>>>>When financing infrastructure, one must always finance it over a period of time which is less than or equal to the life expetancy of the item being financed. If not you get what we have today with multiple bonds being paid on for the same infrastructure. In simple terms, those at the end pay more dearly than those up front.
Although it is common for state or local gov'ts to do this, the Federal gov't rarely does this. The Federal gov't borrowing is usually not related to whether or not the spending is for capital projects or current expenses. Indeed, what you seem to miss, is that when we look at the Federal govt's financial state, we look at only the National Debt. Very seldom do we account for the many assets that offset that debt. Our children will benefit from those assets. Both real hard assets, and the more subjective 'kind of America that we can all be proud of'. I think the fact that we don't have any prohibitions against emigration, and have lots of problems with 'unwanted' immigration says it all.
>>>>Number two. It is a clear fact FICA has squeezed out the federal income taxs which normally would have been paid. By squeezing out federal income taxes, what have has happened? First we had to borrow money. We now pay interst on the borrowed money. Had FICA not been raised, we would not have borrowed money and we would not be paying more than $350 Billion this year in interest.
Balderdash! If this were true, the the 'unified budget' figures (which include both FICA and income taxes as income) would have shown surpluses in the 80's and early 90's. But that was not the case. The 'unified budget' deficits went as high as $300 billion! And if we had paid our 'FICA' as income taxes, what would we have used to provide for our own retirements? We can only spend it once. The reason we have massive interest payments is that we lowered income taxes mostly on the well-to-do, but did not cut spending to match it. David Stockman laid it all out in his book, 'The Triumph of Politics'.
>>>>The mean income, without Capital Gains, for those over 65 is more than $32,000 a year. I find it appalling that people think this group of people are poor.
The mean does not matter near as much as the median. To the extent that most seniors are not wealthy, your means testing really doesn't accomplish a whole lot financially. For 2/3 of seniors, SS comprises more than half of their income. And since the maximum SS benefit is about $16,000, that says that at least 2/3 make less than 32K. The average SS benefit for a worker was $9400 in 1998. In 1997, median income for elderly unmarried women (widowed, divorced, separated, and never married) was $11,161, compared with $14,769 for elderly unmarried men and $29,278 for elderly married couples. And widows make up 45% of all elderly women. And 25% of unmarried elderly women survive soley on SS benefits.
There are certainly wealthy seniors, but it is a low percentage when you are talking about those who could easily forgo SS benefits.
>>>>It is time the senior contribute to the solution. Eliminate Social Security and make it need based!!
Seniors paid the FICA taxes they were asked to pay. They paid for another generation's retirees. Changing the 'rules' after they have already passed through the most productive years of their lives seems unAmerican to me.
