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