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Comment by smeej | Hacker News Reader

It's telling to me that I completely sincerely have no idea which party you mean.

That's wild to me. Are you in the US and do you generally pay attention to national news?

I'm in the U.S., but I stopped paying attention to national news years ago when I realized how much of a waste of time it is to worry about things I can't change when I have a hard enough time living consistently with my own values day in and day out.

It wasn't 40 years ago, though, and I don't remember having seen any actual efforts to destroy SS from either party. I've seen both sides refuse to try certain things to save it, but I don't remember anything I'd have called an attempt to destroy it.

I guess it depends on your definition of "destroy Social Security", but mine would include the efforts by Republicans to privatize it during the George W. Bush administration.

Republicans despise anything socialist, and Social Security is that. Unfortunately, the program is too popular to cut, but they are looking at the funding crisis as an opportunity to at least scale it back. Social Security needs additional funding, not benefit cuts.

People should be allowed to opt-out, but that would destroy the system because the public doesn’t actually want it.

Social Security is incredibly popular, to the point people actually want to expand it:

https://www.nasi.org/learn/social-security/public-opinions-o...

> Moreover, Americans are willing to pay more to keep Social Security strong. About 8 in 10 (77%) say it is critical to preserve Social Security even if it means increasing the Social Security taxes paid by working Americans. An even higher percentage (83%) say it is critical to preserve Social Security even if it means increasing the Social Security taxes paid by wealthy Americans.

NASI is the National Academy of Social Insurance, which doesn't mean their results are wrong but does mean you'd need to pay very close attention to what they're doing in these surveys.

For example, they list reasons their respondents give for supporting social security and the first is "I know that I will be receiving benefits when I retire", but the point of the story we're commenting on is that they don't know that. They've been told that, and it might be true, but on the current trajectory it's not currently going to be true. If the NASI told them that social security was unsustainable, that their money being paid in wasn't being saved for them and they might well have fewer benefits than they expect or that seem fair, would they still agree?

I think they addressed that by including the word "preserve," however the PDF summary of one of the reports[0] makes that explicit:

> Six in 10 respondents (62%) say they are not confident about the future of the program. Among those not receiving Social Security benefits, 68% lack confidence they will receive all of their earned benefits.

The report goes on to detail how people believe social security is far worse off than it actually is (likely, IMO, due to fearmongering from one particular side.)

0: https://www.nasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/HIGHLIGHTS_A...

If that’s true, then they should allow people to opt out. There’d be nothing to worry about.

I know people who aren’t confident it’ll be there when they need it, but I personally know of no one who doesn’t want it.

I know you don't know me personally, but I don't want it. Living off of my children's labors feels deeply icky to me unless they offer their support willingly, especially when they're at the time in life that they most need to be investing in themselves and I've already had the opportunity to do that.

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