If Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt then why not?

[Steve]

Calculate to what level FICA and Medicare taxes would have to be raised in order to keep those programs from going bankrupt, and then then raise the taxes to those rates.

Why are cutting the benefits or destroying the programs the only options, but raising the tax rates are not an option?
By the way, I do pay taxes, including FICA and Medicare. And I want Medicare there for me, not some Vouchercare system that they name Medicare.

And, households who don't pay taxes, don't receive Social Security or Medicare, so they're not affected.

[Madstove590]

would you give an addict more heroin? NO you would get him/her HELP!!?? get them off their addiction...
First of all SSC is set up like a giant ponzi scheme. Promises that if you pay in there will be money when you retire.. (which there is no guaranty) ...PRIVATIZE IT!!
And medicare is controlled by cost control from the feds. Which means alot of things are either priced higher then they are or lower and lose money... (thats what happens when you have the gov which has no idea how to run a business, mismanaging business)

[Shovel Ready]

People have looked at the tax rates required to keep huge entitlements intact with no reform, and you would basically have no take-home pay after a few years. All of your salary would be deducted for taxes. It would be the socialist workers paradise: in order to get food to eat, you would have to beg from the government; in order to have a roof over your head, you would have to beg from the government; in order to travel from one place to another, your choices would be to walk or beg from the government; when the clothes on your back wear out, your choices would be to go naked or beg from the government. Get the idea?

[Mark Bailey]

You obviously do not pay taxes or you would not have to ask that question. If people's paychecks continue to shrink how will they feed their families? With the price of Gas and food I am sure some families are already facing that problem.

Stop stealing from SS and Medicare and STOP WASTING THE TAXPAYERS MONEY would be a good start for helping secure those two entities but in the end we will all have to pay more I am sure and I will probably be 80 before I can retire because I get the privilage of paying for others retirement while our leaders continue to waste...

[TM]

Sure how much money can I donate.............Do I send it right to the thieving sonsofbiiitches

[Fearlessjar861]

What about the 49% that don't pay taxes, you would raise taxes only on people with jobs?

[Jude the Obscure]

It's a red herring. Neither are going bankrupt. Social Security has plenty of money to support itself. If the Baby Boomers all live to 100 or 110, then Social Security will have to temporarily give smaller payouts, but then it would be fine again just after that. There is a single bump in the Social Security road, which is the huge Baby Boomer population, but the way Social Security is set up, even if nothing is done, it will continue to do what it does. (Keep elderly individuals from poverty)

As for Medicare, while average health insurance comparable to Medicare benefits costs between 8 and 18 thousand dollars a year on the private market, Medicare costs the tax payer 4 thousand. This is because Medicare can negotiate in a way an individual can't. Sort of like when you get married, and you get the group-discount and a free room for the honeymoon couple by all staying at the same hotel. Ideally, health insurance companies would be moral, and would keep costs low for all people, not just those with a collective negotiating power, like Medicare recipients, but in practice, our health insurance industrial complex is corrupt. They make money not by healing anyone, but by siphoning wealth off of the top of another human's misfortune.

[Tom W]

Because it means that we all have to pay again for political corruption. The baby boomers are the biggest generation ever to pass through life and that is why there is a crisis in Social Security. NOT!!! That is a political myth. The baby boomers worked 40-45 years paying into SS and the fund was huge in the 70's,80, and 90s. HUGE. You cannot have politicians around cash so they looted it. The trial lawyers in Congress came up with a new scheme over disabilities. If you want to never work you can get a lifetime disability for a bad back, or alcoholism, or even drug addiction or depression. And then we had new social programs added into Social Security. Ever see the lawyers on TV telling you to call them and they will get your disability for you? That's what happened to SS, the politicians looted the fund and now we are told that the next generation must pay into it to make it solvent. It was solvent before. And in terms of financial trouble how much would it take to right the fund? Less than what Obama has shot off for someone unknown reason in Libya, or less than he is wasting in Afghanistan, or less than what Pakistan gets to be a paid enemy of the US. Its a matter of priorities, do we take care of our people, especially those who have paid in a gov fund for 45 years, or do we take care of the Middle Eastern mobs? Obama chooses overseas over us.

[Anthony Victorio]

I am now 66, collecting a small retirement check from SS.
I also have Medicare which luckily I do not presently use or need.

Between my wife's disability income and mine, we can pay the rent, buy food(NOTHING fancy)
and every 4 or 5 months rent a car for a weekend "vacation", like driving to the sea shore.

It may surprise you but my wife and I are perfectly happy.
We know of the millions world-wide who would look at us as MILLIONAIRES!
So we greatly appreciate what we have in America.

Also we don't feel we should tax the present or future generations:
People who work today, and future workers have more and more to contend with.
We don't want, OR NEED, to add to their burden.

PS: As to "the rich" being taxed more: We don't envy what they have legitimately earned:
Let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.