Social Security Is Essential For Millions of Americans

Lee and Doug discuss the implications of Social Security for older individuals, particularly those with sufficient means who may not need the benefits. They explore alternatives for wealthy individuals, such as tax deductions or charitable contributions, to help extend the Social Security fund’s longevity.

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Transcript:

Well, let’s go to my father for a second.

My father’s 94.

He’s been taking Social Security.

He’s the mayor.

Yeah, the mayor of the town he lives in.

He started to take Social Security at 67.

Okay.

All right.

Should he be worried about the fact that the government is going to say, hey, we don’t want people like you who have money to be able to take Social Security?

You don’t need it and you don’t need it.

So we’re not going to give it to you because we want the Social Security fund to last longer.

If we cut guys like you out, there’ll be more money to be used for everybody else down the road.

We won’t run out of dough as fast.

Well, number one, it’s not your father’s fault that they have $34 trillion in debt.

Okay, number one.

And number two, just because he has lived longer than maybe the actuarial tables say, so what?

He paid into it and he deserves it.

But like we were discussing at one point, there should be a way for people like your dad and very wealthy people, whatever their level of wealth is, to maybe have an alternative where, okay, I won’t take it, but can I have a tax deduction?

Or can I contribute my money to the charity of my choice and deduct that?

There should be some alternative where there could be a way that the government could pay you back for not taking it.

If the government had ways to do this that didn’t take that capital out of the Social Security Fund, they actually, if you gave people other incentives, you might actually extend the size of that pool for a while.

I mean, if the government was clever and gave people eight or 10 choices for alternatives.

Yeah.

Again, you know, people I know, people who may have to live off Social Security.

I get it.

There’s nothing that they’re going to be offered that they’ll take.

But one of the things the government should look at, and one of the things that all of us should look at is, should we support having things other than just a check being given to us every month?

Yeah, likely we should.

And, you know, they’ve had years to work through this, but nobody ever comes up with a decent idea.

And it’s almost an untouchable, but like, you know, we were talking, for the government to come up with anything on an entitlement basis, and it’s not an entitlement.

When you pay into something and your employer pays in, remember, for matching Social Security amounts, that’s not an entitlement.

That’s money that you put in that came out of your paycheck that you deserve back.

But if they could come up with some different ideas like, letting that money be invested over your lifetime rather than just sit in money market funds or wherever the Social Security funds sit.

If they could be invested or you could dedicate it into an investment portfolio that’s 60-40, for instance, for the 40 or 50 years you put into it or whatever the number is, maybe that would be a way to be another angle for the government.

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