There should be a lock box, or in other words, they should keep their hands out of the till and use is strictly for what it is intended for.

Kenneth, I'm talking about the past. You WERE talking about the Waltons, so that is what I commented on. You said it was a failure from the start, but those terms cannot apply to today, unless you want to go back to where it was then and undo what has happened. Now if that is not the message that you were trying to portray, then My bad.

so the first priority should be to LOCK THE SS BOX, today!! of course, it may be too late by now.

Kenneth, when the families were still taking care of their elderly, what was their life expectancy? What kind of healthcare did they get when they were poor?
Should we go back to that so the elderly die younger? Is that you meaning?
I'm just wondering what your comment has to do with today becaused family farms could never make it today. Big business already put most of them out of business.

Suzy..."I was just saying that we pay into SS, and at the end of the year, if there is any left, it is taken from one account and put somewhere else. WHY??"

Well, Suzy, the answer to "why" is simple. Because the money was there and no politician can resist spending available money. Congress critters are notoriously short-sighted. They didn't intend to loot the trust fund. They just wanted to take a little for a pet project. By the time a hundred thousand little pet projects were paid for, the trust fund was empty. It's just another instance of congress putting the financial burden on later generations to pay for current projects. Well, it's about time that the bill is coming due. The Social Security payments that are being paid and will continue to be paid will come from -- you guessed it -- present and future deficets. It just makes the debt larger. But, you know what? I lived up to my end of the bargain. For more than 40 years, I've paid into the system, solvent or not; corrupt of not, I've paid into it because I had no choice. Now that I'm getting ready to reap the benefits of the Social Security system, I EXPECT that I'll get my checks regardless of the burden it places on future generations of workers. Mean, selfish? Perhaps, but that's the way it is.

Ken..."the SS system people had less children because they relied on the system instead of children. So they had less children. There are a large number of non-partisan demographic and statistical studies that bear this out."

When Social Security was started, America was a mostly rural, agrarian nation. Families were large because there was a need for many kids to help on the family farm. Their taking care of their parents when they grew old and unable to work was a by-product. As American society became more urban and people moved to cities for jobs in industry, the need for large families decreased markedly. Rather than being an economic asset on the family farm, large numbers of children became a financial burden because they couldn't help out in a factory. I can assure you that the decision my wife and I made to not have kids had NOTHING to do with Social Security. Believe me, it was never considered. The only economic consideration that entered into the decision was the cost of raising kids to an age where they were self-supporting.

In four-and-a-half years, I'll retire and I EXPECT that I'll receive a check from Social Security. I EXPECT the country to honor the contract they made with me when I entered the work force in 1968. Now, understand that I won't be depending on Social Security for my entire income -- the investments my wife and I made on top of the governmentally required SS payments will provide the majority of our income, but I EXPECT the check from Social Security. If they don't come, there will be a lot of baby boomers who will be taking out our revenge on a lot of congress critters and maybe a president. You see, I don't expect the Social Security Trust Fund to suddenly become sound before I retire, but the money WILL come because there will be a revolution if it doesn't. This is a contract, a promise if you will, from the government of the United States of America to its citizens. If that contract, that promise is not honored, the repercussions will be serious indeed and could do more than anything else to bring down the government.

I know that Kenneth. I was just saying that we pay into SS, and at the end of the year, if there is any left, it is taken from one account and put somewhere else. WHY?? They've been doing that for years. If it would have been left where it was, to strictly be used for SS and Medicare, there would be a lot more and it would go farther into the future.
Maybe it wouldn't be enough for everything, but it would have helped.
For your information, I do not believe in everything the Liberals do. I do not believe in the free medical care for non-citizens or tax-payer abortions and certainly not automatic citizenship for babies of non-Americans born here. Before anyone says that is not a Liberal thing, I know that too. Things need to be changed there.
But, we need healthcare reform, reguardless. Hospitals are going to start closing at an alarming rate if soemthing is not done.

SS is a pay-as-you-go system. You are paying for those drawing now, hoping that when you reach retirement age, others will pay for you.
I never uderstood that concept. What goes in, should stay in, building up for the future. Excess should never be taken out to use for anything else. That is robbing the people that paid into it.

As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "I don't care who you are, thats funny right there"

Exresident...I'd like to agree with you except for one LITTLE thing. I didn't have a choice about Social Security. The government took that money off the top before I ever saw it and thus entered into a contract with me and everyone else that the government included in their Social Security system. If the young don't like it, sorry, but I don't either. If I had been able to invest the money I paid into Social Security in stock mutual funds over the last 40 years, I wouldn't have worried about the hit my IRA took in the past year.

Misspell his name? Kenneth won't allow dollar signs anymore.

What a hoot! Thanks, Kenneth.

Did you misspell the name of our president on purpose?

I like your rap better than the ones I have seen on television lately. Man, I am sick of his news coverage.