Yup. It's the one thing I admire Bush most for. The Dems fought tooth and nail to gear up the PR smear machine. I don't even think they bothered with the scare tactics as much as the class warfare schtick that turning SSA money over to the private sector would make evil profits for investment companies. Oh the horror of taxable profits! Yeah, letting the gov't. steal it while selling bonds to China to cover it is so much better.

No $ saved,no plan or planning= you love SS..they will take care of me..you hope, you know better..but you hope.
Saving,planning,investing = you know this SS is not going to fly, hell the ship is almost under.
Rika

They wont privatize any portion of SS because they're using that money for other things not even related to SS (govt vote buying pork and such).

I saw how Hillary went and spoke to AARP the other day. She said we can't raise the retirement age, we can't decrese benefits and we can't raise taxes.

That about covers it!! WTF?!?

All that means is that she wants to raise taxes.

Well, doing nothing at all about SSA and waiting until it becomes a crisis situation would play well into the Dems' plans for raising taxes.

Yes. YES. YES

Why it is that socialists can't look at this and see reality befuddles me.

I mean, obviously healthcare is not perfect in America. Far from it.

BUT- if my car was wobbling at speed, I wouldn't try to fix it by driving it off a cliff.

The government will destroy ANYTHING you put it in charge of.

And yes, take a trip to the DMV and tell me how you feel then.

I have to admit I would too.

Actually, I have far more confidence in the worst DMV than I do in the SSA. When I go to DMV, I know it may take an hour and I may have to sit with a bunch of smelly poor people with screaming kids. But I know I'm gonna come out of there with whatever I went in there for. Just about 100% I know I'm gonna get it. With SSA it's the exact opposite. It's a promise I 100% believe will be broken. I look at it as a throw-away tax. I have to pay it in order to stay out of jail. That's all it is.

The real problem is that it won't be just your SSI benefits that you won't get, but likely they will figure out how to change the rules and take more of your savings and 401K/IRA/pension dollars to pay for those that didn't or wouldn't save.

Well Steve, I think you just stated Hillarious's plan.
Rika

If the proposed changes go through(needs based) the Gov. will just reward bad behavior.

Let's see if you save money/have money they're going to say you don't qualify for social security.

But if you spend all you make and have no savings, then you'll get social security

Seems to me you'd have to be a total boob not to spend all your own money. Then just have the govnernmet bail you out. Just like there doing with the mortgage issues.

The gov't. couldn't afford to bail out the subprime sufferers even if they could muster the political will. And no one can survive on just SS alone.

It is because they are federal employees and they are already in a federally funded retirement plan, as I understand it.

I am dubious they will try this, but they will index your SSI benefits to your other savings and pension plans. If you have none, you get 100%, if you are taking care of yourself, you get nothing, but still have to pay in, rewarding the grasshoppers and penalizing the ants, to borrow from a parable

Looks like there giving it a darn good try.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News.asp?FormMode=release&ID=567

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/07%2009%2026%20Mortgage%20Summary.pdf

Bush would veto this in a cocaine heartbeat and there's no way in the world the Senate could override it, if they even pass it.

I'm not sure, but aren't they doing this 'in essence' already? Heard a tale about a gentleman who was making plenty of money on his own, but was receiving his SSA benefits as well. He figured that 95% of his benefits were taxed back to the state. In essence, by his way of looking at it, it was just a backdoor way of moving funds out of SSA and into the general fund.

How come Congress and all federal employees don't have to pay in?

I believe members of Congress don't receive SS either. Gov't. employees have what's called Thrift Savings Plan. Not sure about SS for gov't. employees other than members of Congress.

Why would Congress fix Social Security, they aren't on it when they retire, seperate pension plans. Put them all on SS and watch how fast it gets fixed.

Lesee I'll be 62 in 2031 so I guess since we know their projects will be accurate, I'll get a few years worth of my money before it's gone.

Just become a Priest/Minister. Problem solved. :D

I don't think most member of Congress need Soc. Sec. Their pensions are pretty generous and most of them took a big pay cut to come to Congress.