[simonsarris]

> How severe? A sustainable U.S. debt trajectory would entail elimination of nearly all defense spending or almost all non-defense discretionary outlays, he estimated.

Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt.

Social Security was made when there were ~130:1 worker:retiree ratio, now its closer to 3:1 and getting worse. The budget is largely an exercise in transferring money from the younger to the older. Unlike when SS started and the older generations were the poorest, right now they are the richest, so its an exercise in making the richest generations a bit richer at the expense of the current working generations.

Since debt is now a large part of the US budget, this represents the retiree generation (again, the richest generation!) borrowing from even farther in the future to give themselves more money.

There is no solution that doesn't confront this. The old are eating the young at an accelerated pace. People will say things like "But seniors are on a fixed income" as if that didn't represent most people, more or less, or justify the sheer scale of the wealth transfer.

The most realistic solution is that we would have to stop all kinds of benefits to already-rich people and make it solely and exclusively on poverty reduction for the retirees that are in fact poor.

[nobodyandproud]

Gen-X here. I’ve grown up with the warning non-stop that Social Security will become insolvent.

My question is this: If I can’t get some or most it, why can’t I steer the money to where I believe the money ought to go?

[simonsarris]

There's no steering anything. You are not paying for yourself, you are paying for current retirees on the hopes that there will be enough people to pay for your. Current retirees are not getting enough from that, so they are accumulating debt to pay themselves even more, hence the article.

Since the population pyramid has not worked that way, you will simply have a worse time, and younger people even worse, unless you can convince the people after to take on even more debt.

"Children are the retirement plan" has been true all along, only obfuscated. It would have been more sensible if social security payouts were contingent on how much tax revenue your children made, rather than the current model.

[potato3732842]

>Since the population pyramid has not worked that way, you will simply have a worse time, and younger people even worse, unless you can convince the people after to take on even more debt.

Why is "just pay current recipients enough to get them to STFU and phase out the program" not an option?

It's not like anyone under 60 didn't at least have some expectation SS might go tits up. Younger genx on down have been raised to expect nothing so they won't be too sad. They'll be happy to stop paying if anything.

[whimsicalism]

gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate.

even many in my Gen Z cohort would be pissed, although i would be celebrating

[potato3732842]

>gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate.

I think that's filter bubble speaking. People who aren't ideologically in favor of entitlements would likely be mildly for or against. People who are ideologically against entitlements would consider it a good thing.

[Taikonerd]

I feel like even people who don't care much about ideology care a great deal about how much they, personally, are going to be paid.

Especially if they amount they're going to be paid is going from $LOTS to zero.

[whimsicalism]

Soon-to-be recipients stand to lose out on tens of thousands of dollars from SS cuts. I think this would skew the normal distribution of ideological views you are imagining far more than you think.

Don’t think this is “filter bubble” as I don’t interact with many Gen Xers and the ones I do likely skew skeptical of SS.

[Hammershaft]

Children are the retirement plan but tax revenue positive migrants can also plug the gap.

[phil21]

Because social security tax is simply a tax like any other, and social security is a pay as you go means tested entitlement program like any other.

Current workers pay for current retirees. There is no account anywhere with your name on it earmarked for your retirement.

It was enacted with lawmakers well knowing this - it was simply marketed in such a way to make it politically possible to enact and keep around long-term. If it were pitched as an additional tax and spend welfare program it’d have never gotten off the ground to begin with.

Without your dollars going in today, current retirees would not be receiving meaningful benefits - as their contributions largely went towards those retired while they were working. The whole idea is more of a social contract between generations than anything else.

[nobodyandproud]

I understand the perspective and I don't disagree with it, but the problem that spawned social security doesn't go away. It takes a crushing amount of time and money to take care of your aging parents, unless we go down a very dark route, and many elderly are abandoned and it becomes a societal mess.

Some approaches I was mulling over:

1. The easiest way is to dilute SS without pushing the years down even further is to remove the required COLA adjustments.

It's probably the easiest; also the least imaginative; and may be too slow.

2. The other is what the other poster mentioned: Real social security really comes down to your kids; and this is what I think should be the basis for a "new deal".

This has to be done very carefully--I can see so many ways this can be abused--but longer-term I think giving some sort of tax break or even tax credit--based on the social security numbers of the parents--allocated by the parent(s).

For the family that can't do it full-time, they can then use that credit or offset to hire some help.

Thoughts?

Edit: I went through this but with hired help. It was both necessary and awful; and I wish I had an option to help my parents directly full-time, but I didn't have the means at the time (I suppose I still don't).

Edit 2: Fixing social security alone doesn't address the wider fiscal problem. It's almost a drop in the bucket. Healthcare is the problem.

[whimsicalism]

The American elderly are in 2025 the richest generation to have ever existed in human history. Elder poverty can be solved with a comparably much smaller transfer scheme than what we have crafted.

[nobodyandproud]

Sigh. I don’t mean the elderly now or even my generation.

I mean the elderly in 50 years time, when Gen Zers and younger have to deal with the same question.

[salawat]

In other words: Ponzi scheme, rather than any sustainable retirement mechanism.

[setr]

It’s a tax. You could describe any beneficiaries of a tax in the same manner; we’re paying taxes to at least partially cover group X - homeless, scientists, military, retirees, veterans, etc.

There’s no debt being paid; money is simply taken from Peter, and money is simply given to Paul.

It’s not a retirement program, it’s retirement subsidization.

[salawat]

I don't think I'm willing to grant you Social Security as a proper "tax" or "subsidy" unless you're going to pitch me that Social Security is really, in essence, an incentive program for unrestrained natalism to keep population above replacement with all the Manifest Destiny/imperialistic implications and aspirations that come with it, and further, a commitment by the people who started it to never under any circumstances inform descendants of it's true nature.

If you are willing to concede the above, I'll reclassify it as a proper "subsidy" insomuch as it was a law that was passed, and it is a clear act by the government to incentivize activity "X". At which point my discussion will quickly turn to "Holy shit, why are we still trying to empire build in the year of our Lord 2025? Shouldn't we have changed this by now?"

If not... Still seeing it as a Ponzi. A fundamentally degenerate and unstable financial model, intended only to benefit the people who have been in it the longest solely for the purpose of self-enrichment. Well branded, mind; who doesn't want Social Security? But a Ponzi in essence nevertheless.

[lotsofpulp]

Without sufficient automation, all forms of retirement are inherently a Ponzi scheme, unless there is a cap to the age or amount of benefits received in retirement.

[whimsicalism]

we also yeet a ton of money on low efficacy medicare/medicaid where large scale experimental trials and lotteries show limited impact on health outcomes at all.

[expedition32]

Any kind of benefits system the middle class does not qualify for will find itself quickly cancelled through elections.

[qeternity]

> Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt.

The US Government is an enormous welfare program with a military on the side.

Whenever people talk about the rich paying their fair share, they simply fail to grasp the enormity of the problem. There is no taxing your way out of this problem.

Society's expectations have far outpaced our fiscal strength.

[slillibri]

Reminder that social security is funded entirely by a separate tax and not debt, so unless you are planning to cut benefits but continue the tax it would do nothing to reduce the deficit or debt.

[Taikonerd]

IIUC, in the future, the SS tax isn't going to cover the benefits that SS will be obliged to pay out. So some analyses model the shortfall as coming out of the government's general budget.

So, yeah, it's "separate" spending in a sense, but it's not totally in its own sandbox.

[Acrobatic_Road]

This is already the case. Social Security has been running a deficit since 2010. It's only stayed solvent because of the trust fund, which is expected to run out in around seven years. So the government is currently keeping it afloat using general budget revenue.

[whimsicalism]

Yes that is what is being proposed.