Brain Fertilizer

A- Any entitlement like this ends up costing more than initially planned and becomes a burden to the entire economy. That isn't good for American society as a whole. B- If the issue can be addressed in a way where a person actually gets to keep the money that he or she earned and recieves less in the way of old age welfare, but still maintains a reasonable standard of living in retirement, isn't that a preferable solution? C- It's my money, so the point of it is whether I find that this specific use of my tax dollars is effective or not. I find it lacking.

I'm not a completely anti-tax partisan and I'm not a person who refuses to pay my taxes on principal, but I am a person who says that the electorate has a say in whether the use of that money is truly for the betterment of society and just how far the government gets to go in deciding what is best for society. The government could mandate that we all exercise, maintain a certain fat ratio, never drink, never smoke, and never eat anything other than government mandated, safe foods. That would certainly be for everyone and it would certainly be for a healthier, better society; I don't think the government gets to decide that, though.

I get the idea of Social Security, I just neither like it nor like this particular method of administering the program. If it absolutely has to exist, it should exist in a better form.

As a side note, I don't think you get one of the most important side benefits of private accounts: heritability. That is, when I die, that money gets to stay within my family as an inheritance. That would be better for society--and it isn't about me. Since my parents are already retired (although not collecting SS yet), any money that would be heritable and paid into a private account is long since spent.

What you really don't get is that I'm not suggesting this because I'm selfish. I'm saying I'm willing to continue doing what is necessary to fund current liabilities for the option of just keeping a portion of my own money. Since I'm well-advanced in my working years, this isn't asking for much and, in final analysis, is probably me being willing to give up quite a bit so that Social Security is "fixed" as well as it can be and so that our economy doesn't have to absorb a massive tax increase to fund my retirement when I get to that point.

What's best for the economy isn't high taxes. What's best for individuals isn't throwing money into a welfare tax that is poorly designed and implemented. What's best for individuals and families and societies as a whole is a thriving economy and heritable wealth that will most certainly change lives.

From this discussion.