See below for why the 75 year numbers aren't much use. Regardless, while those numbers may sound small, whether they're 20% or 12%, see how far you get proposing any tax increase or benefit cut. Increasing the retirement age could help if we could do it faster than one month per year, but that got shot down, and while increasing the cap on the payroll tax is a fine idea and seems likely to happen, it's just too small an effect to make much difference.
The 2018 problem is indeed a big problem, and it's going to suck. I don't consider it misleading to call it a Social Security problem, though, because it's due to SS paying out more than SS takes in. In the end it doesn't matter what you call it, it's a problem caused by the uncontrolled growth of entitlement obligations. 2018 is not the moment that the Ponzi scheme collapses, but it is the moment at which the operator of the fraud starts to get nervous, renews his passport, and starts checking airline schedules to Argentina.
I don't have time today to hunt down all the numbers, but the fundamental problems are that (1) we're running a pyramid scheme, which is inherently unsustainable and (2) that the ratio of workers to retirees is constantly falling, faster than any politically acceptable increase of the retirement age can compensate for.
If you treat it as a pension plan, any CEO that tried to operate a corporate pension plan like this would be thrown in jail; if you treat it as an income redistribution program, it's taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 10:28 pm (UTC)The 2018 problem is indeed a big problem, and it's going to suck. I don't consider it misleading to call it a Social Security problem, though, because it's due to SS paying out more than SS takes in. In the end it doesn't matter what you call it, it's a problem caused by the uncontrolled growth of entitlement obligations. 2018 is not the moment that the Ponzi scheme collapses, but it is the moment at which the operator of the fraud starts to get nervous, renews his passport, and starts checking airline schedules to Argentina.
I don't have time today to hunt down all the numbers, but the fundamental problems are that (1) we're running a pyramid scheme, which is inherently unsustainable and (2) that the ratio of workers to retirees is constantly falling, faster than any politically acceptable increase of the retirement age can compensate for.
If you treat it as a pension plan, any CEO that tried to operate a corporate pension plan like this would be thrown in jail; if you treat it as an income redistribution program, it's taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich.