This is the best attitude I have seen in the whole thread. Social Security is an authoritarian play, or a power play.

Another way to look at it: if every single US tax payer had to manually pay their taxes, instead of them being auto-drawn from their respective W2 employer, you'd see more people asking the question "who's money is this really?"

This is why the fair tax or similar plans will never pass. The power to silently tax people is too good for big brother.

A more charitable view would be that social security is an attempt to provide a minimum standard of living for all seniors and the disabled. How do you propose that society cares for these people, particularly the disabled, if it's not done at a societal level?

Retirement also benefits the young/middle aged by ensuring jobs open up.

It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds. That's why I said it's a power play, because if you made social security an open market with competition, you would probably see more positive support and results.

Please, don't tell me about my duties as a son, I've supported two family members through cancer, simultaneously. If/when it comes to it, he will be taken care of by me & siblings. How about the millions? who don't have children able to care for them? The streets is it? More welfare? I'd love to hear about a more sustainable option that doesn't include 'probably'.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't sustainable [1], but that's what social security is. Social security is not a guaranteed solution. If we have to raise taxes or collect additional taxes, that makes it a ponzi scheme. Cutting benefits is similar: you either lose the money now or later.

Discussion forums such as this are one of our few hopes for generating s sustainable solution. Just because a solution doesn't currently exist doesn't mean we should be complacent with how things are.

[1]: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/pf/social-security-medicare/

This is kicking the can down the road.

The population of any closed system, whether country, continent, or even planet, cannot grow indefinitely. And any system that expects indefinite growth to sustain itself will invariably become exhausted when rate out exceeds rate in for a sufficient duration.

Immigration alone may be a stopgap, but it is by no means a solution.

IANAEconomist.

It should not be the governments job to manage retirement funds.

Sez you. I'd like to outsource that job to them as private financial advisers often seem to put their own interests ahead of their clients', and I really don't know how to evaluate competing investment vehicles except int he most shallow way. I'd really like to delegate that job to someone, and I'd really like to join up with enough other people to feel the same way to delegate it to the same entity and enjoy the resultant economies of scale.

If enough people decide they want government to perform some function on their behalf, and it seems like a majority of people over several generations of western democracy in multiple countries do want the government to run a pension system, then it damn well is the government's job.

If instead there was a list that said, "Here is the amount of money that went to each of the major federal departments", maybe people would say, "really? that's cheap!" or "really? we spend that much on defense???" Who knows, but they'd be better informed.

As I recall to a rough first approximation only about 1/5 of government spending isn't Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. That's the first thing to keep in mind when talking about deficits, taxation and priorities.

Personally every time I look at my pay statement the taxes sting badly. However, I think the more interesting discussion to have is, "what are we spending money on?"

As a self-employed libertarian I think the same thing :O

I think most of the services that are offered through the government are noble or necessary..I disagree that it should be the government that runs many of them.

Yes...we could call it a 'budget.'

If the majority of the workforce works as independent contractors, the government will not be able to use employers to collect ("withhold") taxes automatically from workers' paychecks. The IRS will need to wait for the contractors to explicitly pay their own taxes.

I suspect this will have a big impact on cash flow for incoming taxes. Also, it could give more power to the people should they ever choose to execute a tax boycott.

You can even run a self-managed superannuation fund and make all the investment choices yourself if you want but people rarely do better than a standard fund.

My grandmother is sitting in a multi million dollar inner suburb property and claiming a pension. It seems harsh but I think she should be required to get her pension via the Pension Loans Scheme: https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelin...