Subject: !RE: Welcome to the Roundtable: Why Reform Now?
When something needs doing, do it now!
SS, as assaulted by the federal government, ignored by federal employees, underpaid by the obscenely wealthy and pilfered by those categories of needy who did not pay into the SS fund buy do receive payouts from it, is in deep trouble.
All who earn income in the U.S. and all U.S. citizen income earners, regardless of where they earn the income, should pay into the SS fund. There should be no 'cutoff' whereby no further payments are considered necessary after earning 'x' amount of dollars on which you pay into the SS fund.
(i.e. Michael Jackson, if he performs at a bowl game on the first of january, should not be exempt from future payments into the SS fund for that year, because he earned a few million dollars for a few minutes work, and payed the 'maximum' for it).
Most government workers have held, or will hold, civilian jobs entitling them to SS payouts, but during their (20 or 30)year careers with the government, do not pay into the SS fund, since the federal government has it's own pension plan. So the average wage-earner subsidizes the federal worker's government pension through taxes, and, after the former federal worker gets a civvie job after retirement or during his party's "outage", and qualifies for SS benefits through his minimal contributions, the average stiff subsidizes the former federal workers SS payouts through his own diminished return on the payments he has made for 30 or 40 years in civilian life.
"Surpluses" in the SS fund should be invested BY THE SS Administration, in indexed mutual funds with various mutual fund companies. This way the only way the government could "help" these investments would be to help the economy as a whole. This would hopefully remove the temptation to meddle. In an economy such as that which presently blesses our country, investing a multiple millions surplus at 15 to 30% return is bound to have a beneficial effect on the future of SS.
No FICA payments should be taken for the 'general fund' by the government. These amounts will probably get 'lost in the shuffle' before repayment, or, will cost twice or more to repay than was borrowed. No matter which, the taxpayer (as in 'we the people') will have just robbed himself!
There should be means testing for payouts from the SS fund. The previous example, Michael Jackson, who has enough money to build a virtual Disneyland in his yard, should not qualify for the few hundred dollar a month SS payout, regardless of how much he has paid in in total. The first name in Social Security IS 'social', and the rich should pay in the same percentage of their income as the poor, but payouts should be according to need.
The sooner this issue is straightened out, the sooner everyone can make whatever adjustments will become necessary to plan intelligently for their retirement.
The supreme premise of SS, "you pay in while you're earning, we'll pay back to you when you're not" should be held sacred, or the government of the united states will be 'writ small' in the hearts of it's citizens forevermore!
I doubt that your panel members or their colleagues want to be counted in the Congress that causes that! Even more, I doubt that they want to be counted OUT of that Congress because of their actions on this issue!
