someone finds a way to kill everyone over 60. Too many voters in the range of 40+ who are looking forward to getting their piece of the pie for politicians to get rid of it.

Fucking addicts, if you ask me...

When you are a blue collar worker earning insufficient dole to save significant sums of cash for retirement, you wouldn't say that.

[Surlethe]

My immediate and central thought is: Define 'poor'. Define poor today, define poor tomorrow, and define poor in fifty years.

Okay, now how do you prevent it from reaching downwards as inflation continues, given the resistance to any attempt to index even minimum wage to the inflation rate?

Those are questions that any decent welfare system has to answer, aren't they? The idea in the OP is to absorb social security into the existing welfare system.

Beyond this, I need to think on it. If we are talking hypotheticals which don't exist in a real world where someone will try and gut this program, indexing a cutoff above a certain income would be okay, but that leads back to the question of 'why?'.

I'm not sure how practical the proposal is (part of why I posted it here), but the question of "why" is easily answered, if I understand it: for someone who has enough money, the benefit of social security is less than the cost of giving it to them.

[Surlethe]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

If the family hasn't got a nest egg because of inflation or because of emergencies draining them, then that's where I propose welfare ought to kick in. My objection is to giving handouts to people who don't need them, which I understand the current social security system does.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Uh huh. And when they can't work anymore from age or disability and can't contribute to society, what then? Kick them to the curb?

Put them on welfare? My point was not to abandon people who don't contribute to society; it was that those who have contributed to society have already benefited, so there doesn't seem to be any reason why society should prop them up after they've retired if they can stand on their own.

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young. This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption. Moreover, a social safety net still exists if an old person should fall into poverty. This handily eliminates the problem of the increasing aged population straining government funds and opens up the possibility of decreasing social security taxes or replacing them outright with a different sort of tax in order to use that money (70% of government expenditures, IIRC?) elsewhere.

You do realise, don't you, that your proposal effectively opens a trap-door on millions of people who won't be poor enough to qualify for poverty assistance, who for one cause or another lose their nest-egg (or make poor financial planning decisions, because millions of ordinary people do so not out of carelessness or even bog-standard ignorance but in many cases because they have to devote their entire concentration upon their jobs, their families, and the immediate day-to-day struggle to keep up with the cost-of-living), on people who become disabled and unable to work —in a not-trivial percentage of cases reaching that state long before retirement age. Who will be faced with a Hobson's choice to keep working until they're about ready to die in the hopes of having enough money to cushion their last few broken years in their own homes, or to lose everything before reaching the poverty level which qualifies for state assistance.

This Catch-22 you've laid out is an artifact of poor welfare: it is an indictment of the poverty support system. In the sense that my idea relies on a decent social safety net which is not in place in the US, your objection is valid. But in principle, where things like decent welfare programs exist, your objections don't apply; your point is answered by coupling welfare reform to this social security idea.

This doesn't eliminate the problem, it only transfers it onto a far more politically-vulnerable programme which will fall under continuing attack from Rightards who see any form of government assistance and taxation as evil (and of course by the shills for Big Business).

You might as well say that welfare and health care shouldn't be reformed because raising the poverty line and creating comprehensive national health insurance will create more politically-vulnerable programs which will fall under attack from lolbertarians and businessmen. It is a pragmatic point, but not one which refutes the contention that they ought to, in principle, be reformed.

[SirNitram]

My immediate and central thought is: Define 'poor'. Define poor today, define poor tomorrow, and define poor in fifty years.

Okay, now how do you prevent it from reaching downwards as inflation continues, given the resistance to any attempt to index even minimum wage to the inflation rate?

Those are questions that any decent welfare system has to answer, aren't they? The idea in the OP is to absorb social security into the existing welfare system.

Great. Now it's possible to render even more people who are being thrashed down by inflation helpless against it.

Beyond this, I need to think on it. If we are talking hypotheticals which don't exist in a real world where someone will try and gut this program, indexing a cutoff above a certain income would be okay, but that leads back to the question of 'why?'.

I'm not sure how practical the proposal is (part of why I posted it here), but the question of "why" is easily answered, if I understand it: for someone who has enough money, the benefit of social security is less than the cost of giving it to them.

Except you are only weighing individual pros/cons, while ignoring the realities of a non-perfect world. Financial situations change in a heartbeat, and government bureacracy is a pain. Opening this up to even just this change requires headbutting through indexing, which many decry as actually illegal, because it 'ties the hands of a later Congress'(Swear to god, even seen it said here a few times). And this ignores the amount of 'adjustments' that will be made in an actual proposal, because half of the makeup of the federal legislature is rendered physically ill by the idea of helping poor people(Remember S-CHIP?).

[Surlethe]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees?

Social security originated in the Great Depression and was part of FDR's New Deal. At that time a lot of people had lost their nest egg's due to the stock market crash and economic crash. The young and the able-bodied were having trouble finding work, much less the old and feeble. The idea was to ensure that, no matter what, a retiree had some sort of income instead of being utterly destitute. The only way to get Congress to pass it was to include ALL retirees, and not just poor ones. In other words, the universal coverage aspect is due to politics as much if not more so than logic.

Hm. I did not know that. Thanks.

I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves.

Ha! Apparently you've never been dependent on government programs. For certain categories of people - the elderly disabled - government handouts are nowhere near adequate which is one way poor elderly people wind up in pestilential state-run nursing homes.

No, I haven't. Nonetheless, these are problems with the handout system we have, not with the intended function of welfare.

But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

If the trade-off for making sure the poor are covered by the program is to include the not-poor then the net benefit to society may justify it.

I certainly agree. But if we can reform the system to still cover poor people while covering fewer not-poor people, the net benefit will increase.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Apparently you are laboring under the assumption that everyone is economically successful in life. That is not true.

Why does my argument necessitate that assumption? A person who is not economically successful still benefits from living in society.

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young.

Except our society views poverty as a sin to be punishment more than an unfortunate state. Our society takes the position that if you are poor you are doing something wrong and you require "incentives" to be forced to get off your lazy ass and work. Nevermind that illness and disability can render you unable to work AND devastate your finances, or that a woman who devoted years of her life to raising children will not be able to find high paying work in the job market, or that after years of working in an industry you can find your skills suddenly obsolete but schooling for new skills priced out of reach, or that if you're laid off past the age of 35 or 40 you face age discrimination, or anyone besides white males faces discrimination in the job market (outside of something like nursing, where it's white women who have the advantage).

If you're not at least middle class you're shit, you're lazy, you're a bad person, you're irresponsible, and you probably deserve whatever misfortune befalls you.

I am more than aware of the problems in our society's attitudes toward handouts. If they are to be used as an objection to the idea about reforming social security, however, they are also an objection to the notion that welfare needs to be expanded. Pointing out that expanding welfare (or reforming social security) is politically impossible in the current culture does not change whether or not expanding welfare (or reforming social security) is a good idea; it simply puts them in the same bin as raising the retirement age: good ideas but pragmatically impossible.

This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption.

Except for people like my husband, who is disabled but has spent months (with more to come) on the byzantine process of applying for disability, which will nowhere near replace the income he once earned. I was laid off last November, drastically cutting our income despite the fact I was working TWO jobs for several months. Meanwhile, because we have no health insurance (because I was laid off) our pathetic nest egg is slowly dwindling to buy him the medications he needs to stay as healthy as he is - HOW THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO SAVE MONEY FOR RETIREMENT?????? Statements such as yours completely ignore the fact that we are NOT completely in control of our lives. I am working two fucking jobs to replace the one I lost, PLUS cooking everything from scratch to save money - HOW MUCH MORE FUCKING PRODUCTIVE AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?

A year ago we were solidly middle class despite my husband's problems... then my company laid off everyone at my level in the department. Now we are poor and slowly sliding further down the ladder. Where, exactly, did we fuck up? It was not my choice and no fault of mine I lost my cushy job, though it WAS my "fault" we were frugal enough that when such a thing did happen we had resources to fall back on (savings, no debt, vehicles paid off, etc.)

I know that there are people, like you and your husband, who fall on hard times through no fault of their own. That is why neither am I a libertarian, nor do I share the Calvinist view that if you are poor, you deserve it. That does not change the argument that, for people who are lucky enough to not fall on hard times, being able to count on a government pension starting at 65 and going until death changes incentives because it changes the person's expectations of the future.

Actually, if you want to solve the "problem" of social security raise the retirement age - it was pegged at 65 back in the 1930's, when life expectancy was lower. It should have been scaled up as life expectancy increased - probably to 70 or 75 (maybe even higher). However, politics being as they are, it is extremely unlikely this will occur.

This also sounds like a good idea. Do you have any studies that quantify the effects of raising the retirement age?

[Broomstick]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

If the family hasn't got a nest egg because of inflation or because of emergencies draining them, then that's where I propose welfare ought to kick in. My objection is to giving handouts to people who don't need them, which I understand the current social security system does.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Uh huh. And when they can't work anymore from age or disability and can't contribute to society, what then? Kick them to the curb?

Put them on welfare?

I don't think you understand how welfare works (or rather, doesn't) in the US.

At one time in the 1990's Illinois ended ALL welfare payments for able-bodied men of working age (18-64). That means no matter how destitute a man could not receive financial assistance.

There is a ten year waiting list for section 8 housing - that's where the "welfare system" helps subsidize housing for the destitute. In many areas the waiting list is closed meaning you CAN'T get onto it no matter how poor you are.

In order for me to qualify for food stamps in Indiana my household's TOTAL assets much be less than $2,000 (plus a few other qualifications) that means I would have to sell one of our two vehicles, my piano, several other items, ditch my savings account, and spend down our checking account to less than $2,000. At that point you can not afford schooling for better job skills, major car repairs, medical expenses, and so on -- meaning once you drop to that point you will be trapped there because you can NOT accumulate the financial assets needed to pull yourself higher.

The systems fucks people over and over. The US has the most productive workers in the world, yet their wages are not keeping pace with rising costs and more and more are falling into the quagmire. Dumping even more people into the welfare system is WORSE than continuing social security in its present form.

[Uraniun235]

Aren't some/all of those traps the result of "reforms" over the years intended to thwart the threatening hordes of "welfare queens" which spook the Republicans so much?

[Patrick Degan]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

If the family hasn't got a nest egg because of inflation or because of emergencies draining them, then that's where I propose welfare ought to kick in. My objection is to giving handouts to people who don't need them, which I understand the current social security system does.

You understand wrong. The universal nature of Social Security is one of the mechanisms which insulates it from political attack, unlike welfare. Also, with Social Security in place to maintain a reasonable standard of living for retirees and the disabled without their having to lose everything and slide into poverty to qualify for welfare the overall economy is helped by not having millions of people suddenly drop in the value of their assets.

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Uh huh. And when they can't work anymore from age or disability and can't contribute to society, what then? Kick them to the curb?

Put them on welfare? My point was not to abandon people who don't contribute to society; it was that those who have contributed to society have already benefited, so there doesn't seem to be any reason why society should prop them up after they've retired if they can stand on their own.

See above. Another problem with your reasoning is that you seem to assume that contribution and benefit automatically have an immediate 1:1 correlation in all cases or must do.

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young. This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption. Moreover, a social safety net still exists if an old person should fall into poverty. This handily eliminates the problem of the increasing aged population straining government funds and opens up the possibility of decreasing social security taxes or replacing them outright with a different sort of tax in order to use that money (70% of government expenditures, IIRC?) elsewhere.

You do realise, don't you, that your proposal effectively opens a trap-door on millions of people who won't be poor enough to qualify for poverty assistance, who for one cause or another lose their nest-egg (or make poor financial planning decisions, because millions of ordinary people do so not out of carelessness or even bog-standard ignorance but in many cases because they have to devote their entire concentration upon their jobs, their families, and the immediate day-to-day struggle to keep up with the cost-of-living), on people who become disabled and unable to work —in a not-trivial percentage of cases reaching that state long before retirement age. Who will be faced with a Hobson's choice to keep working until they're about ready to die in the hopes of having enough money to cushion their last few broken years in their own homes, or to lose everything before reaching the poverty level which qualifies for state assistance.

This Catch-22 you've laid out is an artifact of poor welfare: it is an indictment of the poverty support system. In the sense that my idea relies on a decent social safety net which is not in place in the US, your objection is valid. But in principle, where things like decent welfare programs exist, your objections don't apply; your point is answered by coupling welfare reform to this social security idea.

No, this Catch-22 is the logical end of the scheme you propose, and which no serious industrial nation which does maintain a decent social safety net would implement for the very obvious reason of having millions lose the value of their assets, which doesn't make any economic sense on any level.

This doesn't eliminate the problem, it only transfers it onto a far more politically-vulnerable programme which will fall under continuing attack from Rightards who see any form of government assistance and taxation as evil (and of course by the shills for Big Business).

You might as well say that welfare and health care shouldn't be reformed because raising the poverty line and creating comprehensive national health insurance will create more politically-vulnerable programs which will fall under attack from lolbertarians and businessmen. It is a pragmatic point, but not one which refutes the contention that they ought to, in principle, be reformed.

The problem is that your "reform" cuts out a major portion of social insurance and is based on a false assumption that all current conditions will remain static. They do not, and it is well to have a multilayered system in place even if there are some people who either "don't deserve" (subjective conclusion) to benefit from it or actually commit outright fraud to collect a benefit they're not entitled to.

[SirNitram]

Aren't some/all of those traps the result of "reforms" over the years intended to thwart the threatening hordes of "welfare queens" which spook the Republicans so much?

Yep. You know, they never could find any of them, though I think if they looked at Wall Street today they might be able to.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

And welfare and unemployment benefits (with restrictions and conditions somewhat relaxed for seniors) would accomplish the same. Were you reading anything he said? Why are we paying social security to Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett? Furthermore, it seems to be perverse and retarded to retain Social Security on the off-chance of unexpected/emergency or onerous chronic medical expenses, that's an argument for national single-payer health care (and furthermore, this is what Medicare is for).

I considered that it is society giving back to them after a lifetime of contributions to society. But they reaped the benefits of living in society every single day over their lifetimes; moreover, especially for the Baby Boomers, one could make an argument that the net effect of their consumption-oriented lifestyles on the long-term health of the nation has been negative.

Uh huh. And when they can't work anymore from age or disability and can't contribute to society, what then? Kick them to the curb?

He said, why not cover the poor (be they unemployed or working poor) with welfare both rich and old? Are you deliberately strawmanning the man?

It seems to make more sense to abolish transfer payments to retirees entirely, and instead focus on supporting poor people, old and young. This will effectively remove the retirement age, giving incentive to continue working and being productive far later in life, as well as to save more money for eventual retirement and thus reduce consumption. Moreover, a social safety net still exists if an old person should fall into poverty. This handily eliminates the problem of the increasing aged population straining government funds and opens up the possibility of decreasing social security taxes or replacing them outright with a different sort of tax in order to use that money (70% of government expenditures, IIRC?) elsewhere.

You do realise, don't you, that your proposal effectively opens a trap-door on millions of people who won't be poor enough to qualify for poverty assistance, who for one cause or another lose their nest-egg (or make poor financial planning decisions, because millions of ordinary people do so not out of carelessness or even bog-standard ignorance but in many cases because they have to devote their entire concentration upon their jobs, their families, and the immediate day-to-day struggle to keep up with the cost-of-living), on people who become disabled and unable to work —in a not-trivial percentage of cases reaching that state long before retirement age.

Where did Surlethe imply he would abolish Social Security and maintain strict standards on poverty assistance? If anything I think he is implying that welfare conditions should be relaxed on the elderly and used where their savings are insufficient and they are not suited to work, instead of paying Social Security out to both rich and poor old people, old people who're healthy and able to work and those who are not.

Who will be faced with a Hobson's choice to keep working until they're about ready to die in the hopes of having enough money to cushion their last few broken years in their own homes, or to lose everything before reaching the poverty level which qualifies for state assistance.

This doesn't eliminate the problem, it only transfers it onto a far more politically-vulnerable programme which will fall under continuing attack from Rightards who see any form of government assistance and taxation as evil (and of course by the shills for Big Business).

See above. Covering both the elderly and the young poor and young disabled under a single program would eliminate ridiculous redundancy in government bureaucracy and cut costs, and if thought as the new social security, it would strengthen the combined system. The new welfare state would be much more difficult to assail when it covered the "Greatest Generation" which had worked hard their whole lives and now need assistance and aid when they are unable to work and deserve retirement. Splitting up the system creates needless waste, needless redundancy, and plays into the political divide and conquer strategy by heartless rightists. The political support and clout for support for the elderly and pensioners will not evaporate magically simply because its no longer called Social Security and universal - it will instead make a new combined welfare state more robust and resistant to political assault. It seems to be backward to maintain an antiquated system rife with political-economic dishonesty (lockboxes, "savings" from Social Security taxes, regressive taxation in the form of Social Security taxes), with waste and inequity (a second welfare bureaucracy and payments to secure and able-bodied and even very wealthy elderly) simply because to do otherwise risks changing the political landscape. I see it as retreat and passivity in the face of right wing aggression, as opposed to confrontation and reform. This kind of hard-nosed defense of the welfare status quo in principle is one of the reasons for the left's electoral failure and political ineffectiveness. Initiative and the spirit of reform and progressiveness is ceded to the radical right without a fight. This kind of New Deal, old-Left politics has been demonstrated to be an utter failure. I'm with Surlethe, time for something new.

[Illuminatus Primus]

To be clear, I am saying that payroll taxes and other regressive taxes should be abolished, that redundant welfare providers be eliminated (Social Security, normal welfare, unemployment benefits) and consolidated (in parallel, Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA medical system should be similarly abolished and replaced with a consolidated single-payer public health care system). A combined welfare state and uniform single-payer public health care system should be created and be expanded from the existing coverage and benefits (financed with savings from redundancy elimination and streamlining, and by increasing marginal income and general wealth taxes). The new welfare system should be better and more extensive and the conditions relaxed for the elderly, therefore fully supplanting Social Security while eliminating waste on financially secure and deliberately working elderly and while also eliminating a regressive tax on workers and expanding coverage to those who may be unable to work or poor but currently just too young to quality for Social Security.

[LadyTevar]

If you are signing up for Food Stamps in WV, having a car is almost a guarantee to be refused. Why? Because if you have a car, it's assumed as INCOME, like a savings account, and not as the money-guzzling hog gas and insurance coverage turns it into.

Since 90% of WV does not have mass public transit, this makes it very hard on people who are trying to make ends meet while driving 10-30 miles to work every day.

[Broomstick]

Well, duh: because the AARP is a powerful political bloc. Seriously, though, earlier today I was thinking about the basic idea of social security - in a nutshell, as I understand it, the government pools taxes on working people and doles it out to retired people. But why? Why should the government support all retirees? I understand the function of handouts to poor people - level the playing field, so to speak, and permit them to keep supporting themselves. But I see no similar function when it comes to old people, who are not necessarily poor. Why should the government pay to support people who may have already saved up a considerable nest egg?

Nest eggs can get wiped out by any one of a number of unexpected expenses impacting on a family. Say Dad or Junior gets cancer? That nest egg can get drained in short order by the effort to keep the family up and running and paying for Dad's or Junior's medical care. If that nest egg goes, what's the family got left to rely on? And suppose that nest egg doesn't quite measure up to the rate of inflation down the line?

That's why you've got Social Security. As a backup.

And welfare and unemployment benefits (with restrictions and conditions somewhat relaxed for seniors) would accomplish the same.

Have you ever fucking BEEN on unemployment? Do you even realize that the amount per week you qualify for is dependent on which state you worked in? Do you fucking realize that it only lasts six months unless you literally have an act of Congress to extend it? That seasonal and self-employed people do not qualify to receive unemployment at all?

Part of the fucking problem is that people think "welfare" covers a fuckload more than it actually does.

Were you reading anything he said? Why are we paying social security to Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett?

In order to retain their support in keeping SS available for your mom and dad.

Furthermore, it seems to be perverse and retarded to retain Social Security on the off-chance of unexpected/emergency or onerous chronic medical expenses

Holy fuck! What the hell do you think a SAFETY NET is for other than "unexpected" events?

If anything I think he is implying that welfare conditions should be relaxed on the elderly and used where their savings are insufficient

In that case, why not relax the conditions for welfare for everyone?

[Illuminatus Primus]

And welfare and unemployment benefits (with restrictions and conditions somewhat relaxed for seniors) would accomplish the same.

Have you ever fucking BEEN on unemployment? Do you even realize that the amount per week you qualify for is dependent on which state you worked in? Do you fucking realize that it only lasts six months unless you literally have an act of Congress to extend it? That seasonal and self-employed people do not qualify to receive unemployment at all?

Part of the fucking problem is that people think "welfare" covers a fuckload more than it actually does.

Then the solution is to bolster the welfare state and unemployment benefits, not to stick with an outdated and redundant system as a backdoor to the same goalset.

Were you reading anything he said? Why are we paying social security to Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett?

In order to retain their support in keeping SS available for your mom and dad.

I forgot that they and their class were such stalwarts of Social Security, and not turning into an investment source for the corporate class. Oh, wait...

Furthermore, it seems to be perverse and retarded to retain Social Security on the off-chance of unexpected/emergency or onerous chronic medical expenses

Holy fuck! What the hell do you think a SAFETY NET is for other than "unexpected" events?

I said that is the job of a comprehensive public health care system, not passing the buck to public pension system to foot the bill (if the government is funding health care through the backdoor, we might as well cut out the middlemen, bureaucrats, personal irresponsibility, etc. and just use it fund a health care system, and seperately address issues of support while unemployed/unable to work be it due to age and retirement or due to youth and bad times). I know you are histrionic, but I quite clearly stated this plainly, and I don't know why you clipped it to make it sound as if I am a proponent of "fuck em" right-wing social policies.

If anything I think he is implying that welfare conditions should be relaxed on the elderly and used where their savings are insufficient

In that case, why not relax the conditions for welfare for everyone?

We should, but the obligation to err on the side of caution and provide benefits is clearly more uniform when it comes to the elderly (especially the very elderly).

[SirNitram]

Primus' ideas strike me as pie-in-the-sky. Why precisely should we expect to overhaul the many, varied Welfare and Unemployment standards into something useful to pick up the inevitable slack Social Security creates, when we see that welfare is in fact more vunerable to political hatchetjobs?

These 'reforms' seem to exist in some fairyland where there is no large movement to cut off social safety nets.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Primus' ideas strike me as pie-in-the-sky. Why precisely should we expect to overhaul the many, varied Welfare and Unemployment standards into something useful to pick up the inevitable slack Social Security creates, when we see that welfare is in fact more vunerable to political hatchetjobs?

These 'reforms' seem to exist in some fairyland where there is no large movement to cut off social safety nets.

Surlethe as a poster often approaches questions as questions for the purposes of argument without respect to the current state of things politically or what have you - the tone of the OP, combined with his acknowledgment of huge AARP political pressure, and the essential real-world political absurdity of reforming Social Security at all without utter, immediate political-economic necessity to me made it clear that his debate was discussing what was desirable or ideal, as opposed to practical or realistic.

[SirNitram]

Primus' ideas strike me as pie-in-the-sky. Why precisely should we expect to overhaul the many, varied Welfare and Unemployment standards into something useful to pick up the inevitable slack Social Security creates, when we see that welfare is in fact more vunerable to political hatchetjobs?

These 'reforms' seem to exist in some fairyland where there is no large movement to cut off social safety nets.

Surlethe as a poster often approaches questions as questions for the purposes of argument without respect to the current state of things politically or what have you - the tone of the OP, combined with his acknowledgment of huge AARP political pressure, and the essential real-world political absurdity of reforming Social Security at all without utter, immediate political-economic necessity to me made it clear that his debate was discussing what was desirable or ideal, as opposed to practical or realistic.

Personally, I'd prefer to see such detached and idealized pontificating and navel-gazing in SLAM, as it is a question of morality and logic, instead of News and Politics, which as the name suggests, should naturally have some connection to real politics. It's fine as an ethical question, but this forum is clearly wrong for hypotheticals which discount real-world impacts. I can move the thread and note my objections were founded on this, if Surlethe requests.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh please, somehow theoretical political discussions are anathema here? This where we have much whining about how we should exercise a "powerdown" energy path (where I might add, its common usage in many publications is a complete politically impossibility). Or how about Mike and others saying jury trials are stupid, and should be replaced with professionals? Or discussions on how it would be better for society if no one drank or smoked? Or just about every economic or political scenario suggested by the Duchess. None of those things are in anyway political realistic in a foreseeable timeframe. Yet they were judged to be worthy of political discussion. I mean, please. This is not a discussion of ethics in a theoretical system or arbitrary scenario, its the discussion of which of two given scenarios of economic and political management of the social system is more desirable.