Why do conservatives support a "Public Option" for retirement but not for healthcare?

[jAZ]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.

[wild1]

Does social security involve the government confiscating 15-20% of the US economy?

[Donger]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.

I think if you gave conservatives the opportunity, they'd abolish programs such as SS. Since it does exist and Democrats and other socialists have made it untouchable, conservatives' only option is to attempt to give people a little more control over their retirement funds, wrestling it from the hands of the government.

But, we can't have that, can we?

[HonestChieffan]

The proposal was never to make it a "overwhelmingly public option".


Let me get you a straw for you grasp.

[patteeu]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.

I'd say it's your analysis.

In one case it's reform of an already public program that is failing and in the other case it's the creation of a brand new public program without regard to the experience we've had with public program failures.

[Baby Lee]

I'd say it's your analysis.

In one case it's reform of an already public program that is failing and in the other case it's the creation of a brand new public program without regard to the experience we've had with public program failures.

Frames are hard work!!

[ClevelandBronco]

I think if you gave conservatives the opportunity, they'd abolish programs such as SS. Since it does exist and Democrats and other socialists have made it untouchable, conservatives' only option is to attempt to give people a little more control over their retirement funds, wrestling it from the hands of the government.

Absolutely.

[BucEyedPea]

I don't. I am for phasing SS out and letting the young folks, like Jenson, Hamas, and Direckshun, a chance to opt out.:D

[tooge]

Nothing similar at all between the two. One (retirement) allows YOU, guy with a job, to decide where his or her hard earned money goes for YOUR OWN future. The other (health care) allows the government to tell you where you can get insurance AND increases your taxes to pay for those without jobs or insurance. One favors those that have jobs, one favors those that dont. One rewards saving, bettering onself, and fiscal prudence, the other rewards laziness. How do you possibly see these as similar?

[BucEyedPea]

Nothing similar at all between the two. One (retirement) allows YOU, guy with a job, to decide where his or her hard earned money goes for YOUR OWN future. The other (health care) allows the government to tell you where you can get insurance AND increases your taxes to pay for those without jobs or insurance. One favors those that have jobs, one favors those that dont. One rewards saving, bettering onself, and fiscal prudence, the other rewards laziness. How do you possibly see these as similar?

Because everything is equal and the same to the left.

You missed some arguments equating govt rationing to not having an insurance policy that covers a procedure both being called rationing.

[RINGLEADER]

The fact that liberals are having to bend SO far over to even attempt to make these kinds of arguments show what a terrible box Obama has put them in.

But keep looking for moral equivalency while avoiding the pesky and completely unreasonable questions like "how are we going to pay for it", "why do Dems claim it is deficit-neutral when independent analysis say it isn't", or "how come you can't stay in the private market five years down the road if you change plans"?

[patteeu]

Because everything is equal and the same to the left.

You missed some arguments equating govt rationing to not having an insurance policy that covers a procedure both being called rationing.

It is rationing. It's just a form of rationing that is imposed by the voluntary exchanges of the market and the individual's ability to pay. There's no reason why your particular definition of "rationing" should be the only acceptable definition of the word. In one case an authority is doing the rationing and in the other the market is doing it, but in both cases limited resources are being allocated which is the important essence of the issue, IMO.

[jAZ]

Does social security involve the government confiscating 15-20% of the US economy?

Hmmmm... I believe that the CBO estimated 10,000,000 "public option" particpants... vs. what 250,000,000 private sector? And we are talking about insurance, right? Not gov't employed doctors.

[Taco John]

This thread kind of blew up in jAZ's face
http://trustedadvisor.com/public/Image/exploding%20cigar.gif

[petegz28]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.

Except where you fail miserably at this is the SS option was to keep my money out of the Fed Gov's hand. Nice try, Sparky

[Taco John]

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/9/3/128964906492469234.jpg

[ChiTown]

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/9/3/128964906492469234.jpg

:clap:

[jAZ]

I think if you gave conservatives the opportunity, they'd abolish programs such as SS. Since it does exist and Democrats and other socialists have made it untouchable, conservatives' only option is to attempt to give people a little more control over their retirement funds, wrestling it from the hands of the government.

But, we can't have that, can we?

So when conservatives tried to convince the public that they didn't aspire to abolish social security, they were really trying to "save it", they might have been more clear or up front?

[BucEyedPea]

For those that don't get it:

As I explained in an earlier column where I tried to clear up New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt's similar confusion over rationing:

...what is rationing? Leonhardt is correct when he writes, "In truth, rationing is an inescapable part of economic life. It is the process of allocating scarce resources." The crucial question that Leonhardt misses is that "rationing" depends on who is allocating the scarce resources. It's not rationing if an individual decides to spend his money on a 16-ounce steak—but it is rationing if he can only purchase a USDA prime rib eye when he has a coupon issued from a government agency. In other words, true rationing occurs when individuals are forbidden from spending their money on products or services they want to buy.

Imperfect as private health insurance markets are, if a customer [or his employer] doesn't like the decisions made by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, or Golden Rule insurance bureaucrats, he can look elsewhere for his health insurance coverage. [ OR PAY FOR THE SERVICE DIRECTLY] But if the government health care scheme becomes a monopoly, when the bureaucrats at the new Health Benefits Advisory Committee decide that a treatment should be withheld, that treatment will be withheld. That's rationing.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135766.html

[Donger]

So when conservatives tried to convince the public that they didn't aspire to abolish social security, they were really trying to "save it", they might have been more clear or up front?

They were really trying to give folks back some control over some of their own money, sure.

But, we can't have that, can we?

[jAZ]

The proposal was never to make it a "overwhelmingly public option".


Let me get you a straw for you grasp.

Maybe I was unclear. I simply ment to say an overwhelming 95% or so of the program proposed was to remain "public".

[jAZ]

I'd say it's your analysis.

In one case it's reform of an already public program that is failing and in the other case it's the creation of a brand new public program without regard to the experience we've had with public program failures.

So you'd agree that the Conservatives pushing the 2005 program of very small % change to SS were actually looking at the change as a small portion of a long term plan of undoing SS into a private account model?

[Taco John]

To jAZ's credit, he demonstrates that Republican congressmen haven't done a great job of representing their constituents - instead choosing to pander. It's cost a lot of ground in this debate because of it.

[jAZ]

I don't. I am for phasing SS out and letting the young folks, like Jenson, Hamas, and Direckshun, a chance to opt out.:D

So the "option" in 2005 wasn't really an issue of "choice" among private options or a public one? It was about getting as close as possible to ending the public program as possibile? Even if in small steps?

[HonestChieffan]

So the "option" in 2005 wasn't really an issue of "choice" among private options or a public one? It was about getting as close as possible to ending the public program as possibile? Even if in small steps?

Why did you start the thread if you have no understanding of the proposals that were discussed?

[KILLER_CLOWN]

I prefer the public option to not pay in and not expect anything out, it's called health freedom.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the
government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretence
of taking care of them.

-- Thomas Jefferson

[jAZ]

Nothing similar at all between the two. One (retirement) allows YOU, guy with a job, to decide where his or her hard earned money goes for YOUR OWN future. The other (health care) allows the government to tell you where you can get insurance AND increases your taxes to pay for those without jobs or insurance. One favors those that have jobs, one favors those that dont. One rewards saving, bettering onself, and fiscal prudence, the other rewards laziness. How do you possibly see these as similar?

Well, both were campaigns about changing fiancial programs to create options.

At the time Republicans kept saying that they didn't want to end social security, they just wanted to make it optional.

Today Dems are saying the same thing, that they don't want to end private health insurance, they want to make a public program optional.

I'd argue that there is one big difference.

Social Security was designed as a "safety net" and was expected to be a baseline retirement program for everyone with supplemental investments made beyond that by those that had the means.

The healthcare analog would be a "medicare for all" program which would allow for supplemental private accounts for increased healthcare services, but a safety net healthcare program for all.

[patteeu]

For those that don't get it:

Your author doesn't address the issue of an individual not having enough money to exercise a choice between buying the 16 oz. steak and not buying it. The market rations resources, it just does it in a much more acceptable way (IMO) than government rationing. If you don't have enough money to afford product/service X, it doesn't much matter in terms of the end result if the government is telling you they won't give you X or if the market is making that determination. Either way, you go without.

It's an argument over semantics. There is nothing about the word "rationing" that makes your or Ezra Klein's choice of definitions superior to David Leonhardt's. What's important is the essence of what's taking place. Of course, you're more interested in the battle of labels as always. :rolleyes:

[patteeu]

So you'd agree that the Conservatives pushing the 2005 program of very small % change to SS were actually looking at the change as a small portion of a long term plan of undoing SS into a private account model?

I doubt if the majority of them were ideological enough to expect that there was any possibility of that happening during their political careers (or maybe ever). Maybe a few of them had hope for that though. So no, I wouldn't agree.

[jAZ]

The fact that liberals are having to bend SO far over to even attempt to make these kinds of arguments show what a terrible box Obama has put them in.

But keep looking for moral equivalency while avoiding the pesky and completely unreasonable questions like "how are we going to pay for it", "why do Dems claim it is deficit-neutral when independent analysis say it isn't", or "how come you can't stay in the private market five years down the road if you change plans"?

It amused me to hear a Con/Rep on the radio today reference back to 2005 and explain that they didn't want to end SS, they just wanted the option to spend the money in private accounts.

It was the identical argument they were attacking liberals for making in 2009. That the ultimate agenda is to end private insurance and the public option was merely a means to that end.

I remebered how many at the time (sadly it seems most of our 2005 posts are gone) were making the same case, that they just wanted a "private option" for SS, and they rejected the suggestion that it was merely a means to end SS entirely.

They are 100% mirror arguements today and 2005.

[jAZ]

Why did you start the thread if you have no understanding of the proposals that were discussed?

I have an understanding of the propsals then and now.

[wild1]

Hmmmm... I believe that the CBO estimated 10,000,000 "public option" particpants... vs. what 250,000,000 private sector? And we are talking about insurance, right? Not gov't employed doctors.

Why would I believe this administration's figures? Their figures are always wrong.

Besides, the obvious answer is that any plan the left will back is either total socialization or incremental socialization, which are all aimed at the same thing, a government takeover of 15-20% of the economy.

[patteeu]

It amused me to hear a Con/Rep on the radio today reference back to 2005 and explain that they didn't want to end SS, they just wanted the option to spend the money in private accounts.

It was the identical argument they were attacking liberals for making in 2009. That the ultimate agenda is to end private insurance and the public option was merely a means to that end.

I remebered how many at the time (sadly it seems most of our 2005 posts are gone) were making the same case, that they just wanted a "private option" for SS, and they rejected the suggestion that it was merely a means to end SS entirely.

They are 100% mirror arguements today and 2005.

The big difference between the two is that the democrat's "nose under the tent", if it achieved the theoretical goal of full blown nationalized health would be doing it by tricking people into thinking they were getting something for nothing whereas the Republican's "nose under the tent", if it achieved the theoretical goal of full privatization of retirement, would have been able to do so only if their trial program was wildly successful.

Sorry jAZ, your analogy makes no sense to me.

[jAZ]

I doubt if the majority of them were ideological enough to expect that there was any possibility of that happening during their political careers (or maybe ever). Maybe a few of them had hope for that though. So no, I wouldn't agree.

So supporters of SS shouldn't have tried to argue that supporters of privatizing social security were trying to abolish the very nature of SS by establishing private accounts for a small % of social security dollars? Because it would have been a fight at every step of the way?

[jAZ]

Why would I believe this administration's figures? Their figures are always wrong.

Besides, the obvious answer is that any plan the left will back is either total socialization or incremental socialization, which are all aimed at the same thing, a government takeover of 15-20% of the economy.

That's the CBO's figures.

[jAZ]

The big difference between the two is that the democrat's "nose under the tent", if it achieved the theoretical goal of full blown nationalized health would be doing it by tricking people into thinking they were getting something for nothing whereas the Republican's "nose under the tent", if it achieved the theoretical goal of full privatization of retirement, would have been able to do so only if their trial program was wildly successful.

Sorry jAZ, your analogy makes no sense to me.

That's 100% wrong.

Assuming that both were back doors to an ideological end....

The public option would only grow to universal healthcare if it was "wildly successful". If it sucked, people would choose the private options ending or limiting the size of the public program.

Based on the policies put forward in 2005, no matter how successful the program was, it would have capped out at 2-5% or whatever the figure might have been.

In both cases, there would always been a chance for future legislatures to change the rules entirely. After the 2008 collapse, I doubt that even if it had passed in 2005, there would ever again be the political will to expand that program. Cons dodged a bullet by failing in 2005.

However, history suggests that public healthcare can be very successful and when it exists in a very competitive marketplace along side a bunch of private insurance programs, I think we'd all be far better off than a gov't monopoly or a collection of private oligopolies.

[Taco John]

However, history suggests that public healthcare can be very successful and when it exists in a very competitive marketplace along side a bunch of private insurance programs, I think we'd all be far better off than a gov't monopoly or a collection of private oligopolies.


To bad what you think and what the constitution allows for government to do are at odds with eachother. Too bad your side doesn't care what the constitution says, and will try to ram it down our throats anyway.

Lucky for America, though, the Democrats are too spineless to do anything that puts them out on a limb. This reform is doomed.

[BucEyedPea]

I don't think history shows public healthcare is very successful. I think history shows that what the govt provides it wrecks. Like education and well our current patchwork govt health care insurance.

[Nightfyre]

That's 100% wrong.

Assuming that both were back doors to an ideological end....

The public option would only grow to universal healthcare if it was "wildly successful". If it sucked, people would choose the private options ending or limiting the size of the public program.

Based on the policies put forward in 2005, no matter how successful the program was, it would have capped out at 2-5% or whatever the figure might have been.

In both cases, there would always been a chance for future legislatures to change the rules entirely. After the 2008 collapse, I doubt that even if it had passed in 2005, there would ever again be the political will to expand that program. Cons dodged a bullet by failing in 2005.

However, history suggests that public healthcare can be very successful and when it exists in a very competitive marketplace along side a bunch of private insurance programs, I think we'd all be far better off than a gov't monopoly or a collection of private oligopolies.

One quick question: Are you fucking insane?

[jAZ]

Except where you fail miserably at this is the SS option was to keep my money out of the Fed Gov's hand. Nice try, Sparky

That's sort of the point. That was never the case made to the public. The public case was that these small private accounts were going to save Social Security as we know it. Not transform it away.

In fact they tried to change the name of the plan (without changing the plan) in order to stop people from thinking of it as an effort to transform SS into private investment accounts.

But in reality, it was indisputably a measured but hopefully passable step toward trying to end SS.

And no doubt I'm sure that there are lots of Dems who hope that the same would happen with the public option.

Difference being that a public option could be set up in such a way that it has to compete on the same grounds as the private companies. No annual operational subsidies beyond income based subsidies that would be available to both programs.

And if on even terms, the public program can operate at a lower costs simply because it's eliminates the massive profits that existing insurance companies generate by spending all of their energy and $ trying to not cover the sickest people and trying to cover the healthest... not by having superiour products or service... then the profit seekers will be forced to earn their profits by improving their offerings.

[jAZ]

One quick question: Are you ****ing insane?

At one time, you cared about substantive discussion. It's endless parade of posts like this lately (first i've seen from you, to be fair) that have made this place a far less interesting place to post.

I hate people who spend effort debating the topics without much intellectual honesty. That pisses me off to no end. But what I hate even more is people who throw rocks without any substance (honest or not).

[jAZ]

Too bad your side doesn't care what the constitution says, and will try to ram it down our throats anyway.

Lucky for America, though, the Democrats are too spineless to do anything that puts them out on a limb.

Hillarious.

In back to back breaths you stoke fear that "your side doesn't care what the constitution says, and will try to ram it down our throats anyway" and simultaneously that "Democrats are too spineless to do anything that puts them out on a limb".

ROFL

the Democrats are too spineless to do anything that puts them out on a limb.
There is no doubt in my mind that if the Reps had 60 votes they'd steam roll the country with one policy after another. Dems clearly aren't nearly the same in that respect.
This reform is doomed.
What's interesting about that claim is one of two things.

1) You can't seperate your self-serving positive rhetoric from the reality of the moment.

2) The Dems have so raised public expectations with the "public option" that as long as that doesn't pass you will declare "reform doomed".

I mean, the Dems can pass today a bi-partisan bill that includes a massive expansion of insurance industry regulation, huge "redistribution of wealth" via subsidies and possibly some form of regulation and funding that established "co-ops" to provide non-profit competition to the private markets.

[alanm]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.And look how well SS has turned out.
I don't want some bureaucrat telling me when I have to die. I don't want my health care turned into a Logan's run.

[Amnorix]

I think if you gave conservatives the opportunity, they'd abolish programs such as SS. Since it does exist and American voters have made it untouchable, conservatives' only option is to attempt to give people a little more control over their retirement funds, wrestling it from the hands of the government.

But, we can't have that, can we?

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

[jAZ]

And look how well SS has turned out.
I don't want some bureaucrat telling me when I have to die. I don't want my health care turned into a Logan's run.

That's the myth. SS was setup in such a way that it was financially solvent even through the boomer years. It was the stealing of the SS surplus to spend on other things that caused the problem.

[jAZ]

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

The structural reform needed was simply Gore's "lock box" (heh) were the funds from SS can't be swept to pay for other spending projects.

[mlyonsd]

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

Wildly popular? Does that definition have something to do with it isn't optional and I've paid a butt load of tax into SS over the years and I expect it back? Try retiring on just it without any other investments.

If a public health care option means I get taxed more for it forget it, I'll keep what my company provides.

[Nightfyre]

At one time, you cared about substantive discussion. It's endless parade of posts like this lately (first i've seen from you, to be fair) that have made this place a far less interesting place to post.

I hate people who spend effort debating the topics without much intellectual honesty. That pisses me off to no end. But what I hate even more is people who throw rocks without any substance (honest or not).

A couple of points about why your assertion that the public option will die if it sucks:
ECON 101 - The government has no incentive to price competitively. They will quash profit in the private insurance industry leaving only one option. This isn't party line BS. This is economic truth. And even if the government did price appropriately, the same people who can't afford insurance now will not be able to afford it then.

[Nightfyre]

That's the myth. SS was setup in such a way that it was financially solvent even through the boomer years. It was the stealing of the SS surplus to spend on other things that caused the problem.

ROFL. SS has NEVER been financially solvent. It was a PONZI scheme by DESIGN.

[Donger]

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

Popular? Well, I suppose if you call a program that took money from you for so many years and when you reach the age where the government says you can have it back and the people who did that say, "Yeah, you're damn right I want it back!" successful and popular, yes. I agree.

People would love a robber who shows up 20 years later and gives back his loot, too.

Let's not kid ourselves, Amno.

[Nightfyre]

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

Ponzi schemes are wildly popular.... for the first people who cash out. :shake:
Lets not even mention the fact that it is complete redistribution of a higher wage earners paycheck to a lower wage earner. Of course it will be popular for those people.

[mlyonsd]

Popular? Well, I suppose if you call a program that took money from you for so many years and when you reach the age where the government says you can have it back and the people who did that say, "Yeah, you're damn right I want it back!" successful and popular, yes. I agree.

People would love a robber who shows up 20 years later and gives back his loot, too.

Let's not kid ourselves, Amno.

I think the word 'popular' is the same thing as 'mandatory' when it comes to SS.

[bkkcoh]

Doesn't it come down to choice. If you have a public option for retirement, that would give you some responsibility for. Likewise, with insurance coverage, I think conservatives want to be able to have that option.

[Garcia Bronco]

There's got to be a better way than Social Security.

[2bikemike]

There's got to be a better way than Social Security.

Exactly, if I could have invested all of my and my employers social security contributions over the last 30 Plus years I would be willing to bet I would have close to a half million dollars in a retirement account. As it stands now I may or may not receive social security. If I do my kids and your kids are going to be taxed to death to insure I get it.

[Velvet_Jones]

This thread kind of blew up in jAZ's face
http://trustedadvisor.com/public/Image/exploding%20cigar.gif

Obama has been splooging on him for long than this thread has been around.

[BucEyedPea]

Just because something's popular doesn't make it right. Or Constitutional.

Lots of bad/stupid things are popular.

[patteeu]

So supporters of SS shouldn't have tried to argue that supporters of privatizing social security were trying to abolish the very nature of SS by establishing private accounts for a small % of social security dollars? Because it would have been a fight at every step of the way?

They can try to make that argument, but it's not very compelling given the unlikelihood that that could ever happen short of catastrophic conditions that would make arguments over SS moot anyway (e.g. complete collapse of the US economy). In other words, it's completely unlike the current debate over healthcare.

[DJ's left nut]

Conservatives spent all of 2005 (IIRC) trying to implement an optional program to direct Social Security dollars into a 401K like program. They said that they didn't want to end SS, just make it an overwhelmingly public option.

This year they are trying to defeat a similarly optional public healthcare program.

IIRC, the private part of SS was expected to only be on the order of 5% or so. Where the private option with healthcare is projected to be 90%.

Something seems askew here.

Simple answer -- "Conservatives" support neither.

The elderly that have paid into the system for so long want what they've had stolen from them back.

But true rank/file conservatives that are still 20+ years away from retirement would like to see SS dissolved as well. As for what politicians do? Who gives a !@#$, there's only about a dozen conservatives in mainstream politics right now.

I ask again -- quit confusing parties with ideologies. They are not the same thing.

[patteeu]

FYP.

You realize that Social Secuirty is about the most wildly popular and successful government program ever?

Sad to say, it needs serious structural reform, but that doesn't undermine how good it was for 75 years or so thus far.

Which illustrates the point I was trying to make to jAZ. Despite being disastrously under-funded in the long run, it's still extremely popular because a lot of people think they can endlessly get something for nothing (or "a lot for very little"). That's the insidiously misleading appeal that could make fully nationalized healthcare a reality as it's become in many other advanced nations.

It doesn't work that way in reverse though. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out that if SS were completely privatized, there would be quite a few irresponsible people who would end up destitute so it's virtually impossible to imagine conservatives ever being able to fully privatize retirement savings in this country even if that's their unspoken desire.

[patteeu]

That's the myth. SS was setup in such a way that it was financially solvent even through the boomer years. It was the stealing of the SS surplus to spend on other things that caused the problem.

This isn't true. SS isn't solvent through the baby boomer years even if you assume the existence of a lockbox filled with cash instead of IOU's.

[Nightfyre]

This isn't true. SS isn't solvent through the baby boomer years even if you assume the existence of a lockbox filled with cash instead of IOU's.

Social security has never been solvent. From day one, it was take from peter, the newly employed person and pay to paul, the newly retired person. The program never had capital. It has only been sustained to this point by liquidity, because its a ponzi scheme. That's not solvency.
Posted via Mobile Device

[2bikemike]

Social security has never been solvent. From day one, it was take from peter, the newly employed person and pay to paul, the newly retired person. The program never had capital. It has only been sustained to this point by liquidity, because its a ponzi scheme. That's not solvency.
Posted via Mobile Device

Exactly what sent Maddoff to prison. Things that make you go Hmmm!

[jAZ]

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