Blog Post No. 8

 I would have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Adrian Martinez' opinion of eliminating the social security fund because it is an “exponentially growing tax” burden http://adrianmartinez41130.blogspot.com/ Indeed, social security is funded by American's income withholdings, but to eliminate this federal fund would cause many Americans, especially the elderly to fall into poverty. I do however agree with Mr. Martinez' that “more people are living longer,” but it doesn't have to mean that there will be no money in the future for this program. What we need is to reform the social security fund and eliminate or at least substantially bring down the deficit so that this most important federally funded program can continue to keep poverty at bay.

One proposal that has been brought up, but is not exactly popular with Americans is raising the retirement age. Experts say that life expectancy has risen tremendously since the program began in 1937 when the average life was 62 years. Now Social Security is paying benefits to Americans for longer periods of time. With the raising of the retirement age it would shorten the length of time paid to retirees. Again, experts predict that if this reform goes into effect, the deficit could be reduced by as much as 44 percent.

A second proposal, which in my opinion is more logical and favorable would be to “modify” the social security cap. Currently, an employee who makes over $107,000 annually is only subject to being taxed on $107,000. Experts propose that anything made over $107,000 should be subject to being taxed, but should not be counted towards social security benefits. The more fortunate would essentially be paying more into the fund, but why did the government cap the social security at $107,000 where it has been for years? This amount should have keep growing concurrently with wages over the years. If this would have occurred, the federal government's social security fund would not be such a taxing burden.