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116 sats \ 7 replies \ @SwapMarket 12h \ on: The US taxes younger workers and gives their money to wealthier retirees charts_and_numbers
Why does the state have to pay old people? It is their problem they did not plan for retirement and ended up with no money. Maybe I'm biased because no state will pay me.
The original idea of social security of in the US was that people paid in and got their money back...(okay, I don't know if that was the original idea or not, but I can't imagine how else they sold it to everyone). So, it's kinda like they're supposed to give your money back.
But inflation and shitty politicians using the money for other things means it's just a wealth transfer and no one is really happy.
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The original idea was forcing people to save for retirement, providing a risk-free program, and reducing the public problem of broke old people. It was a good solution in that a lot of people really don't have much of anything saved.
The reason to give older folks their social security is that it's the return on their investment from when they were younger. Not giving it to them would break the promise. And those payments are built into people's retirement plans. You want to not pay them out, then you gotta refund all the money they put in. With interest.
And we do, btw, claw it back from rich people. We tax social security benefits (something Trump wants to eliminate) and people with higher income get taxed at a higher rate. If you're rich, your retirement income is still high as you liquidate investments for living expenses, so you're paying high tax rates on that income. Perhaps you're also living in a high-tax state. That's even more clawback.
But the real reason not to change the program is that it just pays the elderly poor, it becomes a target, just like SNAP. All the lies and machinations designed to kill the social safety net will apply to social security. And pretty soon, we'll have a program that's been trimmed and trimmed and trimmed until it is only used by our poorest and least powerful. And then some asshole will kill it off entirely because preventing people from starving looks like "waste" to people with no empathy.
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Not giving it to them would break the promise.
the promise is kinda already broken, though, isn't it? I have to pay social security tax on my income, but who actually thinks it will be there in 20 or 30 years when I'm supposed to get it?
If they manage to have any dollars there it will be because they print them, which is really just taking it from me again.
At this point, I'd settle for them keeping all the money they've taken from me, not giving me any social security whatsoever, but not taking any more money from me, either.
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We know it's a ponzi in every country now. Self investment in plans like 401k and IRA is a way to go.
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I often wonder about the likelihood of shotgun taxation for 401ks and IRAs. What exactly stops the gov't from deciding they are going to tax the gains on those funds when people try to pull them out? They seem to have no problem changing the age at which you can begin to withdraw without a penalty...
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But they do tax the payouts, except Roth IRA. Pay-ins are pre-tax (except Roth). Age yes, they do change that. And marginal tax rates in the future can be higher than today.
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right, i was thinking of Roths.
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