What's your generation and how would you change your government?

[JasonBlack]

(03-27-2022, 06:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maybe. If you admit that such a progressive tax and benefits and means-tested program is no longer the social security program, but something different, then you may have a point. It isn't going to happen, though. Social Security works, its funding works, and in requiring people to save when otherwise they probably would not, it makes sure that money will be there when needed for retirement. Saying "be responsible and save" will not work, and libertarian economics ideas generally do not work well. 

If we DO get rid of it, then it would need to be replaced by a more robust benefits program, including for disability, plus requirements on all businesses to pay enough minimum wages so people don't require any other government support, or else all business will dry up. As robots take over, who will buy the products they make?

If we don't get rid of SS, then we still also need other programs.

I think people are more likely to support a guaranteed income program or other income support that is paid for by all who can afford it and available to everyone. Such a program could be progressive in taxation, I imagine.

I would be more than happy to call it something else. The entire program was literally a Ponzi Scheme built on faulty assumptions (assumption of stable population growth, continuous good economic times and a far lower average life expectancy)  I maintain that the current expectation people have of retiring comfortably for 20+ years with little to no savings is a delusion. If one is not very wealthy (say, the top 5% or so), all that does it put undo burden on the young for a purpose even the radical left FDR would not have approved of. He designed SS for what he referred to as survivors into old age. Not a program for the bottom half of the population to live like investment bankers at a country club, but a program to provide more humane final years for broken down bodies who had endured hard lives. 

The "just telling people to save doesn't work" argument has some merit if we're talking about a family paying exorbitant rent in a San Francisco ghetto, a patient with lifelong chronic illness or a worker who suffered a debilitating work injury with minimal payouts. But if we're talking, say, Republican boomer doctors, corporate managers and law partners?....yes, they can absolutely save for retirement as a group, and taking money from frontline workers (even if we did have a $15 minimum wage) to give it to them makes about as much sense a a parachute that opens on impact. 


The point of government aid is supposed to be about mending the snags that occasionally pop up in the market system when people need help to reintegrate into society. ex: 
- disabled people
- people who need a safety net for a few months in-between jobs
- forcing jobs to pay owed compensation due to grievance or services rendered
- taxes and regulations to account for negative externalities 
- relief for various unexpected disasters (ex: Flint Michigan) 

It was never intended to create an entire class of people (much less a disproportionately affluent one) who could comfortable rely on it for aid a quarter century after leaving the workforce.