AMAC’s Founder, Dan Weber
According to the Wall Street Journal AARP has decided to accept some changes in Social Security to assure that it will continue to be financially stable. However as soon as the story came out and was broadly circulated its C.E.O., A. Barry Rand issued a statement saying AARP has not changed its position on being against changes in Social Security.
But, Mr. Rand in his statement said their position is “that any changes would be phased in slowly, over time and would not affect any current or near term beneficiaries”.
In response, Dan Weber, president of AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens, said “that sure sounds like he is in favor of making changes to me”.
AMAC, which bills itself as the conservative alternative to AARP is the fastest growing organization for older Americans according to Weber.
“We have over 160,000 paid members and are growing stronger each day.” Weber said, “And while AARP is waffling AMAC has proposed serious changes in Social Security that will stabilize Social Security and allow people to have more money when they are retired than the present system.”
Weber explained the AMAC proposal was to incorporate the change recommended by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and others, to raise the age when a recipient would receive their full benefit from age 66 to age 69. The new age would start to be implemented in 2013 and won’t be fully phased in until 2018.
The key difference between their suggested changes and ours is that we would also incorporate the mandatory offering of a new “Social Security IRA” to anyone who would be affected by the change in age. The SS IRA would be tax deductible, payroll deducted and put into an individual IRA owned by the wage earner. The funds invested would not be accessible until either age 62 or 65. It could be started with as little as $5 per week and be put into a plan offered by the same companies that presently offer IRAs and 401ks.
Fifty percent or more of the funds would have to be invested in guaranteed interest accounts so the person would be guaranteed to have gains in at least half of their funds.
Weber said “It is unfair to force Americans to continue to work until age 69, especially those who work in occupations that require physical labor. People who are farmers, construction workers, laborers, skilled tradesmen such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, masons and other workers have punished their bodies after years of labor suffer from various ailments that white collar workers generally avoid.
They should be able to stop working at a lower age and the SS IRA would allow anyone to do that.
At the same time, extending the full age to 69 would make Social Security stable for many years in the future. Weber ended by saying “It is time for the political leaders of both parties to have courage, and stand up to solve this problem by adopting the AMAC plan.”
25 years later instead of walking in to ever increasing help homeless organizations, charity, shelter, housing center or social service programs getting billions in funding and walking out with your own safe place to sleep Still normal people no kids single working or unemployed are not given keys to a kitchenette or SRO nothing but a stack of papers containing the same useless statistics and study info from 25 years ago. you sign up for services, told to include personal info so organizations ave proof they helped you so they get paychecks and receive funding for nothing.
you are handed a stack of useless info told you don’t qualify or no assistance is available and left wandering around in the streets. all money funding useless organizations can be put on a cash card for normal people to pay rent for millions of homeless directly.
It is easy to agree with many of the above comments. The concession given to those who worked in manual labor fields can be assigned based on their having put their occupation on their 1040’s for a certain number of years. But a medical exam confirming their infirmities would help make this fair.
“Business owners” should not be unfairly taxed. Many or most are sole proprietors and small businesses, which has no correlation with “wealth”.
They get no tax benefit from being in this type business.
Abortions don’t result in reducing wage earners/taxpayers. In fact it is much more likely to reduce unwanted children who will be raised on our welfare.
Yes, there should be no taxes on SS income, and state and federal employees and politicians should all be under the same rules of taxation and retirement benefits as we are.
The big problem with social Security, it is not authorized by the Constitution. SS can not be fixed it must be abolished. The problem is how to make whole the citizens that had their money stolen for many years. They deserve all their funds back plus a suitable rate of interest. How to do this, cut everything in the budget that is not authorized by the Constitution, probably better than 90%. This amount must be used to make the citizens whole. BTW, there is one major difference between a Ponzi Scheme and SS, no one is forced to join a Ponzi Scheme. Joe Stalin’s best friend FDR, if he was still alive, should be sharing a 8 X 10 room with Bernie Madoff. And I am not a kid, but 66 and getting some of my stolen money back. What else would you call it when something is taken under duress. Don’t pay your FICA and see what happens.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the retirement age for Social Security has already been raised. If you were born in 1960 or later, full benefits do not kick in until you are 67. I was born in 1942 and had to wait until 65 and 10 months for full benefits. What is two years going to do? Are we going to eliminate the reduced SS at 62 part of the program?
Why not take the limits off of the amount of earnings subject to SS taxes? This was done for Medicare so why not SS? Everyone in society benefits from SS so everyone should contribute. I am for 100% of earnings being subject to SS taxes.
Problem Solved!
Congress was not initially set up to be a luxury. They themselves have made it that way. Take the luxury and big benefits out of the hat. Then the liars, lazy and crooks will not try so hard to get into the office. Only the ones who really want to help will run for those offices. Once they are voted out – back to the workforce instead of the country club. The reason why our gov’t makes stupid decisions about our money is that it has no effect on them.
Keep the billions that we are giving away to countries that don’t care about us.
Aliens have NO right to anything free. We have opened our borders and our arms to people who are bleeding us dry, stealing from us, killing us and performing terrorist acts.
I have a membership with Amac. My question is, do you have coverage for prescribed medicine? I have not received anything but,’not found’, If I can not receive a answer, I will cancel my membership. B. Dale Peters
I would like to echo the concern that legislators won’t be affected by a rise in SS retirement age. I would strongly suggest that AMAC push for introduction of a law that brings legislators under the very same laws and rules across the board that individuals are subject to! “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more
dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the
hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” – Thomas Sowell
Btw, I disagree with AMAC’s support of raising the SS age. The age was part of an agreement that workers counted on. SS funds should never have been spent. I paid it in–I get in back. Simple as that.
I’m 56 and feel we definitely need to (a) “reduce speeding to get the deficit under control, and (b) reduce the size of the government and its over regulation/legislation/etc to allow small and mid size businesses to get back on their feet. To that end, a asap plan should be adopted to raise the starting age to apply for Social Security (FICA) benefits. PS … Truly, I’d be thankful to die as working stiff if it would fix some of the damage that our generation let happen on our watch … the USA is the land of milk and honey, but we just ate/drank and while the scoundrels took over.
thomas.
if i give back 5% i would lose a lot of money per month and can not afford the loss. however i would be willing to give it up IFi knew it would not be misshandled and based upon what is happening it has been misshandled for years.
The disgrace is that there are illegal aliens in this country collecting SS benefits. And not only that, they are receiving medicaid and welfare if they are not old enough for SS. If our government stopped all these illegal ‘entitlements’ and stopped all the foreign aid, we could probably give each citizen a check for several thousand dollars. I think it’s despicable ….helping illegals while ignoring the plight of senior Americans. And not just seniors…..our troops come home and many of them wind up homeless and begging on the streets. What kind of country have we turned into?
Yes the whole thing is a massive ponzi scheme and Congress could care less.
But to be honest, I believe there’s an economic coup taking place in America. What else can it be!
The way to fix SS is to get the people who have never paid into it, off of it!! We would not have to raise the age if we did this. I know people who live in a condo free, medical free and get money free, who have never paid a single dime into it. CHANGE THE CULTURE AND U CHANGE THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!
I have paid into ss all my life…Had mine and my companies withholdings been put in a normal interest bearing savings account (not dependent on anything but the current interest rate) I would have over $470K and my wife over 100K. I would be glad to give up my ss retirement for the monies I would have earned. There is so much tax money wasted (even collecting it) I can’t believe we shouldn’t have the funds. I would have switched over at 30 yrs old and gave up my benefits (it was talked about back then) I’m willing to pay more taxes now to insure ss stability but not with the wasted spending going on. Guess there will be alot of street dwellers in the future. Funny how all the jobs paid for by taxes seem to have great benefits and retirement accounts. My friend has a military pension (never seen combat) and can still draw his whole ss benefit. If I retire and go to work I can make about $14K a year before I start losing benefits. The answer, who knows? But I think we should spend some time talking about this instead of all the crap I hear on the news.
Simpson was making the ronuds of the news shows a few weeks ago, and quirky doesn’t describe what I heard. I heard the mental looseness and word salad of a man in the early stages of dementia. How ironic.
Social Security is a “ponzi scheme” and the suggested changes do not change that. What AMAC suggests is a temporary answer…NOT a solution. There is no Social Security Fund. In spite of what Mr. Warren Lunsford says, there is NO MONEY in the fund. ALL the money goes into the Federal Government’s General Fund to be spent as Congress wishes. There ain’t no money honey. Social Security payments are made from the General Fund. The only real solution is to privatize the system…get the Fed out of the way of the citizen. Had I been allowed to invest my money rather than give it to Uncle Sam, I (and you!) would be making two to three times what I get in Social Security. The proof is in the various local governments and private companies that opted out at the beginning and started private investment programs in lieu of Social Security. In addition, people who were allowed to ‘opt out’ have all the money to pass on to their children. What do those of us who were forced into Social Security have? Not a damn thing. We pay into the system…the government tells us how much of our money they will allow us to have each back each month and when we die…the government gets the money. To be fair, most of us will get back much more than we paid into the system because we are “living too long.” But…the system is broke and we have to keep coming up with more stringent requirements to keep it afloat. Obviously, those already collecting Social Security and those within 15 or even 20 years should be allowed to remain in the system if they want. But, those just entering the system should be placed into a private system and those who are over 15 or 20 years away from receiving benefits should receive a partial payment from Social Security, with the rest coming from their private account. In time, this would take the Government out of it and we would never have to go through this idiocy again. Get the Government out of the retirement and welfare and health care businesses and we would all be MUCH better off. For those of you who cannot take care of yourself and need the nanny state to take care of you…Move to Cuba. They have the correct system of government for you!
The fed government has two key constitutional powers,
1) to maintain a standing army and navy
2) to protect the rights of the CITIZENS of the USA
The fed needs to get out of the banking business. If I had saved my social security and medicare taxes in my credit union, I would be wealthy.
I agree with Warren Lunsford “Having mature people retire later will not work in a market that discriminates against workers over 50 to save on health insurance costs. Too many workers over 50 are unemployed for this reason.” I am about to turn 63 and stated collecting at 62 because I am unable to find full time employment with benefits. I have worked for over 40 years and never had difficulty finding employment until this economic fiasco. Unemployment is still over 12% in this part of FL and that is not counting thousands of others in my same situation who are not even considered in these figures. I also agree with another who stated that Congressional pensions are afforded to representatives who meet a minimum of 5 years of service. What a joke, they vote to dip into our lifelong fund while their own “retirement” benefits remain secure. I think we can save a lot of money by voting them all out of office before they meet 5 yrs. What part of “We the people, …..promote the general welfare….” don’t they get? Promote what is best for the average hard working American, not the priviledged few!!!!! We need to remind Congress just who they work for.
I believe I have a FAIR solution to our Social Security problem ; it would help to have our Congress pay the same way they want us to pay. Since they have spent so much of our tax money on senseless things , let them raise their retirement age for THEIR retirement to the 65 0r 69 years of age they want us to. Change THEIR pension age from 55 to the age they want us to have. I think they should be FAIR to the American People and do this as a gesture on their part. FAIR IS FAIR. A BETTER IDEA IS TO PUT ALL OF CONGRESS INTO THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM. THEY DEFINETLY WOULD DO THINGS WITH ALOT MORE SENSE. See if they would raise the retirement age if they were in the same system. I say they would never.
Keep the 62 and 65 years of age the way it is now for all in the future. Get this GREAT COUNTRY back to work. You will have the money pouring in to pay the future Social Security recipients for a long,long, time.Lets not do the easy way out. Anyone can do that. Let’s get Congress to think and use their brains that God gave them. God Bless America.
I think the answer is simple. If you want Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid fixed put Congress on those programs. It seems to me they are only good at making rules for others but none that apply to them. We should have 1 new Ammendment that Congress and all the folks that are supposed to be working for us can never pass any Law, Ammendment etc. that does not affect and pertain to them first.
I am confused about this whole Social Security deal. I paid into the social security plan all my life. Later in life, I wised up and started a 401K type account. I should have been fine at retirement. However, fate put me on a different path.
11 years ago I had a simple hernia operation that did not go well. I have been permanently disabled every since. It has taken all my 401K savings to keep going, pay my bills, etc. That account is now empty. My long term disability insurance is due to expire as soon as I turn 65. What happens to those of us on SSDI if they raise the age of retirement? I would hope that my long term disability and my SSDI would continue, but with the way things are going, I won’t hold my breath! Taxes eat up a good portion of the SSDI and disability insurance. I never understood why payments from insurance companies are tax free, unless it’s long term disability. I’m taxed on my disability insurance and taxed on my SSDI. I paid a penalty for closing the IRA account and IRS is hitting me with penalties and interest in the years I can’t afford to pay the extra 3 to $5000 above what I already paid in.
Am I still going to be able to collect SSDI until whatever age retirement they come up with or should I start planning on being homeless in my old age?
Has Congress paid back ALL of the money they have taken from to SS coiffers? If they had left that money alone without thinking it was just a big pile of money for them to play with, we wouldn’t be in this situation!
Why is it seniors, social security, medicare, teachers, police and fire, why do all of these take hits when our govt screws up? I propose that everyone from the White House down to anyone working for Congress be the first to lose their pay in any crises where someone is not going to get paid. Instead of using scare tactics like telling seniors they won’t get their checks, all those who actually caused the problem by overspending should lose their pay until they get it fixed! They should be the first to lose their pay and the last to be reinstated. Govt has had it to soft for far too long. They alone should be held accountable for their actions. It isn’t enough to say sorry, or point the finger at someone else. They need to actually experience what we experience!
At 60 I have no plans to retire I have plans if when I am forced into retirement , I know many seniors When younger spent my time going to weddings and parties now i spend my time going to funerals RETIREMENT is a contagious desease when you retire you die . on the flip side I had my first paying job at 13 ,I think a lot of us Baby boomers started work very young and as such we have been paying in for a very long time ( where’s all that money ) And why wasn’t it invested , I did the math , I really would prefer that they refund my money , I could re invest it in dividend stock and get a bigger check which brings up the question why was not the surplus all these years invested , OH THATS RIGHT our untrustworthy elected spent it , Leason learned WE NEED A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT ,