Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> Do you really think they'd be lynched?  Figuratively or literally?  I
> really don't think so. . . . Most people my age don't believe
> that Social Security will last until we are entitled to receive it...

My peers and I had the same belief in the seventies. We figured the system 
would be broke by the time we retired. We were very wrong. As a 
self-employed real estate broker I even made adjustments to how I received 
income--taking notes or ownership interest in properties--to avoid social 
security taxes, figuring it would be money lost. That plan came back to 
bite me, with lower benefits today than I would have accrued had I declared 
maximum income and paid in as much as possible..

Politicians know that they would have seriously bad things done to 
them--like being thrown out of office, the worst thing that can happen to a 
career politician--if they jerked the system out from under people. I'm not 
sure of the true number of recipients, I think it is about forty million. 
Many of those recipients would literally die from starvation or exposure to 
the elements if their benefits ceased. Social Security has long been 
considered sacrosanct, untouchable, by politicians, who fear the wrath of 
the people.

Minor tweaking can keep the present system going for longer than any of us 
now alive