If You Are A Baby Boomer - the real reason YOU SHOULD BE FURIOUS over CPI cuts:

[customerserviceguy]

142. And if we had the expanding economies of the 50's, 60's

and most of the 70's through the 90's, then things might have stayed in balance. Also, if the boomers had managed to reproduce at the rates their parents did, we'd be in fine shape right now. With the workforce shrinking, and their paychecks shrinking as well (relative to inflation), we're going to hit the wall sooner than even the rosy predictions of the Social Security Trustees.

Right now, there is NO money coming in to that fund in excess of the amounts it's paying out. The only thing that has kept it in balance is some interest payments, which of course have to be borrowed in part. When interest rates go up (they cannot possibly go down any lower than they are now) this will be a major drain on the Federal budget for all sorts of interest spending. If we get even a normal amount of inflation, as measured by post WWII figures, COLA's will dissolve that surplus in a few years. And the only possible ways of redeeming the specialized Treasury securities is to either borrow more (using traditionally negotiable securities like T-notes and T-bills) run budget surpluses, or inflate the currency. That last option is the default one.

Do the math: The peak of the baby boom was 1957. By the time they hit full-benefits retirement age at 66 1/2 years, it will be 2023. In other words, we will have increasing numbers of people reaching Social Security retirement age for the next TEN years. Even the receeding side of the boom (it was figured by most demographers as being over with by 1964) means we have another seven years of high numbers of retirees. Yes, some will work longer, but others, unable to find work in their sixties, will take the early retirement option. And most of the boomers will still be living and collecting benefits by the time the baby boom has finished entering the system. The life expectancy for the leading edge, those born in 1946, is eighty five years old. Two decades from now, almost half of them will still be with us.

Yes, I am in favor of raising the cap, but carefully. Right now, the maximum monthly benefit is tied to that cap, and I don't want to see boomer CEO's paying a few tens of thousands for the next few years, just to get hundreds of thousands per year for the next 20-30 after that. Right now, the payouts are determined in tiers, we need to keep dropping the payout tiers for whatever we raise the cap to. And no, I certainly don't think that raising the cap is going to bring in all that much money. How many people do you know who make more than that cap?

Also, calling someone else's arguments "right wing talking points" is a poor substitute for refuting those statements. Mathematics doesn't do politics.