Boehner, "Raise SS age to 70"

The thought that one dime of my taxes might go to pay his fat pension really makes me ill.

John Boehner: Raise Social Security Retirement Age to 70 - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

No skin of his nose...the way he smokes he'll be lucky to reach 70 and he has a government pension.

The Congress can't use Social Security. Its not secure/lucrative enough for them.

Not a fan of the orange-faced man, but I think he is correct. And why not? It's already up to 67-plus for full retirement benefits, and in 20 years - Boehner's timetable -- one would hope we would be healthier and even more advanced than we already are. Our society as it stands is unsustainable and one of the issues is folks drawing Social Security and then living longer and longer and longer ...

Privatization of Social Security I don't agree with. But this makes sense to me. This seems like smart conservatism. (Of course then he went and used the line about "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon" regarding the financial reform bill. Can't win em all.)

Oh crap. You mean I gotta work for another 13 years?

Oh crap. You mean I gotta work for another 13 years?

Honey, he's talking about 20 yrs from now. You're good.

As for me and 30Ashopper ... hmmm, wonder what he thinks.

Honey, he's talking about 20 yrs from now. You're good.

As for me and 30Ashopper ... hmmm, wonder what he thinks.

Whew!! Scared me for a minute!! Guess I should have read more carefully!

Whew!! Scared me for a minute!! Guess I should have read more carefully!

Won't be too much longer!

Honey, he's talking about 20 yrs from now. You're good.

As for me and 30Ashopper ... hmmm, wonder what he thinks.

I agree with you TFT. I think retirement entitlements have to adjust with increases life expectancy. Without adjustments, they aren't self sustaining and cause an increasing financial burden on the young.

I agree with you TFT. I think retirement entitlements have to adjust with increases life expectancy. Without adjustments, they aren't self sustaining and cause an increasing financial burden on the young.

I call bs on that one. If you sit on your rear end behind a desk 70 might be an ok retirement age but for some this is a nightmare. Those in fields like construction who perform hard physical labor will have a difficult time making it to 70 without serious health risks. Think of a 70 yr. old man in the hot sun installing a new roof on your home. Once again the repubs are removed from the real world just like the jobs bill they refuse to pass because they feel everyone will take the jobs they claim don't exist because of this administration.

Poppy great post. I doubt the physical strength nor agility of elders has crossed John's mind.

I call bs on that one. If you sit on your rear end behind a desk 70 might be an ok retirement age but for some this is a nightmare. Those in fields like construction who perform hard physical labor will have a difficult time making it to 70 without serious health risks. Think of a 70 yr. old man in the hot sun installing a new roof on your home. Once again the repubs are removed from the real world just like the jobs bill they refuse to pass because they feel everyone will take the jobs they claim don't exist because of this administration.

You can't call bs unless you propose an alternate solution to the problem. As it stands no one will get benefits by the time I get retirement age because the system will be broke. That is reality.

You can't call bs unless you propose an alternate solution to the problem. As it stands no one will get benefits by the time I get retirement age because the system will be broke. That is reality.

Is this a new rule? I didn't run for office because I don't claim to have the answers and in this country anyone can question dumb proposals by our elected officials (or proposals by our dumb elected officials). First it was 67 now 70 do you think it will stop there? Twenty years from now it maybe up to 80. Raising the retirement age untill most of those who will be eligible are dead is not an intelligent solution, it's a lazy one.

This is what bother's me about what Mr. Orange said:

(This is from the original article at Obama's good for GOP, Boehner says - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, emphasis mine)"


He couches raising the retirement age in terms of funding the war in Afghanistan. It's a choice, people - either we can continue to fight terrorism to preserve our way of life, or we can retire someday, but somebody's gotta pony up for the good of these poor defense contractors.

Everything he ever says is all about pushing an agenda. I doubt he could express his own actual opinion about the weather without consulting with the party consultants first.

I'm waiting for them to figure out that if they just raise the retirement age 1 year, every year, they will totally solve any Social Security shortfall issues, Just think what politicians could do with all that extra money in 20 or 30 years. :roll:

Social Security is only supposed to be 25% of your retirement income.

And someone doing hard manual labor from 67-70 has bigger problems than when their full Social Security kicks in. :roll:

Is this a new rule? I didn't run for office because I don't claim to have the answers and in this country anyone can question dumb proposals by our elected officials (or proposals by our dumb elected officials). First it was 67 now 70 do you think it will stop there? Twenty years from now it maybe up to 80. Raising the retirement age untill most of those who will be eligible are dead is not an intelligent solution, it's a lazy one.

As this solution follows the original intent of the founding father of Social Security ( FDR) I guess in this instance lazy is better.

Social Security is only supposed to be 25% of your retirement income.

I just did a little back of the envelope math, using my own income and the projection SS does for me, and my parent's SS income, knowing what their last working income was, and to save enough money to provide three times SS for 20 years means we would have had to have saved between 10-15 times our annual GROSS income for retirement.

That can't be right....

As this solution follows the original intent of the founding father of Social Security ( FDR) I guess in this instance lazy is better.

You have lost me, please explain.

I just did a little back of the envelope math, using my own income and the projection SS does for me, and my parent's SS income, knowing what their last working income was, and to save enough money to provide three times SS for 20 years means we would have had to have saved between 10-15 times our annual GROSS income for retirement.

That can't be right....

Why not?

Your salary currently supports you for a year. Retirement planners estimate that you will spend 70-80% of that amount each year while retired. How many years do you plan to be alive, living the same lifestyle, and not working?

And what percentage of your income are you paying to SS?

But 10-15 times gross income? So let's say I work for 45 years....that's a third of my gross.

Taxes, average, will be 25% and I will make twice as much at the end of my earning lifetime as at the beginning - so that means to make up for that, in my 50's I should be saving something like 40% of my gross (60% of take home). That's realistic.

No, it's not realistic - which is why you are not supposed to wait until your 50s to start saving for retirement. ;-)

You will spend 70-80% of your pre-retirement salary for each year of retirement. 25-35% of that should come from Social Security income. That still leaves YOUR PERSONAL SAVINGS/RETIREMENT PLAN responsible for an income each year roughly equal to 1/2 of your salary of when you were still working.

Which is why the earlier you start planning and saving, the better off you will be.

Where is Buzz, he can definitely explain it better.

I'm not talking about waiting until your 50's, I am saying that saving 33% of your gross income every year will NOT get you 10-15 years of your ending average of your last 10 years of earning, because your earnings are so much lower in your 20's and 30's. You would have to increase your savings rate in your 50's to 40-50% of your gross to get there.

I know, in that imaginary world where we all sat down in our 30's and figured out how much we would need to save each year, we imagined that what we saved in our 30's and 40's would actually GROW, not SHRINK, as it has for the last 15 years. We had scenarios where you had a return of 3-5% average each year. After the dot-com bomb and the real estate bomb (even though my funds weren't in tech or real estate), I've seen zero growth over the last 15 years.

I think it's wiser to do what our parents did, and to plan on seriously curtailing your expenses upon retirement - have your mortgage paid off, stop buying new cars, have budget travel plans.

How did you have zero growth in the last 15 years?

The stock market seesawed, but it still has gone up in the last 15 years. Banks paid varying rates of interest during that time. Real estate appreciated greatly - even including the bust.

I think it's far better to do what my parents did - save all your working life and have as little debt as possible, not just try to spend less when you're done working and have the free time to enjoy yourself and decades of labor.

You can't call bs unless you propose an alternate solution to the problem. As it stands no one will get benefits by the time I get retirement age because the system will be broke. That is reality.

Not exactly.

Poppy is spot-on. Working to age 70 is fine for me, I'm an information worker. But anyone working retail, construction, mining, or on an assembly line simply can not work full time that long. Add standing on your feet all day teaching school to the list.


While I do favor a very gradual increase to age 68 (by 2050), solvency could be assured for the next 75 years by coupling that with modifying how inflation is calculated and by adjusting the way benefits are calculated for those who earn in the highest 70 % bracket.

The beauty of this is that everyone chips in and payroll taxes don't go up.

My liberal friends point out that the system could be solvent if the earnings cap were raised. That's draconian to me but it would work.

You could mesh all of these together, I guess.

I call bs on that one. If you sit on your rear end behind a desk 70 might be an ok retirement age but for some this is a nightmare. Those in fields like construction who perform hard physical labor will have a difficult time making it to 70 without serious health risks. Think of a 70 yr. old man in the hot sun installing a new roof on your home. Once again the repubs are removed from the real world just like the jobs bill they refuse to pass because they feel everyone will take the jobs they claim don't exist because of this administration.

Life expectancy will continue to increase. When the average is 100 years, we will be retired and on benefits for the same number of years we work. Unless we want our kids rising up against us (might I remind you they are younger and stronger than we are), you best come up with a solution. ;-)