re: Myth- “social security is guaranteed”.

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“social security is guaranteed”.

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it is and will be, just not at the benefit levels we see today. we may only get 50 cents on the dollar, but we'll get something

Why can't we stop giving billions to foreign countries? Cut welfare programs?
Truly get rid of the waste and fraud? It seems like there are a lot of things that could be done and cuts that could be made, although no politicians will want to.

This is just to divide us.

that's nice, now get your a*s out on that corner and go make my social security money biotch!

it's not my fault your generation can't afford schit.

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There’s boomers of all age ranges that have been advocating an opt out policy for decades. It was also a boomer president in George W Bush that advocated privatizing part of it.

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You are correct. So those who opposed this were the old generation before the boomers, they opposed it. I think there was even a commercial with a grannie in a wheel chair being used over the cliff. Or something like that. The democrats demagogued the issue.

Speaking of two things being true simultaneously, Walsh is technically correct...young people can vote to put people in office to abolish SS.

In reality, though, he's blustering.

Here's why:

1. No politician who ever wants to be elected to any office ever again for all of eternity would vote to abolish it. So good luck finding a majority of Congress you could elect to do it.

2. Once young people thought about it for a minute, they'd have to confront a couple of hard truths about it. There's only a couple of ways to do it. You'd either have to stop relatively cold turkey—and there's a whole lot of problems with that, which I will detail in a minute...or, they would have to phase it out.

Just due to the math involved, phasing it out would very probably result in them getting the worst of both worlds. Having to pay for other's benefits for years while aging into retirement themselves right as the bottom dropped out. That would be really hard to avoid.

The cold turkey option is even worse. Let's posit someone who is 70 and never got a chance to invest the money that they paid into the system, but is now looking at SS benefits stopping on Jan 1st, 2027.

They can't make ends meet without it.

So they drop below the poverty line. Now they qualify for SNAP, housing assistance, Medicaid, tax credits, state funded programs, and the money they got from SS they still get, they just get it from other government directions.

Plus, everybody forgets something about SS. If it was abolished tomorrow, yes, we'd save between $1.3 and $1.6 Trillion. But we'd also lose the $1.2-$1.4 Trillion we bring in with the SS taxes. So it would only improve our budgetary situation by a couple billion (which, unfortunately, is a rounding error these days).

So in order to not let these old people starve in the streets we'd have to raise taxes (or print money) to fund the additional burden on the other welfare programs.

"But, but, not everybody who gets SS even needs it."

That's true, so let's just talk about the ones who do. AI estimated that we have around 44 million Americans living under the poverty line right now. Eliminating SS would bring that number up to 71 million.

That increase is roughly half of the people on SS today.

"O.k., so we at least saved half."

Yeah, we did. And the benefit to the young people working is significant. Being able to keep that much more money is great.

Not so great for the economy, though. A person getting a $30,000 pension and $24,000 a year from SS is spending just about every penny just to live.

A young person keeping an extra $12,000 a year is ostensibly—if we're sticking with the theory that we'd be better off investing our own money rather than relying on SS—is not spending it. They are investing it.

That's good for the economy. And bad. Long term good. Maybe even medium term good. Short term could cause a recession.

Especially when you factor in that their taxes are almost certainly going to go up to fund the additional burden on the welfare system...so maybe only $7,500 a year gets invested and the other $4,500 pays for higher taxes.

And this is the biggest thing...there's another group that is similar in size to that group that would fall below the poverty line—about 20 million—who wouldn't fall below that line, but would be juuuuuust above it.

We've all heard the stat that the average American couldn't raise an extra $1,000 for an emergency in any given month. These would be some of those people.

Even if you kept all the welfare in place (which they wouldn't qualify for anyway), you'd still end up with a return to an extended family living situation with many, if not the majority, of families. That would definitely happen if you said, "frick it, no welfare at all."

Now, that might be a positive culture shift for America.

But I do NOT think it would be one that today's young people would embrace. Having your in-laws and maybe a grandparent or two come live with you.

Very Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryesque.

So, yeah, it could happen. But it won't.

Sorry, this is not Social Security when Bush tried to open an option for "partial" privatization which was demagogued by the left. This was later when Paul Ryan suggested changes in medicare. But the impact is similar.

I agree but disagree. I agree the younger generation can vote us out of it. But I don't think they will.

Gen xers are retiring or close to it and some millennials are well into their careers now, and Boomers are a no go.

So, you have people from 3 generations that won't want to cut it. We are essentially trapped.

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I agree the younger generation can vote us out of it.

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Negative.
Unfortunate truth.
I wish it were so. It isn't.

Solution seems easy, just cut benefits to match the tax revenue. Retirees could just forgo the Starbucks and avocado toast to balance their budgets.

It still can't be guaranteed forever.

If the republic falls, it will be gone.

And there hasn't been a nation yet that lasted forever.