The easiest solution to the social security crisis is to raise the retirement age. agreed?

[Growth vs. Oil]

No, how is a larger worker pool with lower wages due to job competition going to help the youth? Leave it alone, it is not an investment.

[brown9500v17]

I gueeeeess.

[asshat.mcpoop]

Privatizing social security would have actually prohibited Congress from spending it, like they have in the past - and like drunken sailors. Hell, you saw Ted Kennedy, right?

Obviously you're unaware of the huge stack of IOU's sitting in our fund box, and the ability to keep the money that we are forced to "set aside for ourselves" SHOULD be available for us, and not for spending by a spree-bound Congress.

[regerugged]

My, my are you ever wrong. There was no stock market collapse on Bush's watch. Mr. Bush tried to privatize a small portion of SS. It had no effect on the stock market.

SS is a giant Ponzi scheme that has been propped up by Congress many times. It is projected that, next year, there will not be enough money brought in to pay the benefits that are owed. SS is in the red. It is in danger of collapse. Raising the retirement age is only a band aid, like before. If you raise the age to 85 that might work.

[regerugged]

No. Raise taxes on those making over $250k/yr as a family. Anything over $1M should be taxes at 80%.

[Mac]

In 2000 Bush ran on a campaign promise to privatize SS and put the money in stocks and bonds. When there was a public uproar over this asinine idea Bush stopped talking about it in the summer of 2000. To raise the retirement age makes sense, yet this denies young people from finding jobs since old people are not leaving their jobs. Right now there is very few jobs created in our economy. If no jobs are created young people can't enter the workforce. The stock market started to collapse in 2007 because of the housing fiasco and tons of debt not because of Bush's idea of SS.

[Curt J]

Let's see. Bush attempted to allow younger workers to invest a whopping 2% of their SS withholding into selected, private funds and to be able to pass those monies on to their heirs. You now seem to believe that President Bush's attempt led to all the financial problems this country is in. No wonder your avatar is a cartoon, your logic is only 2 dimensional and the wrong two dimensions at that.

PS: Raising the retirement age will solve nothing. Forcing Congress to once again separate the SS fund from the General fund, thereby stopping Congress from spending those funds on any and everything EXCEPT SS, is about the only way to save Social Security.

[Nikki]

Perhaps.

But the best solution is it's elimination. Pay out what's been paid in with interest at the rate of inflation.

Govt in the retirement biz is just plain wrong.

[jimbo]

Yeah, let's raise it to 108. That way, no one gets any social security and we can continue having it taken out of our checks and used to prop up more liberal social programs for those who won't work.

[flower]

NO ! Due to the lack of jobs many people age 62 are taking early benefits so obviously they need money even though they only get 2/3 of their full benefit. And if you are out of work and too young to get social
security, yet no one will hire an old person of 55 or 60, how are they going to survive to a later age before collecting.