Social Security Retirement Age Should Rise, Keep Americans Working Longer, Senators Say

[babylonsister]

http://public.cq.com/docs/bt/btnews110-000002611363.html

Social Security Retirement Age Should Rise, Keep Americans Working Longer, Senators Say
By Kerry Young

The age for qualifying for Social Security benefits may need to be raised to reflect longer American life spans, Sens. Thomas R. Carper D-Del., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at a meeting yesterday on the federal budget. When Social Security was created in 1935, a 65-year-old could expect to live another 12.5 years. Today’s 65-year-olds often have another 17.5 years left, according to Social Security’s Web site. Some Americans will go on for years way beyond that projection, said Graham, whose predecessor, Strom Thurmond, died in 2003 at 100.

“Everybody’s living like a senator . . . forever,” Graham said at a meeting on the U.S. fiscal crisis, sponsored by the nonprofit policy groups, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, and liberal Progressive Policy Institute. “That’s good news.”

The bad news is that Congress needs to take a hard look at Social Security and figure out how to accommodate an increasingly healthy crop of older Americans, without putting excess burdens on younger citizens, the senators and other panelist said. Carper and Graham each cited the work that then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Speaker Tip O’Neill did together in the 1980s to stave off a Social Security crisis as a model for further reform efforts. Democrats and Republicans will need to cooperate again to tackle Social Security, and they will need to make tough choices, the two senators said. Reagan and O’Neill “told their bases things that they didn’t want to hear,” Graham said, adding that that kind of candor will be needed again.

“Somebody on the Republican side is going to have to tell our base, `You can’t grow your way out of this problem. We’re not going to turn Social Security into one giant 401K plan.’ Somebody is going to have to go to the Democrats and say, ‘New ideas have to be part of the solutions’.” Graham said. “And, somebody is going to have to go to every American and say that we’re going to have adjust age , based on reality.”

Graham said Congress should consider finding a way to index “age to reality,” when it comes to retirement. That would ensure that “politicians are not in this bind every 20 years,” he said. Another panelist, former Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles complimented Carper and Graham for being willing to take on Social Security, while noting neither serves on the committee that oversee the program. “We need people on the Finance and Ways and Means” to take up this cause, said Nickles, who served on the Budget and Finance committees as a senator.

Tackling Social Security could be a “dress rehearsal” for the biggest fiscal crisis facing America — the spiraling expenses of Medicare and medical costs in general, said Maya MacGuineas, director, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The real problem is health care,” she said. GAO Chief David Walker, who has been serving as a kind of evangelist on the grim U.S. financial outlook in coming decades, earlier this year told Congress that Medicare and Medicaid are more of a worry than Social Security. Citing CBO, Walker said Medicare and Medicaid spending will reach 6.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2016, up from 4.6 this year, while Social Security spending will rise to 4.7 percent of GDP from 4.2 percent.

Graham said reforming Social Security could be a “gateway” into tackling Medicare. “The political alliances that you form to fix Social Security will be the political alliances you would form to fix Medicare,” he said.

[w4rma]

1. Carper is one of the biggest DLC DINOS in Congress. (nt)

[FreeStateDemocrat]

33. Being from Delaware I would suspect that Carper is owned by financial services corps?

[SharonAnn]

54. Senators should stop spending our Social Security trust fund for running the government.

They should deal with having to cut services or raise other federal taxes. but it's been easier to "borrow" the money from us.

Now they want to say they can't afford to pay it back. Bullsh*t! It had better be a priority to pay it back.

There's no way we're going to stand for being robbed so that China can get paid back, Japan can get paid back, Europe can get paid back, but we dowithout.

Be a Senator and deal with taxes and the budget! It's your job!

[cuke]

55. That was bush* and the republicans

your aim is way off

[billyoc]

2. The working weekend, the working vacation, now, the

working retirement. :grr:

[MessiahRp]

3. Good to see Graham doesn't just want to dismantle SS, he has his eyes on Medicare too..

They are the MINORITY, why do we even let these assholes put their bills up for a vote anyway? They're certainly not allowing us up or down votes on anything as they threaten filibusters on everything and set obstructionism records.

Fuck Graham and his ideas.

Rp

[Cha]

44. Our dino "leadership"?

"..why do we even let these assholes put their bills up for a vote anyway?"

[Eric J in MN]

4. We don't need to get Pentagon costs under control, we don't need to...

...stop giving money to Blackwater, but we need for old people to work longer (sarcasm).

[dugggy]

48. I thought national security is priority 1

cuz if we are not alive, there will be no social security to collect.

[Eric J in MN]

49. A huge military budget and stationing troops...

...all over the world doesn't increase our national security.

[dugggy]

51. But FDR, Truman, IKE, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, BJC, Bush's have all

followed the practice of stationing troops all over the world.
Are you saying they were all wrong, and you are right?

[Eric J in MN]

52. We should have brought the troops home sometime between...

...the end of World War II and before the Vietnam War, so that there wouldn't have been a Vietnam War.

[dugggy]

53. So you are confirming that every president was wrong and you are smarter

than all of them...OK.....whatever!

[Hekate]

5. Easy for them to say: they sit on their butts all day & have a health plan WE pay for!

This BS really got to me: "Everybody’s living like a senator . . . forever,” Graham said at a meeting on the U.S. fiscal crisis, sponsored by the nonprofit policy groups, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, and liberal Progressive Policy Institute. “That’s good news.” I'm sure that got a chuckle.

No, Mr. Graham, not "everybody" is "living like a Senator." An ungodly number of people suffer ill-health and desperately need to retire but can't afford to pay for health insurance. And anyone who does manual labor, cleans hotel rooms, picks crops, guts chickens, or otherwise stands on their feet all day and stoops and bends wears out their back and their joints long before a desk-bound Senator. By the age of 65 they are popping ibuprofin like candy and really looking forward to a well-earned rest.

Once again the Repubs who haven't yet managed to actually eliminate Social Security attempt to save money on the backs of the poor and unhealthy.

:grr:

Hekate

[Union Thug]

16. Spot on. Until these wealthy bastards have to live on a working

person's wages, they can shut the hell up - democrat or republican.

[Hekate]

19. Furthermore if you're a Boomer everyone & his cousin BLAMES you for hogging a job that a...

...younger person could do cheaper and faster, or for being out of work and slopping up welfare because your job got outsourced and no one bloody will hire you!

Gods I hate the bastards who run (ruin) this economy.

Hekate

[LeFleur1]

36. According to a News Report

"THEY" will be only working three or four days a week. It's really time to get a term limits bill. These people need to go. If they need a raise they just take one. If they need a break they take it. They've given themselves government health care which seems to work pretty well for them. Retirement? Dream retirement. They've gotten rid of jobs for middle Americans, and taxed them out of existence while giving every break imaginable to big business. They've dissed the Constitution. Not a one of them has the courage to stand up to this bully in the White House.
They want to keep their cush jobs in government so much (where they don't even feel the necessity to read bills before voting on them) that they spend over half their time campaigning and taking money from questionable sources to do it.
I'm sick of them.
If they hadn't stolen the money from SS it would be in fine shape. It's just an easy pot of money for them to raid.
Changes do need to be made and that includes running these puffed up jerks out of DC.

[Hekate]

40. Term limits are written into the Constitution & when enough people are fed up they work well....

The other kind of term limits -- the kind my fellow Californians voted for -- work mostly to the advantage of (wait for it) Lobbyists.

How so? Well, in elected office, seniority counts. It counts in powerful committee assignments that benefit the home district and state, and it counts in knowledge and experience. The longer your guy or gal is there, the more they know about how things work and why.

The newbies wander around looking for someone to tell them these things, and if the only people who've been hanging around for a long time are lobbyists and not fellow elected folks, well the lobbyists have a real in. The fact that so many politicians now get recycled as K-Street lobbyists actually makes it worse, because instead of answering to constituents they answer to the special interest groups that pay them directly. There is LESS accountability, not more.

Our Constitutional system is not perfect, but I much prefer it to the alternative. We have the opportunity to throw the bums out every 2 - 4- or 6 years, depending on the office.

Hekate

[dugggy]

50. You are correct, they STOLE our social security money

for wars, taxcuts for the rich, pork, etc
All we have is a drawer full of IOU's by the congress.

[JDPriestly]

6. So, are they going to tighten the age discrimination laws so that we can get decent jobs.

[Eric J in MN]

7. Joe Klein of Time Magazine supports Linday Graham on Social Security.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/03/joe_klein_and_t.html

[Cobalt Violet]

8. There is no fucking way!

I can't take it much longer as it is.

[Warpy]

9. I'll tell you what, Senators. We'll let you old boys

go out and work a real job one of these days, 10 hours in construction, in a factory, in a field or in a hospital, and we'll see how your bodies are holding up 6 months later.

Then we'll start talking about retirement age.

Until then, you paper pushers can keep your well manicured hands the fuck off Social Security. The only problem you're having is that enough of it won't be there for you to ROB to give away to your fat cat contributors in the form of tax cuts.

Assholes.

[cuke]

10. Good luck with that, morans!

[BootinUp]

11. These guys have a hell of a way with words...

"Everyones living like a Senator"


We can't have that now. /sarcasm

[cloudbase]

12. Based on reality, eh?

I doubt he has a clue as to what reality is.

[madrchsod]

13. i`m 60 and no one really wants to hire me because i`m to old.....

these guys and gals are out of touch with the great unwashed

[Union Thug]

14. Fuck these guys. This is why the rich should not be allowed to hold

public office. None of them understands what it's like to work real jobs. If anything, the retirement age should be LOWERED to 62, paid for by the wealthiest americans. We need to rollback not only the BushCo tax cuts, but the RayGun tax cuts, as well. Cut military spending in half, and repeal all of the Slave Labor Agree... err.. Free trade deals.

I'm afraid it would take something close to a revolution to make happen, but there ya go.

[whistle]

15. Can you believe that Lindsey Graham actually resents that Americans

can live well into their 80's and therefore wants to curb when they can collect Social Security and even jeopardize their lives by forcing the elderly to work longer and for many that would be at lower wages and probably fewer hours thus having a negative impact on just how much Social Security they would be entitled to when they finally reach eligible age to collect.

Age 67.5 years is just about long enough to stop working and for most Americans that would mean a working life stretched over some 50+ years during which time those people paid into Social Security Insurance trust fund a percentage of their earned income that entire time. I know that has been the case with me. Every paycheck I have received since age 16 has always had an amount taken from my gross earnings for Social Security Insurance and for some 35 years of my working career that amount was the maximum. Now that I am ready to retire I would like to get the money I was promised.

[Union Thug]

17. It also keeps more people in the labor pool, driving down wages..

and benefits across the board. The rich want as many people struggling against eachother as they possibly can. If they can whipsaw one labor force against another, all the better.

It's all about class war. It's ALWAYS been about class war.

[whistle]

18. Karl Marx 101

[bluestateguy]

20. Just lift the $97,000 income cap on the payroll taxes

There. Problem solved. Phase it in over several years if you want to. SS would be solvent forever by simply doing that.

This is really not that complicated.

[Lugnut]

35. Exactly!

It's a no-brainer.

[phaseolus]

21. My retirement age is already 70, and I'm pushin' 50.

What is Lindsey suggesting it be raised to? Would today's 20 year olds, who theoretically will be longer-lived than my cohort, have to wait until age 80 to collect SS benefits?

[Elidor]

22. Everybody’s living like a senator?!?!

:mad:

[WCGreen]

23. So if they raise the retirement age....

Won't that make the new people coming in the workforce harder to assimilate...

I ain't no democraphic expert but it seems to me with more kids delaying their entry into the workforce by going to college and getting even more degrees, there is already a problem with creating enough jobs to keep the entry and exit in balance...

[truedelphi]

38. Except many companies seek to oust the older worker

As having an older worker means that they pay more in premiums to the health insurance industry.

Plus over the years of increased salaries, the older worker is again too expensive.

So the older person is laid off and it is true that they may work -- only not in the capacity that they should be working at.

To my way of thinking, this is another reason why we need national health inusrance - so that workers don''t lose jobs because of their insurance cost to their firm.

[WCGreen]

42. From a companies POV...

That would allow them to make decisions based on merit and worth instead of how expensive the health insurance was...

You think they would go for that...

[papau]

24. Carper and Lindsey Graham seem to have avoided talking to any actuary - the addon

separate private accounts that do not take away from Soc Security funding, as in Bill Clinton's 98 plan and now Hillary's current 401k for everyone plan, make sense.

The Carper/Graham/Bush destruction of Soc Sec by reducing its funding and thereby forcing greatly reduced benefits to be guaranteed, just so as to move payroll tax monies to private accounts will be a destruction of what little we have left of the "social safty net" while gaining nothing in terms of Social Security solvency.

The increase in the current Reagan passed age 67 requirement for full benefits to say 70 beginning in 2030 and fully phased in by 2066 means a lower benefit for those early retirees at 62.

The idea to FORCE more time in the work force by killing the right to early retire at 62 and instead to phase in an "early retirement" beginning no younger than 65 is nuts and mean - some jobs just wear people out - and there can be health problems that can hit that are less than "disability" but more than anyone would want to have to overcome everyday so as to work past 62.

That said the raise in the retirement age is logical just because we are living healthier and longer - and by 2066 age 70 may well be like todays age 67 (the current full benefit age after the end of the phase in).

The 3rd projection says there is no solvency problem in Soc Security - and even less of one if you revise to a more reasonable level the current GDP growth of 1.6% that is used in the projections for the out years. If one must use the even more conservative 2nd projection, the Soc Security actuaries have put out data that shows about 90% of the solvency problem is solved via ending the wage cap, with the rest solved via the retirement age increase.

Social Security is not large problem - and there is no need from taking monies from the payroll tax currently going to Soc Security and diverting it into private accounts - thereby destroying Social Security as a meaningful minimum retirement benefit - indeed adding the idea of replacing the wage index as now used to bring our earnings history forward, and using instead the CPI, the reductions in SS benefits would be so large as to make the resulting check paid 70 years from now as big a joke as was the $300 we all got from the Bush Tax cut for the rich.

[seasat]

46. I saw a proposal to keep the dynasty tax and funnel it into SS.

To me that would be a fair fix. It seems to me that the lower GDP growth rate figures became widely quoted because the Repugs were using that line as a push to privatize SS. I think I've heard Krugman complain about those projections in the past. They should focus on health care reforms to reduce overall health costs which would also lower Medicare costs instead of focusing on Social Security.

[papau]

47. I agree on keeping the estate tax because the Rich requested the estate tax - they didn't want to

pay the asset transfer tax known as "capital gains" when the assets transfered at time of death. Now they are trying to eat their cake and have it too - so to speak.

But the monies that come from the estate tax are small relative to the removing the tax wage cap monies. And as it happens the 1.8% of payroll increase in Social Security solvency just about totally covers the 1.9% of payroll shortfall. Toss in a retirement age change that does not begin any phase in for the next 35 years and is phased in only after 71 years, and Social Security looks fat and happy even on the very conservative "middle" projection.

While I don't really think it needs anything more than the full benefit retirement age increase in 71 years, I want the removal of the wage cap on fairness and progressive taxation grounds - and if I am right about that move causing overfunding, I want a tax cut in the tax rate applied to payroll (dropping the employee tax by about 1/3). Indeed I want it to not be a wage tax at all - but rather an income tax with investment income taking the same hit as wage income (mechanically this is easy to do as we already have a SS tax adjustment area on the 1040 FIT form page 2 - the page you sign. So collect the wage portion as now - and then pick up the investment portion via the FIT filing.

But that is just a dream that I have had for more than half a century - but then the Red Sox have won the World Series now twice in the last 4 years. :-)

[JDPriestly]

25. John Edwards on Social Security

Security, Dignity and Choice: A Declaration of Independence For Older Americans

"It's time for a new kind of declaration of independence—a commitment to helping older Americans live independently, with choice over their health care, financial security and lifestyle. It's not enough to congratulate ourselves on living longer, if we are not living stronger." --John Edwards

Americans are living longer. The number of Americans over the age of 65 is expected to double by 2030, and the number over 80 will more than quadruple to almost 20 million. But our health care system is set up to treat the worst problems instead of promoting health and quality of life. Our housing policies too often force seniors to choose between isolation or institutionalization. And our policies for work and savings have not adapted to the economic and lifestyle changes of the 21st century. One option is an additional tax on workers with very high incomes.

John Edwards released a new agenda for older Americans based on the values of security, dignity and choice to help every older American live as independently they desire.
Financial Independence
1. KEEP THE PROMISE OF SOCIAL SECURITY:

Edwards is committed to protecting Social Security. He has strongly opposed President Bush's efforts to privatize it, which would cut guaranteed benefits and risked individuals' retirements in the stock market. The financing of Social Security can only be solved by a package of reforms that has the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Edwards supports a successor to the Greenspan commission appointed in 1981, dedicated to finding a solution that is non-ideological, strongly bipartisan, and committed to the goals of ensuring every American can retire with dignity and extending the life of the Trust Fund.
2. PROTECT PENSIONS AND HELP FAMILIES SAVE:

Employees who have worked hard all their lives should not be denied the pension benefits they have earned. Edwards opposes allowing companies to switch out of defined-benefit plans in order to deny long-term workers their pensions. Edwards will also prevent corporate executives from walking away with millions while companies are going bankrupt and reform the bankruptcy laws to prevent companies from shedding their obligations to workers. At the same time, because nearly half of working Americans do not own any type of personal retirement account, Edwards has proposed a series of initiatives to help millions of families realize financial security and retire with dignity. These initiatives include: creating new tax credits to match the savings of low and middle-income families, giving taxpayers the option of directly depositing their tax refunds into a retirement account, and offering free savings accounts to the nearly 28 million Americans without them so they have a way to save and avoid exorbitant check-cashing fees.

http://johnedwards.com/issues/seniors/

[nashville_brook]

30. Edwards is the only one who stands up for the workers.

[JDPriestly]

39. Yes. I support John Edwards, but

I don't think any of the candidates understand how important Social Security is to older Americans. I foresaw the retirement crisis way back when, and, hoping to continue to work until the age of at least 70, I started law school well into middle age. I graduated cum laude with awards from a good, accredited school. But, although generally lawyers are hired for entry level jobs based on their grades, I received no offers and got fewer interviews than classmates with much lower grades. And the interviews I got were for the most part soon over and very superficial. Recruiters were not interested in me in spite of the fact that I had previously worked as the director of a small non-profit before going to law school among other things and could bring a wealth of experience and knowledge and a broad educational background.

Finally, a couple of years out of law school clerking in the courts (great experience) and working for my judge's firm mostly doing research, I got a job with a major firm at good pay. (Had to pay back astronomical student loans short order, you know). The job offer had a couple of unusual caveats, however: 1) I would not be hired on the partner track; 2) I would write, but not represent clients in the courtroom. Naive as I was about the law business, I accepted on those terms. A few years later when the market for lawyers softened and first-year associates' salaries were no longer astronomical, the firm began to hire younger associates just out of law school to do the work I had been hired to do. The writing was on the wall. I was being replaced.

Rather than wait to be given my walking papers, I confronted the managing partner. He admitted that, although there was no problem with my work, my days at the firm were numbered. As he also agreed, I had received good reviews about my work ethics, my ability to work long hours, my ability to get along with others, my work, etc. Having determined that the managing partner found no fault with me or my work, I asked, "Why are you hiring younger people to do my job?" He answered: it takes seven years to train a trial lawyer. He added that he thought one of the younger (quite attractive) female attorneys "could learn new tricks," suggesting that I didn't have seven more years that I was too old to "learn new tricks," whatever that has to do with law.

Only later did I learn that I had been hired to replace a female attorney who, although younger than I, was also over 40, and that, before leaving she complained to someone in the firm that she felt she was being discriminated against based on her age.

At that time I was 60. My boss, of course, was violating California's discrimination law which requires that employees, regardless of age, be given equal opportunities for further education and job advancement. But finding another job was nearly impossible. Finally, at the recommendation of a family friend, I got hired by a small firm for half the pay. There, I got experience in the courtroom that had been denied me to that point in the big firm.

Now at 64, I can say from my personal experience that age is a huge barrier in the workplace even to those of us who prepare to continue to work, develop new, presumably marketable skills, maintain our mental acuity and enjoy physical health. (I missed fewer days for health reasons than most younger employees.)

Age discrimination is very difficult to prove. At 64, I'm not nearly as attractive as I was at the age even of 49. And I do not have the energy to work in the same way as a 25-year-old. I tire and need breaks. I would honestly prefer to work half days since I don't need the paycheck that a younger person with a family and a relatively new mortgage needs. I do not react as quickly as a much younger person, and I have senior moments (but then so do my 30-something children). But, I am smarter, more poised and have far better judgment, especially about ethics and how to get along with people including opposing counsel, than most of the younger attorneys I have worked with. And I believe that these extremely important qualities make me a better lawyer than many of my younger colleagues.

The irony about age discrimination is that presidents, members of congress, federal judges and Supreme Court justices who could change the laws affecting all workers to strengthen those concerning age discrimination, face no age barriers in their own work. Rejecting the idea that the Constitution should impose a mandatory retirement age on federal judges, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper No. 79:

"The deliberating and comparing faculties generally preserve their strength much beyond that period , in men who survive it; and when in addition to this circumstance, we consider how few there are who outlive the season of intellectual vigour, and how improbable it is that any considerable proportion of the bench, whether more or less numerous, should be in such a situation at the time, we shall be ready to conclude that limitations of this sort have little to recommend them. In a republic, where fortunes are not affluent, and pensions not expedient, the dismission of men from stations in which they have served their country long and usefully, on which they depend for subsistence, and from which it will be too late to resort to any other occupation for a livelihood, ought to have some better apology to humanity, than is to be found in the imaginary danger of a superannuated bench."

So, although the Founding Fathers were not concerned about other forms of discrimination, they (even the very conservative Alexander Hamilton) did condemn age discrimination against judges. Yet, many discrimination attorneys treat age discrimination with skepticism, as if age discrimination is not real discrimination, is somehow justified by the infirmities of the aging, as if age discrimination is the afterthought or step-child of discrimination law.

If a person is capable of doing the essential work required for a job, and I have certainly proved that I am quite competent in my field, that person should be given the same opportunity to do the job within his or her capacity that any other person is given. Age should not be an excuse to fire, to pay a lower wage, to give fewer benefits, to assign less challenging work or to refuse to hire someone. And a person's capacity to do a job should not be measured by a standard established by the average competent 30-year-old. The measure of an older person should be age appropriate. Employers do not expect 25-year-olds to have the judgment of older, more experienced employees. Younger employees are afforded a lot of slack that is not granted to older ones. That in itself is discrimination.

I must add to my diatribe the fact that I have not only experienced discrimination by employers. I have also experienced a discouraging amount of it by younger people in the workplace. I will never forget an associates' lunch at the big firm at which the young associates all piled on a certain elderly TV weatherman agreeing unanimously that he was too old to do his job and should quit. Please, why does a TV weatherman need to be young? Until we get to a point at which clients, patrons, employers and younger co-workers accept and respect the role of older people in the workplace, older people will continue to need to retire in their early 60s and younger, although many of us want to continue to work and are capable of working at our own paces. The proposed changes in Social Security law and benefits including those that would raise the retirement age will devastate the lives of baby boomers and current retirees unless our government and our society put employers on notice that they have to give fair employment opportunities to older workers.

[pkz]

26. the REAL middle class can't do it

I put skilled craftsmen in the middle class, not always in the $ arena, but in the sense they are not in management, and they aren't flippin' burgers.
The U.S. is losing skilled workers at an alarming rate, the new generation has no desire to climb power poles, paint bridges or work in manufacturing plants.

The current skilled tradesmen is on average 45-54 years old. They have beaten the hell outta their bodies bustin' a living for their families. Most are arthritic/injured and can hardly do their skill at 50, working at 70 would be near impossible.

In those skilled trades, 70 is not the new 50, no way.

[williesgirl]

27. How nice of them, especially since most of them aren't in it. Fuck them. rec'd

[laylah]

28. So, let me see if I get

this right. Because we have 17.5 years longer to live, we are supposed to work until we drop dead, before we can enjoy the fruits of our labors? The thing that really chaps my ass is those bastards in Congress don't pay SS, they have their cushy pensions to rely on. Damn them :mad:

[The2ndWheel]

29. That, or we need more people

Aging populations are a new problem that nobody has had to fully deal with yet.

Work longer? Have another baby boom? Massive immigration? What happens to the countries that have lost their best and brightest to developed countries? What happens when more people consume more as they either work longer, or come to the US or Europe? More outsourcing to developing countries? I'm sure there are plenty of other questions.

It's a new problem with no previous example to even take a quick look at.

[endarkenment]

31. Lets steal the pensions from those boomers now!

now while the getting is good!

Everybody’s living like a senator

Everybody’s living like a senator

Sometimes I really do understand why revolutions typically end up in the guillotine phase.

[Summer93]

32. Living like a senator! Laugh, Laugh, Laugh

Social Security was for workers who earned money and paid into the system. Senators vote for their own salary raises, get big bucks from lobbyists and started out with an inheritance and don't have to pay for health care. Senators have no need for Social Security and probably look at it with distain because in their life it would be a mere pittance to receive compared to the millions they already have. Whereas woriing people see it as a way to live.

Most people I know have NOT lived like a Senator.

As bluestateguy stated:

"Just lift the $97,000 income cap on the payroll taxes

There. Problem solved. Phase it in over several years if you want to. SS would be solvent forever by simply doing that."

[The Backlash Cometh]

34. Working longer, or scavenging off their neighbors?

[Kablooie]

37. I agree that the age should be extended.

No one should be able to retire before they are 100.

[superkia]

41. If you come from a broke, poor family, good luck even making...

it to there original 77.5. Both of my grandmothers never saw 65, both my grandfathers passed away before I was born and my father passed away at 57, so the senators can shove their social security up their asses as far as I'm concerned. My mother had to take part time retirement at 62 because she physically couldn't work anymore and they wont term her as disabled so my brothers and I pay for her health insurance and costs out of our pockets which isn't that easy on our salaries. The only positive is that when she turns 65 they cant just raise the age limit on her, it is what it is for her. Those wealthy fucks have no idea what it means to actually have to fight and scrap for everything like food or a place to live, they only no what its like to live in their Amerika.

[Cha]

43. How about cease and desisting throwing

our money away on bushit's World Domination Scheme? How about that lind-seeeey? tommy carping on OUR Social Security..

Oh, and you want to give it Wall Street while you're at it? And you say..what was that? You want to give yourselves another raise? lindsey!.. you wouldn't know FUCKING REALITY if it came knocking on your fascist door and whopped ya upside your fascisthead.

Go sit down..both of ya and try to figure our a way to stop the bushits from stealing all our money..you fucking useless politicians.

[bpeale]

45. why don't we raise the age to 95?

that way no one will get to collect???