01-08-2017, 01:42 AM
(01-08-2017, 01:05 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Social Security is basically a pay-as-you-go system predicated upon the idea that every generation will do at least roughly as well as its predecessors in economic results. It was designed in part to get elderly worker, generally unproductive and accident-prone, out of industrial work while allowing them some modicum of independence. That is a good deal -- enough that younger workers generally do not complain about having to pay payroll taxes. Young people do not want to be responsible for their parents. They have other concerns -- like doing their jobs competently and taking care of their own children.
Medicare exists in part because for-profit medical insurance companies did not want the elderly as customers. It is a commonplace that the last year of a person's life is more expensive in medical costs than all preceding years. No insurance company wants that sort of customer.
Social Security was also an emergency measure that followed the stock market crash. A lot of people were heavily invested in the market, and their retirement programs had just vanished in a puff of overly leveraged investments. This put the already retired in dire straights at a time when those of working age were having problems finding a job. Something had to be done. Something was done. It is easy to wish that something else had been done. Alas, the country is stuck today with what seemed expedient at the darkest financial moment in US history.
I'm not suggesting a particular fix, but we ought to occasionally remember the history.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.