(04-03-2018 09:46 PM)Claw Wrote:  What is it with you people that just beg to give the government control of your money?

401K's. Medical Savings Accounts. Now government mandated retirement accounts.

My God, what is wrong with you people? It is YOUR MONEY. Quit giving them more control over you.

You actually are making my argument. By replacing Social Security, I am proposing that government give you back control of your money. The only difference is that by transitioning from a tax to mandatory retirement savings, one never incurs any additional burden - your paycheck doesn’t go down, and you have control over your retirement funds.

In the purest sense, a 401(k) and Health Savings Accounts are not giving government control of your money anyway, but the setup is cumbersome and generally favors those who work for others - the self-employed, business owners, and those who choose to work part-time may not always have access to those options due to their tax treatment. The proposed replacement for Social Security still keeps those options on the table.

The present system allows government to borrow against your Social Security benefits, which as noted above are only designed to replace a certain percentage of your income. This keeps the rest of the government out of the cookie jar, meaning your funds plus whatever earnings they accumulate will be there when you retire, whether it’s at 59.5, 62, 67, or 77.

Keep in mind what I also propose eliminates the employer side of the tax and gives those funds to wage earners (and likewise, the self-employed aren’t paying as much SE tax, and getting those funds directed to their retirement).

In other words, if you like your retirement plan, you can keep your retirement plan. And my proposal gives your more money to put into it.

For those who may not need to put 22.4% of their gross pay into retirement (12.4% from the former tax, plus 10% on their own), this would potentially free up billions of dollars into the economy for other spending.