The title of this February 28, 2024 hearing is
I'm sure you'll be ecstatic to learn that Bernie Sanders chairs this committee hearing, which starts @ the 17:16 mark. Rachel Greszler provides the lion's share of valuable answers. Alabama Senator, Tommy Tuberville, sits on the committee, and Mr. Stevenson answers with references to Secure 1.0 and 2.0.
They're admitting they know a huge number of people will die before ever seeing a single cent after paying into Social Security their whole lives.
This is all a scam. I mean, we got people that are getting ready to retire that's gonna try to live off $2k-$3k, Impossible. It's impossible. Because what happens, it comes up here, we spend it. We're $35 trillion in debt. We don't have any money. We're dead broke. And then taxpayers have $2 trillion in credit card debt. We are in huge trouble.
In this body, we had better start figuring that out because we're gonna have a run on this city here soon, and there's gonna be about 150,000,000 people coming up here saying, where's our damn money that we paid in? I could've put my Social Security money, 40 years, in tax in in in the market and probably worth $8 to $10 million today, But the federal government wasted it. --Tommy Tuberville, (R) Senator, Alabama
And this from Rachel Greszler of The Heritage Foundation
1 out of 4 African American men will die between the ages of 45 64 after having paid into this system for decades, tens, if not 100 of 1,000 of dollars, and they get might get nothing back.”
Look at things like indexing life retirement age to life expectancy, more accurate inflation index. And I think that workers need an option to have their money in something that actually earns a positive rate of return and that can't just immediately be spent by Congress --Rachel Greszler
RACHEL GRESZLER, 01:13. I'd like to point out that when Social Security was first founded those who established it started out with a 2% tax and they said this would never take more than 6% of your income today it takes 12.4% and depending on whether you go CBO or Social Security trustees it needs to take between 15.8 and 17.5%, so we're talking about thousands of dollars more per year. It also was actually only originally recommended that the tax be up to 66,000 equivalent in today's dollars earnings, but over time it has expanded massively and the money has been spent every year so where does everybody think this money has been set aside for me? No, it hasn't. For the past 13 years, every dollar that has gone out of workers paychecks has gone immediately to pay PROMISE (Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI) benefits and that's what happens when you have a system that enables those in charge of it to spend the money in the immediate term and leave the buck to the next generation that's coming along. And because Social Security has grown so much it is actually to the detriment of lower-income workers, in particular, who have to pay such a large share of their paycheck to Social Security and little left to save for retirement. And then lower-income and African American workers have the lowest life expectancy so they are the most likely to get nothing back in return. 1 out of 4 African American men will die between the ages of 45 and 64 after having paid into the system for decades tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they might get nothing back.
TUBERVILLE, 2:40. What's the solution?
GRESZLER, 2:41. I think ultimately we have to shift towards a universal benefit system. That's what true social insurance is it does not make sense that we are paying the biggest benefits to the highest income earners so gradually over time I think we need to bend down the benefits for the middle-to-upper income earner and actually increase them for the lower income earners look at things like indexing life insurance retirement age to life expectancy more accurate inflation index and I think that workers need an option to opt their money in something that actually has a positive rate of return and they can't just immediately be spent by Congress.
