There is no trust fund. There are a lot of IOUs sitting around that will be very difficult to redeem without new taxes. Not making the last round of tax cuts permanent would go a long way toward solving the problem. It is the same old "Let's look like the good guys and let the next guy take the fall" routine. As I understand the plan currently being considered, people would not have a choice about paying into a stock account and would only have the ability to choose among 3 - 4 different stock plans which they would NOT manage. They would be managed by firms appointed by the government. How much corruption do you think that plan is good for? Quite frankly what do you think the combined effect will be of lowering the capital gains tax, lowering the tax on dividends, and artifically inflating the stock market because everyone is forced into it. Call me a pessimist, but I think this will be the biggest money grab by the rich that this country has ever seen, which is saying something. With the stock market artificially inflated, rich stockholders can get out and leve the rest of us holding the bag when reality sets in. One political pundit asked a very interesting question: If investing social security money in the stock market is such a good idea, why doesn't the government do it? The obvious reason is that they don't want to give us a defined benefit. We are to shoulder all of the risk even though we will have minimal control. I really hate that the package is being sold to younger workers as a way to get out from under supporting their elders. It sounds great! Why should they have to spend their income supporting fogies? Maybe because we supported our grandparents and then our parents. Maybe that's why. Setting up generational conflict is a nasty campaign trick. That sort of thing is done all the time. We are made to argue amongst ourselves who is worthy of welfare, forgetting that what we should be doing is figuring why in this wealthy nation of ours there isn't enough money to go around.

I called the local office and was told that the congressman that WAS in our small town, is an attorney now...though it still has him on the Internet as the congressman for our county...Shows you how little I keep up with politics. The lady gave me a number to call our "new" congressman...Phil Gringey. Who's office is not located in our town. I spoke with a man briefly, mentioning the social security letter and medicare...He said that he would have to send us a form to fill out, to get our permission for them to "look into it." Social Security called yesterday and told us the "Reconsider" was turned down. That we could file an appeal to Waiver it...I said, Ok., and they'll send a paper to file out. Seems that you have 2 options after SS claims they overpaid you...One is that you want them to Reconsider the situation because you don't believe that you are at fault in any way...the other is a Waiver...that asks them to waive it because you're not financially able to pay it back. Doubt that is in our favor either...because I told the SS lady yesterday that I don't see how we can live on $229.00 a week...and she said, "Sure you can." I asked, How?...and she said, "Just sit down and go over what you owe, and you'll see that you can eliminate a few of them." She didn't say what "them" were. Eliminate what? water? phone? electricity? gas? insurance? food?

I know that joyful, but it's all a part of being healthy. If we live long enough we will all probably have cancer. I found this article very interesting. Man, Environment And Life Expectancy By Edward Grimsley In the beginning, the air and all the rivers, lakes, and oceans were clean and pure. And darkness was upon the face of the deep much of the time. Man spent most of his time looking for food and shelter, and shivering, clothing made from fig leaves not being very warm. Finally, he learned that animals were useful not only as food but also to provide clothing and shelter, since their pelts and hides could be used for cloaks and tents and so forth. He became a hunter and hunted all the time without a twinge of remorse, since there was no animal\-rights movement to tell him he was doing wrong. So he roamed the earth, searching for food and shelter, breathing the pure air and drinking the pure water. He had plenty of room to roam, for the Earth was not crowded in those pristine and prehistoric days. The average life span, you see, was only 18 years. Man limited his activity to the daylight hours, of course, since he had no light strong enough to dispel the darkness that covered the face of the deep several hours of each day. He was in bed by sundown, which means that he spent much of his short life in unconscious sleep. Over the centuries, life changed. Man discovered the fire, which provided heat and light. True, it burned forests, and occasionally human beings, but people decided the advantages of fire more than offset its dangers. Through the years, more and more people began to live in permanent villages, towns, and cities. They dumped their garbage into the streets and nearby streams and rivers. Thus they invented pollution. And life expectancy rose, reaching 30 years by Roman Times. Man continued to develop and change. Eventually he invented candles. Then he discovered that lamps fueled by oil, from whatever source, produced stronger light than candles. Since whales were a good sourced of lamp oil, people killed a lot of whales in those days. But there was less darkness upon the face of the deep. People could even see to read at night. Hardly anyone spoke out in defense of whales. In the 18th and 19th centuries, man moved into the Industrial Age. This featured factories that filled the air with black smoke and poured new pollutants into the rivers and lakes. Man breathed poison 24 hours a day. His live expectancy jumped to about 40 years. Miracle followed miracle. The industrial revolution led to the internal combustion engine in automobiles. Soon there were millions of these vehicles running about the globe spewing fumes into the air. Somebody invented cigarettes. With factory smokestacks, cigarettes, and automobiles filling the air with foul particles, lungs didnt know what fresh air felt like. Since the internal combustion engines and the factory furnaces and the power generators needed fuel, man drilled for oil and transported it hither and yon. Now and then he spilled some, polluting the rivers, lakes, and oceans. And his life expectancy soared beyond 60 years. And so it has gone most of this century. Good lighting provided by generators powered by coal, oil and nuclear energy has dispelled much of the darkness from the face of the deep, which means people no longer have to lie down when the sun does. Factories have produced machines that have made life easier and richer than prehistoric man ever thought it could be. Once forced to spend most of his waking moments merely to obtain the necessities of life, man now has leisure time in abundance. He can play at home or, if he chooses, hop aboard an airplane and fly to another playground on the other side of the globe in a matter of hours. And his life expectancy is about 75 years. From all this, it would appear that pollution is manÂs best friend, since the dirtier the environment, the longer he lives, and the more he prospers. Pollution actually is a very bad thing, however as the experts have been telling us for days in observance of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Civilization is doomed, they warn, unless people cleanup the air and water, stop smoking cigarettes, stop cutting down old trees, save the spotted owl, and recycle everything. Exactly how man can restore the purity of the air and waters and preserve the forests while retaining all the benefits of industrialization and technological progress is not clear. But future generations probably will have time to figure it out. Experts predict that babies born in this highly polluted year of 1990 may live an average of 110 years. Distributed by Heritage Features Syndicate.

I think Social Security will be bankrupt pretty soon. As Rosemary pointed out, most people are collecting far more than they ever put in and it can't be sustained. But you also can't shut people off because for a vast majority of seniors, it's their only income. I suspect there will be reform in the future. Not because the government actually cares about grandma and grandpa but because there's a huge portion of the electoral base who will be pretty angry if they lose their benefits or are told there's nothing left. THAT will be the only thing that dictates a change - fear of losing an election. As a disclosure I'll say I'm not talking about anyone in this thread and I'm not angry at people who receive SS. It's the plan and it's unfairness that bothers me. Just general annoyance at having money stolen from me every paycheck under the promise that it will support me in 40 years when I need it. Yeah right. And yes, I do consider it stealing because it's mandatory and there is NO guarantee that it will be available when you're due to collect. The irony is that if it were a private company running this instead of the government, I don't think it would be legal! Imagine the electric company deciding to collect $100 extra from everyone every month. This is a mandatory charge but they say that in another 20 years, you will never have to pay another electric bill. However, there's small print saying that you will only get free electric if there is any money left to cover it, and if the money is gone, you will have to keep paying for your own electric and all of the previous tens of thousands that was collected from you will not be returned. Can you say lawsuit? lol