From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!faustus
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: S.S.
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.661
Posted: Sat Jan 22 17:11:29 1983
Received: Mon Jan 24 06:35:40 1983

Phil Ngai claims that "the elderly have too much political power",
and "feel they deserve" their SS benefits. He thinks that those 
currently recieving benefits should recieve what they paid in,
and nithing more. It would be really nice if we could do this. The
whole Social Security system is unwieldy and unworkable, given the
present situation. This much is obvious. But what of the millions
of elderly people who depend on SS for their incomes? We must
keep in mind that whatever we do about the SS system, these people
and their welfare must be foremost in our minds. They worked many
years, most never managing to save any large amount of money, what
little they did save quickly spent as soon as they retired. Of 
course, they counted on the SS system to help them out in their
old age. And it does, now, to an extent: it is possible to live
on $200 a month, although not easy. What would happen to them
if we were to suddenly eliminate the SS system? As far as I can
see, the only possible way to deal with this is to continue 
payments to those currently recieving them, refunding all the 
funds that have been put into the system by those that are still
working, and discontinuing the system after this. This would cost
a lot, to be sure, but the most humane and thorough way of resolving
a problem is never cheap. This would be a much better use of the 
$however-many-billion defense budget for this year than the 
military (but that's another issue entirely)..

       -Wayne Christopher
        faustus@berkeley
	ucbvax!faustus