This is a very interesting idea. On the one hand politicians are not that dumb, they do understand the dynamics and some of the numbers. On the other hand this theory, if true, makes them look even more focused on just one thing; getting reelected. I don't know how much water the theory holds but there is some truth here and if you read the editorial it seems like there are implications for social security benefits.
I've said many times I expect nothing in terms of social security and maybe even no medicare either so if benefits start getting cut in the next couple of years or ten years from now; I've not thought about that aspect of it. The more important thing will be the impact on people who as a function of indifference don't realize that benefits could be cut (I say could be cut here as I realize some people don't think they will be cut and maybe they turn out to be right somehow). As getting religion or spreading the gospel has come up in the last couple of days, the future of entitlement payments is something people need to get religion about.Here is one more pitch for an idea from a couple of weeks ago. I think IRA and 401k contribution limits should be removed, sort of. If the most you can put into a 401k is $10,000 (not sure the exact number I have a SEP) then you should be able to put in as much as you want, reducing your taxable income by the full contribution, with any amount above your "limit" counting toward reducing your social security benefit paying the full FICA tax as you go. As I said before I could see 10% of the population taking advantage of this so they'd pay the full boat, get little to no entitlement payout and have a much larger nest egg. I think a 10% reduction in the number of people collecting would be very meaningful.
Maybe this line of thinking is wrong but I can't see how something big doesn't give and a lot of people get hurt financially because of it...due to no fault of their own (I hate that saying).
17 comments:
Your view always amazes me. I do not see any tax breaks like you speak of
Reduce payments, increase the age for eligibility, and increasing taxes are the only options I see passing in the future.
If it were up to me I would do away with the whole thing, but it is not up to me and neither will your modest proposal be accepted either.
You don't tell your wife her dress is ugly and stay married. You let your mother tell her instead. Politicians are trying like hell to find someone else to deliver the bad news, and not having much success.
i certainly don't expect my idea to be adopted but as i've mentioned it before, here and elsewhere, and it hasn't been crapped on then maybe the idea doesn't stink?
the focus of the idea could be the tax cut i suppose but i would focus on removing some percentage of people from getting future payouts.
you can tell your wife her dress is ugly, you just can't tell her that the dress makes her butt look big.
I'm not sure how that ties in with today's topic though.
The SS fix is easy. Change the tax law to pay into SS all year no matter what your income.
Medicare is the issue. If you had to buy full health insurance at retirement, after you're off employer health insurance, it's nasty now and in 25 years will probably be unaffordable. I'd much rather do without SS (as I plan to be able to) than do without Medicare.
I no longer believe politicians are intelligent. There's too much evidence to the contrary.
"I no longer believe politicians are intelligent. There's too much evidence to the contrary."
I disagree
They are not stupid they are pathological lying thieves
Your wife does not have an ugly dress. You just give the beginning of a look, just the faintest outline of "oh", on your face, and to the question she asks about your feeling (re the dress)-you like it. The blue and ...ensemble she wore last week was the top until now, ok, you might like it even better-just sayin'. Because: she knows you. The question is, do you know her? Still working on that.
I'd be straight up with facts and my political take.
Peter
A partial 'opt out' as you suggest Roger might be feasible but it would take some serious number crunching to gauge long-term impact. CBO does that kind of work all the time but I think you'd have to get elected to congress to ask them [g].
OTOH Steve Drone's comment is on target: Medicare/Medicaid and health care/finance/insurance inflation is the core fiscal problem. I'm 'semi-retired' (it's more complicated than that but too long to explain) in part because I could not find coverage for my wife's (stable & non-fatal) pre-existing condition at any price; seriously, after many outright refusals, the best insurance offer I got was $16K/yr with her condition excluded.
I am assuming the repeal of health reform passed by the Republican congress will be killed in the Senate, or barring that, vetoed by the President so my wife can no longer be denied coverage or dumped if she becomes more ill but things have gotten so crazy in this country I'm taking no chances and have a established a (very large) fund to self-insure her if needs be.
interesting that the dress comment is getting so much attention
RW, I guess that is what I'm thinking about as well (potentially self insuring) although this would (hopefully be down the road and with a different circumstance. this is sort of a worst financial case scenario that I hope I would be able to deal with should we ever need to.
What is happening in Madison, Wisconsin is Round 1 of a 15 round heavyweight battle.
Weening the largessse out of public budgets is going to culminate in rage similar to treatment of a crack addict unwilling to ackowledge their affliction.
It's going to be ugly. Those trying to do the right thing had better be ready for character assasination and worse.
T
Roger "...(potentially self insuring) although this would (hopefully be down the road and with a different circumstance. this is sort of a worst financial case scenario that I hope I would be able to deal with should we ever need to"
I recommend building your health care fund if you do not have a business that allows you to pass on the escalating health care cost. Use your $$$ to pay for the best affordable heath care in facilities off shore, Thailand for example. Buy off-shore health insurance that decides whether they will pay for the care per incident in the USA or medic vac you to one of their hospitals. When I lived outside USA I paid for off shore ins worldwide except for a max of 90 days/yr in the USA. I find it utterly amazing that the general public does not understand that they are paying for the most EXPENSIVE universal health care for the non insured. Per WHO the USA has the highest per capita healthcare cost in the World and our per capita health rank among countries is somewhere in the 20's.
Change of subject but relevant-
Are we creating with high unemployment, foreclosures, closing businesses, broke local-state-federal gov't, under funded pension funds, overcrowded schools and rising taxes and possible cost of living via rising standards elsewhere the conditions for mass protesting in the USA? The HAVE-NOT have had it with the HAVES and their political representatives. Kattie bar the door if the voting public gets totally p----- off around election time and puts the Tea party in power. I guess the good old boys will pack their bags and $$$ and become ex-patriots in a more hospitable place.
thanks anon, i've written about medical tourism several times. while i'm certainly no expert i am in touch with the concept.
it fits right in with this conversation.
Caught this interesting commentary "The nest-egg myth" on Google news about "greedy geezers" bankrupting the nation with social security and medicare.
http://lat.ms/ebdeXC
I particularly liked Sen Simpson's description of Social Security as a, "milk cow with 310 million tits."
Any political analysis that invokes assumptions or beliefs rather than assessing policy beneficiaries is worthless.
For example, promoting the belief that public workers should be paid dramatically less than their private sector counterparts benefits whom? When competent bureaucrats have incentives to migrate away from government or betray their charge, when (b) government services are delivered less competently and (c) a 'starved' government becomes unable to adequately protect citizens/consumers from fraud ...who profits?
That's your culprit.
NB: ex-Sen Simpson has so many government benefits above and beyond SS and Medicare one might wonder why he doesn't add them to the tits-O-shame (TOS) except, when you think about it, it's really no mystery at all; they're his sucking teats and therefore, quite obviously, richly deserved. [LOL]
"reducing your taxable income"
yes , in the face of a $1.5 trillion annual deficit , let's allow the well / highly compensated to shelter / defer yet more of their income from taxes .
u strike me as a smart fellow . surely , u can do better than this .
We've set up our health care in this country to be profitable enterprises. Now, we wonder why the cost keeps skyrocketing. We can't have it both ways.
"We've set up our health care in this country to be profitable enterprises. Now, we wonder why the cost keeps skyrocketing. We can't have it both ways.
11:46 AM"
I wonder
Why USA pharmaceutical drugs sell as much as 50% less than USA price in a number of other countries, such as Mexico and Canada?
One reason for skyrocketing insurance cost is the cost of joint replacements, etc that were not included in initial estimated long term health care costs. Knee and Hip replacements were rare 20 years ago. Seniors use to accept knee and hip issues as part of old age, today the joint is replaced so they may move without discomfort and walk, play golf, tennis, hike. I know of one person who has had 2 hip replacements and 1 knee. Hopefully these will improve his quality of life. He nor his employer did not put $$ in the kiddy for such care. I suspect this trend will continue, if we can afford it. Someday they will be able to identify, locate and destroy harmful cells in our body, such as cancer or Alzheimer or ?. See, MIT Tech newsletter. These solutions should be available to all and can be if we use some common sense way of monetizing it, maybe with universal healthcare via universal tax.
How about throwing out all the current tax code, period, even the rum tax which is collected and distributed to Jamaica and Puerto Rico to encourage their producing the product. Come on folks. Lets rewrite the tax code. Start with a flat tax or wherever, lets just start. We are innovative Americans, we can do it.
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