Boomers Versus the Rest

Here's another "what about me", age 57.
Back in the 70's they realized that there wouldn't be enough workers to pay for the retirees so they raised SS. We were basically paying for our own retirement. Then our wonderful representatives spent the "extra" money. In the mean time, corporations stopped pensions as a benefit, so we had to start saving in 401K's. That means we paid for the current seniors, ourselves in fictional SS and ourselves again in savings that wall street has cheated us out of.
Now we are being asked to pay higher taxes to pay back the SS money that we put away for our retirement and take less SS in order to save the system for the next generation.
Here's my proposal, all non business assets should be taxed upon death at a pretty high rate with all proceeds going into SS. An alternative would be to tax the estate the amount of SS received. If there no estate then there would not be any taxes. The idea being that the retiree no longer needs help so put it back to help someone else.

My wife and I are comfortable in retirement because I worked to 65 and contributed to SSA and our 401K. My job also provided a defined benifit retirement check. We could handle a 10% reduction in our SSA check. That would be only 4 % less than last year. I believe that President obamas team could do a lot towards solving our problems with that.

If everyone would have worked until they reached full retirement age, contributed, and saved they would be able to make it.

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Kelcy, there are diferences in what you are comparing. One case is insurances against an unknown "accident". You enter a pool with other people to pay if X happens or not pay if X doesn't happen. Social Security is (was designed to be) an ANNUITY where collection upon us usually likely, the only unknown is how long, one or two years or twenty.

But the notion that people are living longer and longer is certainly true. And now with the double whammy of a huge "boomer bulge" AND longer than expected lives, the Ponzi scheme is revealed for what it is. We could recalibrate the age, which is already taking place. But if we keep up with new advances and endeavor to pay for everyone's healthcare (and presumably is successful and people live longer and longer) we will simply be putting off until later another issue which leavles us in the same place. And as an aside, social security and medicare are actually counter to each other. We spend so much to give people expenseive health care so they live longer and longer and then collect more and more on Social Security. The combination is ultimtatelly too much to possibly pay.

So what should we do? It seems that we should never have socialized retirement and health in any way. The boomers can go on about how much they've paid in FICA taxes, but the reality is this a pay as you go system, and their "regular" income tax ws much lower due to the "excesses" collected in social security. Those funds NOT collected for "regular" income still lie with the Boomers. The best solution is to stop collecting social security for people outside the Boomers and collect both an income tax AND a wealth tax on the Boomers to take of their generation. It will seal off and cauterize the effects of the Ponzi scheme there and we will be free from yet adding another layer to the "robbing Peter to give to Paul" we've had thus far. To try and add the Gen X and Gen Y to the Ponzi Scheme will force us to pay upwards of 70-75% composite taxes. If my taxes rise to that level I'll have no choice to be civilly disobedient. I have no interntion of having the "helping hand" turn into de facto enslavement.

Quite simply there is not enough money to go around. There never has been. We've played with smoke and mirrors to make the New Deal and Great Society (and now Medicare Part D) programs SEEM to work, but the end was never in doubt. SOMEONE'S generation was going to have to take it in the shorts. Might as well be the Boomers since they currently have the lion's share of the wealth (whatever is left anyway). It's not going to be me paying 75% of my labor only to be the poor bastard left standing with nothing when the music stops.

I am not a "boomer" but have paid taxes, including FICA, since the early 1950's. Going through life, I came to look at social security as akin to an annuity investment, not as an entitlement. Of course, times change as do tax policies: many of the old deductions for such items such as health care and gas taxes have been revised or eliminated; the wealthy do not pay as much tax even in time of war; and, most prominantly, Americans assume a full, government provided health program. Indeed, we expect to be pampered. I see this play out on television almost daily: an elder society living on drugs for the heart, high cholesterol, diabetes, and other diseases ad infinitum. With few exceptions, elders who appear on camera are overweight. This is shocking because we know about the relationship between proper weight and health. Rather than talking about the problem, we look for an infusion of money from young workers of America. Perhaps we should reframe our analysis by looking at behavior among elders. If they want to stay overweight, stop enabling their habits through a drug prescription program. Let them face the inevitable -- a shorter life. I know this raises the issue of class since the well-to-do will be able to pay for health care, fat or not. Well, they pay with their own money, not the public dollar.

Speaking from the point of view of a baby boomer that is still 12-15 years from retirement I see the problem could be resolved or at least tempered a little by a minor change. Like most baby boomers in my position I spent most of my retirement money putting a roof over my children???s heads and paying for college. Now that they are out of college and working on their own lives I have extra income that I can invest in my 401K but the government limits the amount that I can contribute. I make in the low $100???s but that only happened in the last 10 years. If I was able to contribute as much as I want tax free I would be willing to take a reduction in Social Security benefits because I would not need it. Our tax laws are designed to prevent us from support ourselves when we retire unless we made millions of dollars in the stock market (ha ha), have a pension which most of us do not, did not have children or refused to put them through college. If you want to solve this problem tell your congressmen to stop limiting how much a person over 40 years old can put away for retirement or can make as income during retirement. If they do limit it put the limit based on how much a person needs to live per month say $5,000 and increase it as inflation increases. This would allow us to put away $60K a year ( I can put $21K now). I could live on that when I retire without Social Security. You can take my Social Security money and apply it to Medicaid and Medicare. Most baby boomers have seen a lot, done a lot and willing to do what is needed to support them if they are left alone to do so.

So this is a war too. This is a problem, an issue but not a war. Why don't you leave the "war" metaphor to the sports commentators. Oh wait, that's not a war either, is it? I think every commentator that decides to call something a "war" should immediately be sent to spend 6 months on the front lines of a shooting conflict and then perhaps we could retire this overused and overhyped term.

Speaking from the point of view of a baby boomer that is still 12-15 years from retirement I see the problem could be resolved or at least tempered a little by a minor change. Like most baby boomers in my position I spent most of my retirement money putting a roof over my children???s heads and paying for college. Now that they are out of college and working on their own lives I have extra income that I can invest in my 401K but the government limits the amount that I can contribute. I make in the low $100???s but that only happened in the last 10 years. If I was able to contribute as much as I want tax free I would be willing to take a reduction in Social Security benefits because I would not need it. Our tax laws are designed to prevent us from support ourselves when we retire unless we made millions of dollars in the stock market (ha ha), have a pension which most of us do not, did not have children or refused to put them through college. If you want to solve this problem tell your congressmen to stop limiting how much a person over 40 years old can put away for retirement or can make as income during retirement. If they do limit it put the limit based on how much a person needs to live per month say $5,000 and increase it as inflation increases. This would allow us to put away $60K a year ( I can put $21K now). I could live on that when I retire without Social Security. You can take my Social Security money and apply it to Medicaid and Medicare. Most baby boomers have seen a lot, done a lot and willing to do what is needed to support them if they are left alone to do so.

As a 49 year old, with parents who just turned 70, I feel like I'm really stuck. Balancing the needs of the present with the needs of the future is and always has been an endless diet of tough choices. Families do it all the time with their family budgets (saving vs. buying). Our way of life in this country has risks and these chickens are coming home to roost. Raising the contributions coupled with protecting the money already paid into the "pot" is the only way to solve this. (along with getting our collective butts out of Iraq and re-purposing those funds).

How is this an entitlement program. The Feds drop the ball, the banks get stupid, and the financial sector sticks it to everybody. My wife and I were both born in 1950, we have paid 7.5% percent of our salaries into both Social Secuirty and Medicare, I have saved 20% of my salary in my 401K, and my wife has save 12%, we have lost over a third of the value on these, and in todays dollars I don't ever see us getting in back. I was never counting on SS or Medicare, and I don't see either of us retiring until we are 70 or older. For the past 42 years we have been supporting the 2 previous generations in their golden years, and all I here is the younger people crying about how unfair it is. You want unfair, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pay only a few hundres dollars more than us into the system and are worth thousands of times richer. We pay a higher percentage of our income in all of the various taxes then either one of them do, and I think it is well past time that the take the cap off of Social Security and Medicare and institute a falt tax system.

What is required of these programs is to move them back to where they started. At the time SSN was created the in 1935 date of receiving benefits was set at 65 which exceeded by quite a bit the male life expectancy of of 59 1/2 years. For women it was I believe 65 1/2 years. As Mr Goldfinger said "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." We were expected to die or be near dying when social security kicked in. I imagine the same is true for Medicare. If we want to fix the system we need to go back to the beginning. Raising the age to collect it by a mere three years (as some have suggested) will not be enough. It needs to be raised to five years above the life expectancy for the one collecting it so that would be something like 79 for men (I think life expectancy for men is 74 yrs) and 82 for women if they are collecting based on their own income. It was never designed to be our primary source of income but a rock bottom stop gap if you fell on bad times. Recall we were in bad times in 1935 where many "old" people were destitute. Then 65 yrs was considered old. Today you are not really old until you are over 80.

And remember SSN is an insurance program. Do you expect to get all your money back for your car insurance or your house insurance if you never suffer a loss? No. Why then do you expect to receive all the money for these two programs as well.

I am at the very edge of retirement and therefore should be protective of all that is promised me, after all I have paid fully into SS most of my working life, never asked or received government assistance of any kind ... but this argument is BS. The problem is we as humans are extremely selfish, we never seem to have or get enough and therefore unwilling to give a little.

I have friends who are retired and will tell you that they are struggling to make ends meet and deserve all they get and want more while they travel to Florida for the winter to their second home while making over $100k a year in retirement for two people. They pay no state tax.

We knew of this problem more than a generation ago but none of us wanted to give a little then to improve our standing now and I blame the likes of the AARP and unions. This article mentioned the issue with retired union employees and implies to the pressure they have on our current financial situations. If the unions and retired don't voluntarily give something up it will be taken from them and I can't blame the takers.

Our system of support from society should be based on need where everyone is guaranteed a minimum standard of living but if you don???t need it you don???t get it and you pay into the system (if your income is substantially above a certain level) until the day you die.

This is the fundamental problem with welfare statism of every stripe: transferring wealth distorts economies.

Interesting Article.
Since I worked in private industry prior to working for the Federal Government I am being penalized because I will be drawing a Federal pension.
I have contributed more than the needed 40 quarters to qualify for Social Security.
But, because of working for the Fed??? and contributing to the Civil Service Pension program I will be penalized.
Some feel that it is a punishment for working faithfully and diligently.
I will not even be able to collect my wife???s benefits if she were to pass away before me because I will be collecting a Civil Service Pension.
All her faithful work will go to some one else (deserved or not).
So I am already ahead of people in the swift kick in the pants line as far as loosing the funds provided to any entitlement program managed by any government entity!

We have been talking about this stuff at least since Reagan. No Boomer should be surprised by the fact that SS or Medicare might not be there for them. That is nearly 30 years worth of time that those on the higher income end could have been saving and investing wisely. If you are like my mom and you have a 401K but kept the investment ratio in some risky funds to max out your payments, don't be surprised now that you will have to wait to retire. The same was true in the early 90's and in 1999-2000 when the market tanked. Again, none of this should be a surprise.

Obama needs to raise the retirement age slowly to age 70 (1 year increase every two calendar years?) because it is a fact that boomers living longer is bankrupting the system. Then those folks whose post-retirement income is greater than $50K per year, need to have their benefits phased out until the $75K income range. If you have that much money after retirement, the government should not subsidizing your lifestyle.

Then us youngsters should have the opportunity to invest 1/4 of our retirement earnings perhaps in government-approved mutual funds at the risk of receiving a 75% benefit if we don't do well. I don't think SS will be there for me not because of funding but because of government officials raiding the cookie jar. I should be able to spin some of that money on my own.

Adult children should borrow money for college or go to the local community college. Poor seniors should not lose benefits because "wealthier" retirees insist on spending their retirement dollars on ivy league educations. I have one of those expensive educations, but I worked fulltime while attending college fulltime and I graduated with a 100K+ degree with only $9K in loans. It can be done. Your kids might need a hand; they don't need a crutch.

Medicare pays for viagra at the expense of a number of diagnostic tools and procedures. This program needs to start focusing in preventative care and palliative care because we are either going to revamp Medicare in time to help improve the quality of life for seniors (or anyone else later allowed to participate in the program at a share of cost) or we'll have to deal with those who are on the final stages of their life. Viagra fits in neither of those scenarios.

I agree with the article's author. Obama has promised too much to both sides and he will have to move to the middle to make any real change. Buckle your seatbelts.

As boomer's born in 1950 , my wife and I, have tried to scrimp ans save for our retirement. It was going along at a pretty good pace until the last year. We have been paying 7.5% of our salary into both, Social Securithy and Medicare, for the past 42 years suportting the 2 previous generations in their golden years. We have never made enough money to be over the cap were you no longer pay into the system. So why is it our fault that we have lost over a third of our retirement earnings, and may have to rely on them more than anticipated. The bank's got stupid, the finanacial sector got greedy, and the Feds developed macular degeneration, nobody is replacing our losses, and I don't see us retireing until we are 70. In todays dollars, I don't know if we will ever recover completely what was lost. Think about this, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet only pay a few hundred dollars more than my wife and I and their net worth is thousands of times more. Lift the cap on both Social Security and Medicare, and put in a flat tax system so that there is equity and fairness in our society.