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I'm 45. Will Social Security still be around when I'm ready to collect?
Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Seeing how its all gone since it wasn't in a lockbox, looks like the scheme is heading down the ****ter. Thanks Bush, and thank you Republicans.
Boy, you don't know much about SS and how it is constitutionally required to operate, do you?
In a USSC case, Helvering vs. Davis (1937), the Court held that "The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in anyway."
Ergo, the idea of a lockbox was a simple campaign lie that Al Gore knew to be a lie when he proposed it. You CANNOT earmark SS funds for Social Security. Period. You CANNOT create a "lockbox" because to do so is against the law. Period.
The fact that workers contribute to the Social Security program's funding through a dedicated payroll tax establishes a unique connection between those tax payments and future benefits. More so than general federal income taxes can be said to establish "rights" to certain government services. This is often expressed in the idea that Social Security benefits are "an earned right." This is true enough in a moral and political sense. But like all federal entitlement programs, Congress can change the rules regarding eligibility--and it has done so many times over the years. The rules can be made more generous, or they can be made more restrictive. Benefits which are granted at one time can be withdrawn, as for example with student benefits, which were substantially scaled-back in the 1983 Amendments.
There has been a temptation throughout the program's history for some people to suppose that their FICA payroll taxes entitle them to a benefit in a legal, contractual sense. That is to say, if a person makes FICA contributions over a number of years, Congress cannot, according to this reasoning, change the rules in such a way that deprives a contributor of a promised future benefit. Under this reasoning, benefits under Social Security could probably only be increased, never decreased, if the Act could be amended at all. Congress clearly had no such limitation in mind when crafting the law. Section 1104 of the 1935 Act, entitled "RESERVATION OF POWER," specifically said: "The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act is hereby reserved to the Congress." Even so, some have thought that this reservation was in some way unconstitutional. This is the issue finally settled by Flemming v. Nestor.
In this 1960 Supreme Court decision Nestor's denial of benefits was upheld even though he had contributed to the program for 19 years and was already receiving benefits. Under a 1954 law, Social Security benefits were denied to persons deported for, among other things, having been a member of the Communist party. Accordingly, Mr. Nestor's benefits were terminated. He appealed the termination arguing, among other claims, that promised Social Security benefits were a contract and that Congress could not renege on that contract. In its ruling, the Court rejected this argument and established the principle that entitlement to Social Security benefits is not contractual right.
Kind of funny that - A communist arguing for private property rights of public funds! Let's you know which side the human animal is always on when the chips are down - the side of individualism against the collective.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
So change the law.
And who is going to do that? The Democrats? They held power for 35+ years after the Nestor decision and did nothing. The SSA? They don't want to be so encumbered.
Originally posted by JohnT
Ergo, the idea of a lockbox was a simple campaign lie that Al Gore knew to be a lie when he proposed it. You CANNOT earmark SS funds for Social Security. Period. You CANNOT create a "lockbox" because to do so is against the law. Period.
You are wrong. What the SC said is there is no constitutional requirement that there be a "lockbox" on Social Security funds but if the Congress should enact such a requirement then it would be perectly legal. There is NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH which says you "cannot" create a lockbox.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Financial Responsibility... I am thinking more along the line of personal finance. However, we also have to deal with this mess and not allow our old folk, who trusted in this system, and contributed to it without pention, to fall to the wayside.
What I like is how the Congress passed the 1935 SS Act and set the retirement age at 65 - this at a time when the average life expectancy was 58.
Be glad you're not a Black Male, Lancer, cause then you'd really be getting a screwing. You pay in for 40+ years, and can reasonably expect to collect for one. (life expectancy of black males in 1998 was 67.8, white females 79.9) Source: Statistical Abstract of the US, section 2, table 116
The fact is, demographically SS is a massive transfer payment from minorities (especially male minorities) to white females. How the Left can justify such a racist result is beyond me - or maybe they just don't care.
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