re: "How dare you cut SS and medicare! I deserve what I paid in!" Your terms are acceptable

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This is what gets me. People will say how fiscally conservative etc and pat themselves on the back for it, but trying to reform social security to make it so that it doesn't go defunct you get lots of like you say, people whining that they were promised such and such so no reform! Even backing the retirement age back a couple years people freak out over it.

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Blame the dumb frick FDR.

He's the reason we have this stupid program.

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Social security is just another Ponzi scheme created by boomers to hurt millenials, just like college debt

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FDR was not a boomer.

He was born in 1882.

College debt is accumulated by stupid people like millennials.

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Social security is just another Ponzi scheme created by boomers to hurt millenials, just like college debt

Millenials pay all the money in and boomers get to spend it all

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With your lack of history regarding Social Security, I seriously doubt that you've got any college debt.

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Me: Social Security and Medicare shortfalls ($116 trillion over 30 years) will force us to revisit promised benefit levels.
Replies: I demand to get back what I paid into the system!
Me: Your terms are acceptable.

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First off, the 14th Amendment makes this moot for older Americans. Doesn't prevent imbeciles from scaring hell out of old folks though.

Second, SS is far and away the cheapest borrow available to the Feds. ROI for enrollees SUCKS! Were it not a forced lend, few would ever participate.

Third, your source is actually proposing SS should treat payback on the money taken from workers/employers as a 45yr no interest loan.

That is really dumb!

Wait? So someone who contributed for decades into an investment system built on compound interest should expect more than the value of their contribution?

Otherwise it's just an open-end, interest-free loan to the government.

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Blame the dumb frick FDR.

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I don't like it. But it was pure political genius. Sort of FDR telling American workers to go to hell, and workers asking him for directions.

At inception in the Depression Era and on the cusp of potential world war, the US government needed funds. At the time, the US could issue borrowing instruments in addition to taxes and levies, e.g., sale of treasuries, savings bonds, etc. But during the Depression, ability of the populace to fund US debt was limited.

So FDR came up with a way to force such funding. It was the Social Security Act.

By taking money from the entirety of the workforce, half from employers and half from employees, then distributing a portion to 6% of the population (those >65yrs), FDR got his funding.

The genius was (1) Many manual workers over 65 had no retirement, struggled to do their work and were destitute. (2) Younger workers envisioned that destitution as their future plight. (3) By dividing SS tax 50:50 with employers, the financially unsophisticated populace thought they were getting a real deal -- 50% off!

The SSA was successfully marketed as a "retirement benefit," rather than a forced lend.

Ironically, SS is still perceived that way by most Americans. Meanwhile, compared with Treasuries, Bonds, and other instruments, SS remains far and away the least expensive borrowing instrument the Federal Government has at its disposal.

Or guys like me. Presently I am self employed and pay the max in every year, a touch over $19,000.

I also will have a great pension from the 25 years I worked with the state. My entire SS benefit will be eliminated by the windfall elimination. I will collect nothing from SS. I'm basically setting 19 grand a year on fire.

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Social Security is an entitlement.

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Negative.
Unless you think a lender considers your loan repayment an entitlement.

In SS you are the lender. Uncle Sam is the borrower.

How about cutting entitlement programs for those who make no contribution?