Calls to "finally fix" Social Security happen as regularly as the tides

[Armstead]

Sometimes it's instigated by Democrats, but more often by Rerpublicans.

There are alarm bells about "Oh the budget is on a collision course with disaster. WE MUST FIX SOCIAL SECURITY NOW!"

Commissions are appointed, recommendations are made, and usually ignored.

People and politicians eventually get tired of the subject. With occasional exceptions, nothing gets done, and we move on to other matters.

Dunno if that will happen again this time -- Or if President Obama and the Congressional Dems will actually do something.....Like follow the GOPS marching orders and dismantle and distort it's original purpose.

Oh well...history repeats...

[gratuitous]

1. This time around

The Republicans are doing their usual yammering about "Social Security iz broke!" But the difference I see is that the administration itself put together a commission with bipartisan leadership that agreed with the Republican yammering. Despite failing to come to an agreement on any recommendations, and despite failing to issue any kind of official report, the commission has become the vehicle for the Conventional Wisdom that Something Must Be Done About Social Security.

From the signs and portents, it seems that the Something that Must Be Done is going to involve trimming benefits for future retirees. Not even Paul Ryan is stupid enough to mess with current benefits, but there seems to be some agreement coalescing around the idea that people under 55 are expecting too much from the system. So "fixing" Social Security becomes a matter of finessing people of the right age into giving away the benefits they've paid for so that we can avoid the horror of asking Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton to pay an extra three cents in taxes on their "earnings" above a quarter million a year.

Some people are onto this, but there seem to be any number of people who figure that nothing will ultimately happen, and that happy outcome will occur just because.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. And of course, the 'earnings' that they would be paying a pittance more on

are coming from US in the first place.

With the destruction of pension systems across the country, and turning to 401k's where our retirements are 'invested' in the stock market, the rich - who benefit far more from Wall Street than any of us shlubs down here - create the bubbles that enrich themselves and impoverish us. They use our minuscule investments to inflate their bubbles, then reap the rewards while the bubble pops and destroys our retirement.

But heaven forbid they pay anything gleaned from our murdered retirement accounts to help fund SS.

[SoCalNative]

2. They could certainly "fix" it

by not paying benefits to those who do not need them. I'm guessing Dick Cheney could get by without his monthly SS check. I don't care WHAT he's paid into it.

[DJ13]

3. They really really really want it this time

In fact they need it, as reducing the outflow from SS so the SS surplus doesnt need to be repaid is the only avenue they have left to continue funneling government resources to the wealthy without totally collapsing our monetary system.

[damntexdem]

5. The final fix is to stop letting high-income earners off the hook.

Raise, better yet abolish, the FICA tax cap.

When SS was last "fixed," it involved raising the retirement age, rather than taking care of the tax cap. Even that "fix" would have worked had incomes not become radically more-skewed since. Abolishing the FICA cap will not fix the skew of incomes, but it would at least stop the effect of the skew on SS revenues.