This morning, I heard a relatively interesting story on NPR about political compromises, and it included a clip from a DCCC ad against Paul Ryan’s Roadmap:
In a series of newspaper ads and robocalls, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has accused Republicans of trying to gut Social Security. “Everyone knows that Social Security belongs to the people who worked their whole life to pay into the system,” says one robocall. “But Rep. Paul Ryan wants to use Social Security and Medicare as a piggy bank for the government.”
And that’s where I need your help. It is simply not the case that “Social Security belongs to the people who worked their whole life to pay into the system.”
Social Security doesn’t belong to taxpayers, even those who have paid into the program their entire lives. It is not an entitlement: Congress can change the law at any time, cut benefits or abolish the program at will. If the law isn’t changed, then when the trust fund runs out of IOUs, benefits will be cut across the board for everyone — including people who have paid into the system their entire lives. Finally, the trust fund’s IOUs can only be repaid if the federal government increases its borrowing or raises taxes. Taxpayers don’t have a right to Social Security benefits. They just don’t.
The Supreme Court made this perfectly clear in its 1960 decision in Flemming v. Nestor, where it described Social Security as a “noncontractual . . . social welfare program.” In other words, yes, we pay into the program, but it’s not an entitlement. We do not have a property right over the money we paid into the program.
Now, how can we make people understand that entitlement programs are not an entitlement? How do we reach out to them?
Perhaps the best way to explain to people that they don't own Social Security, and that Congress can change the law anytime it wants, is that Social Security tells you the same exact thing each year in the mailer they send you describing your Social Security benefits were you to die today, etc. I get mine each year (and just got it last week) and always notice the disclaimer paragraph explaining that Congress can do whatever it wants to your Social Security "benefits."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'll assume this question is asked in good faith.
Stop acting like the creation of Social Security and Medicare were evil socialist attacks on your freedom, injustices that must be undone. Suggestions that we "privatize" these programs, in full or in part, are taken as attacks on those programs by many people who currently receive benefits.
When one group of conservatives spends a fair bit of time trying to "get government out of" retirement benefits or paying for health care, any other conservatives who want to make those programs sustainable have to deal with the fact that it all sounds the same to many.
And while you are correct that these benefits are not a legal right, that doesn't mean that millions of people don't see them as a moral one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy would you go down this road? The answer, of course, is that nobody who ever expects to be elected to public office attempts to make people understand that entitlements are not entitlements.
And, the fact that a court has ruled that SS is not an entitlement does not mean that in justice those who have contributed to it all their lives in good faith are not entitled to it. At some point in a seventy year selling of a program you pass the point where the original legal form is no longer the actual controlling factor and the constantly repeated sales pitch becomes the real obligation. Incidently, I'm a lifelong conservative shading toward libertarian.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe core issue is that the older generation is trying to take out more than they paid in themselves.
So now they're making their children and grandchildren pay the excess, which will leave those generations with nothing.
The old robbing the young.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe are not going to convince old people that Social Security is anything other than their God-given Constitutional Right. It just *is*. Democrats are going to lie about any changes no matter what the GOP says or does. The only way to get a segment of old people on board is to simply tell them the following:
a) anyone over a certain age can just keep on a-rollin', no questions asked. Or, you can have the following options:
b) voluntarily give up SS in exchange for never having to pay income taxes EVER AGAIN. No 1040's, ever. Many Seniors are forced to take IRA distributions, which puts them over the income limit, and their SS is taxed at 85%. The GOP should run this as a tax cut. A tax-free-forever holiday. Index the age to inflation (start at age 70). Offer to take people off the tax rolls, and to never live in fear of the IRS again. Don't reinstate the "death tax"...let people pass on what they save.
c) offer to write a check for every penny old people put in at 3% compounded annually over their working, paying life. "OK, you paid in, here's your money."
d) anyone under the age limit, say 55, create a new system *not called Social Security*. Increase Traditional and Roth 401K caps (to 25% and 25% of gross wages respectively...total of 50%). Allow people to put in their portion of what used to be SS into their account. Use Employer SS Matching to fund current retirees. SS goes away once the people >55 when the law is passed...pass on. Raise the "withdrawal" age to 70 with exceptions for health emergencies and death of a spouse.
e) keep in place the Welfare program and focus it for the elderly on those who were terminally poor and were never able to save enough to finance their own retirement. (keep the social safety net) If you take option "b" and blow all of your money, you can take the safety net, but you must start filing tax returns again so we know you're not cheating the taxpayers.
I also think it's important to show some honest accounting when it comes to Social Security. Give people an honest assessment of what they paid in using Treasures as the discount rate (~3%), and show their SS payments as deductions from that account. When the number goes negative (and it will for some), at least they'll know they are on Welfare once they've used up with they "paid in".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is about the old people robbing the young.
The older generations are trying to take out more than there is to take, and so they're making their children and grandchildren pony up the difference.
The true and compelling argument is to ask why the older generation can't live on what it has to live on, and further why it wants to make its children and grandchildren pay for them.
What will be left for the grandchildren? Nothing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suggest that we encourage people to read their "statement" from the Social Security Administration.
The one I received in February of this year included an asterisk next to each of the "benefits" shown in the "Your Estimated Benefits" section of the statement that led to the following disclaimer:
"Your estimated benefits are based on current law. Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time. The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2037, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 76 percent of scheduled benefits."
Please note that I beleive 2037 was shown on my statement because it is the year I reach "full retirment age". It can't be the year that expenditures exceed receipts and it ceases to be a pay-as-you-go, self funding program. Why? Becasue that already happened last year!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“But Rep. Paul Ryan wants to use Social Security and Medicare as a piggy bank for the government.”
Are you kidding me? It has been a piggy bank for the government since LBJ and the democrats added it to the general fund. What about the IOUs?! How long has this been going on? How did we get to this point? This was a ponzi scheme from the beginning and when congress saw all that money sitting there it was too much temptation. I really hope that Paul Ryan and the Republicans hoists them on their own petard.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn a sense, this is the very essence of the problem. Had Social Security been structured so that people payinh into it DID have property rights to those payments, it would just be a giant, government-administered 401k. Also, had they had those rights, they could have sued when politicians repeatedly raided Social Security for general operating funds, leaving the trust full of nothing more than promises to raise taxes or run up larger deficits. We would not have the problem of 13 workers for every recipient at the outse, and fewer than 3 today. All of this, by the way, is Democrats' fault, because although SS passed with bipartisan support, it was designed by a Democratic administration and its Congressional allies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAll of this is why, ChrisG, we should NOT "Stop acting like the creation of Social Security and Medicare were evil socialist attacks on your freedom, injustices that must be undone." They were precisely that. In fact, they were so much that we now have to fix them or they will literally bankrupt the entire nation. The country is now in the position of automakers versus the UAW circa 1985. Our unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities must be reformed, or they will drive us to ruin; and unlike General Motors, there is no Uncle (Sam) rich enough to bail us out.
What you have here is a conflict between the contract and what the prospectus said. Social Security was sold from day one as an insurance program. Who buys insurance that doesn't have to pay off just because the insurer decides they can no longer afford the scam. And more importantly, who keeps paying into the scam when it has been revealed.
So, yes, legally, contractually, there is no duty to pay. But people tend to get upset when they realize they've been scammed. We'll know people understand this scam when they tear down the statue of FDR.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'It is simply not the case that “Social Security belongs to the people who worked their whole life to pay into the system.”'
But that's exactly what the American people were led to believe when they were taxed to pay for "Social Security", as "security for their retirement". Those who buy annuities for their retirement expect (or are entitled to) annuity payments when they retire. If the American people are not "entitled" to a secured payment, then they should not be led to believe their retirement is secured when they pay into the system. They may, (surprise!), buy annuities, and save that 7.5%(?) of their income for their retirement. Btw, some politicians believe our IRAs and 401Ks belong to them too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusesully: Basically you are saying that if the lie is big enough, and repeated long enough, the lie becomes the truth.
And just who do you propose be taxed into the poorhouse in order to support this new truth?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor Social Security, I don't believe there will be any meaningful change in the perception of the entitlement unless it actually gets taken away. Even then the repercussions and anger would last a generation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor so many decades, SS has been sold to taxpayers as 'seperate' from the federal tax. That it was a separate account secure in a 'lockbox', being saved for 'their' future. Right or wrong this is how it has been portrayed. It is not an 'entitlement' to the perceptions of most taxpayers, but rather it is a savings account.
For the future, this perception must be managed and corrected. The first easy step is to eliminate the separate line items on everyone's paycheck. No separate line for SS or MC...just one Federal Tax line. The second more difficult step is to start portraying SS/MC as comparable to welfare, food stamps, and other government programs for the poor. Give it a stigma. Its the only way.
Otherwise, "its 'my' money, darnnit, and I expect to get it back."
To her dying day, my ex-wife's grandmother believed that there was a checking account with her name on it in the govt ledgers, and every penny she had put into SS was in that account, drawing interest and waiting for her to draw it out. If there was a shortage of funds, it was because those evil Republicans had stolen the money from her account. The idea that she was getting back more than she put in was rejected out of hand. Even when I showed her the amount she had put in vs. the amount she had taken out, she rejected the numbers as being the result of some despicable accounting trick.
FDR told her (not personally) that this was how the system was to be set up, and she would be getting her own money back, and that is what she chose to believe. Trying to convince her otherwise just made her upset and angry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFraud investigators should have relevant experience here. Just ask a few: What's the best way to let Ponzi scheme victims know their money is gone? Then cut-and-paste...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Trying to convince her otherwise just made her upset and angry."
I am in the same boat with my parents and in-laws. But I think there is a reason why they're upset: To recognize that you have no right to Social Security or Medicare is to recognize that you have been hoodwinked all of your life into believing the lie that you have a right to these programs because the government says you do.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe government already uses SS as a piggybank. There is no SS account with your name on it. All SS revenues are spent with the general budget.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor one thing, you concentrate on "reaching out" only to people born before, say, 1965. In my experience, anyone born after 1965 has never believed they will get anything at all from Social Security. They will not be disapointed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Stupid is as Stupid does" or so sayeth that Gump fellow. Politicians bet on the stupid doing stupid over and over so trying to "unstupid" the stupid on Social Security not being an entitlement is a huge task---however, it is one which must be taken on. (I don't understand the ire of folk against Enron and Bernie Madoff when compared to Shumer, Pelosi and others who have pushed us into bankruptcy, Madoff and the Enronites are pikers. Shumer should be right there in the slam with Bernie, Charlie Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd and the list goes on.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd here folks thought Meredith Wilson wasn't thinking of FDR when he wrote Music Man.
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