Re:Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for governm...
by supplied_demand on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @12:01PM
(#42389905)
==A more expensive program requires more tax revenue to administer, revenue that could be used on anything else.==
More complexity is what makes programs more expensive to administer, not size. You are suggesting adding significant complexity (actual insurance) to what is currently a relatively simple program.
There are lots of things that make it more complex. For example, actual insurance requires you to continue paying in each year to get a benefit. Currently, I can take a year off from working and it has minimal impact on my SSI benefits (as SSI just takes and average index of your 35 highest earning years).
A retirement bonus (which is what OASDI is for millions of retired Americans) costs more than a retirement insurance plan, because one gets drawn from by everyone, while the other can simply be denied if it isn't strictly necessary for the person trying to collect the benefit.
A more expensive program requires more tax revenue to administer, revenue that could be used on anything else. Since we haven't had a real national discussion about federal taxes in 30+ years in the US, we now take the spending that would be funded with the tax revenues that could be freed up by a less-expensive implementation of retirement insurance - one that's treated as actual insurance - and instead fund it with deficit spending.