Because comparing personal finances to governmental finances doesn't make sense?
At the level of detail, this is correct. At the level of concept and basic theory, it's valid.
Indeed, if you're a private person, you don't have payroll, etc. to worry about so you can be effectively self equity financed where that might not make sense for an organization.
However, there's a considerable portion of the public debt that is well outside of a reasonable operating or business cycle of the federal government. We have plenty of 30 year bonds outstanding. That's how far leveraged it is.
Our government operates in a cycle of a year and most government projects won't go a single decade much less multiple decades. There are some famous blunders involving infrastructure projects where that happened of course but it wasn't the original plan in any instance I'm aware of.
Therefore I would reasonably expect the government debt to be much less and with a much shorter mean duration than it is now. That is not the case however.
Too much leverage or debt can't reasonably be good for any entity, government business or individual. While I agree with the argument the government can never be insolent, there are still negative consequences we should reasonably expect.
Ooooh, forced seizure of income! Sounds serious!! Despite the alarmist rhetoric, yes, it's funded by taxes. Unless you think taxes are going to go away, I'm not sure why you think SS would.
I should rather think the matter is serious. Whether that's alarmist or not is your opinion. If my statement is in fact false and the program is funded some other way I must be very mistaken, but for now I'm going to assume I'm correct.
Nowhere have I said Social Security is going to end. It will however financially implode the government. Just because the state cannot be insolvent doesn't mean there aren't consequences. Perhaps I was not clear, I apologize if I wasn't.
And yes we agree, it's a matter of taxation and I agree taxes are never going to dissipate. Where we disagree apparently is that I think taxes could be lower or better handled.
Nowhere have I called for a cessation of taxation. A reduction perhaps would be an option I'd bring to the table.
But it doesn't need anything besides small changes. It's almost sustainable right now AS IS. So small tweaks to retirement age, slight benefit cuts, or increases to the SS cap will take care of it.
Another poster has already laid out the facts that show this is an overly optimistic conclusion above. In the interest of brevity I shan't rehash.
I could be wrong, for all I know, that next week the US economy will suddenly blossom and 30 years of unprecedented prosperity usher in and it solves all these problems.
Even then, I can think of alternatives to the current program that can't get any serious consideration because of the DC cult of Thou Shalt Not Defy AARP.
But you're missing your own point here. If you think incremental changes get politicians branded as "nutjob", how do you think the general public will react to those that promise to let the system fail? This is the same public that keeps most of their savings as coins in the cushions of their couch. It's not going anywhere. It's not politically viable to let it fail.
Your reaction is proving my point, I voice very objective concerns about a serious problem that is affecting many people negatively and get dubbed "alarmist" and get mocked for taking a serious problem seriously.
As to this proposal, yes and no. It's true that at some point, it will have to shift radically. I agree with that assessment. The idea that our politicans can be trusted to "ease" the system into something more sustainable is demonstrably faulty.
Part of the problem may be what you consider incremental isn't defined, will delaying the retirement age 6 months or a year be incremental, or are you thinking more like 10 years? If it's something more like the latter, I call that radical but agree it sounds like a reasonable if supoptimal solution, or at least the start of one.
The full implications of what I am saying is that which I call a radical shift won't be timely to prevent many avoidable negative consequences, and the tragedy is that it doesn't have to be this way but I fear it will be because most people are happy to stick their heads in the sand and reluctant to listen to criticism of the status quo. It's far more fun to poke fun at the critic than honestly evaluate the situation and admit one could be wrong.
Eric you seem like a nice and reasonable person, you truly do, but as someone who appreciates the fact you're being so reasonable I would be doing you absolutely no favors by not imploring you to recognize your bias here, to evaluate the evidence, and consider changing your opinion.
Naturally you probably won't because no one changes their opinion because of one internet post (let's be real here), but I've said my piece.