Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Friday, April 1, 2011

Americas Future: 'Back Off Social Security'

Source:Americas Future- As the photo says.

"Back off Social Security" 


There isn't anyone serious in the room in either party, that will be part of the final Social Security reform package, thats talking about cutting the benefits from Social Security for the people who need it. 

The debate is how to reform Social Security to make it more cost-effective and to save the program for the people who need it in the future. If anything part of the debate has been about how we can make Social Security work better in the future for the people who really need it. Especially for the people who only have Social Security for their income. And how they can benefit from it better in the future. 

We have 65-70M Baby Boomers (depending on how you define the generation) that have already retired or about to retire. Social Security if nothing is done will start running a deficit by 2014 and be bankrupt by 2040. We now have a Federal budget deficit of 1.6T$ and a Federal debt of 14T$. The sooner we address Social Security to fix and save it, the easier it will be and lesser the cuts and pain will be. 

The best way to reform Social Security is to make it better for the people who need it to pay their bills. And to cut yet cut it for the people who don't need it as much or not at all. That means moving up the retirement age for people who are physically and mentally capable of working longer to around seventy years old. The retirement age wouldn't go from 67-70 overnight, but like a month a year until we reach seventy. 

And for people with hard labor jobs, who physically and mentally can't work until seventy, the retirement age would still remain the same and they would still be able to collect Social Security early, the ones who need that income. 

We should also cut the early retirement income from people taking it from Social Security at 62, for the people who don't need the income. People making a good living on their own and don't need that extra income. They simply don't need this income and this money would be better served for saving the program. 

We should also increase the payroll tax on high-earners who can afford to pay more and reduce the payroll tax on moderate to low-income people. Which would also be a benefit for the economy, because these moderate to low-income people would have more money to spend. They would go out and spend it, which would create more jobs to meet the new higher demand. 

This is not about cutting but saving Social Security to make sure its there in the future and to make it work better for the people who actually need that income to pay their bills.