In response to this article from Businessweek
Good idea. I suggest the government create some social welfare program. My idea would be that the benefit is high enough to ensure a person's welfare until the end of life. To make it affordable there must be some restrictions.
Good idea. I suggest the government create some social welfare program. My idea would be that the benefit is high enough to ensure a person's welfare until the end of life. To make it affordable there must be some restrictions.
- To qualify a person must be elderly enough to honestly be unable to work in any occupation to provide for themselves.
- The person must never have had high enough income where personal responsibility would suggest a person should have saved for themselves. Lack of planning is not justification for legally mandated confiscation of other's property.
- Benefits do not start until later years of current life expectancy (whatever it is at that point) insuring that less than no more than a certain amount of the elderly ever receive benefits (between 10 and 20 percent).
Given this program, I believe most citizens of this great country would be willing to fork over a small portion of their own income as a mandatory tax to help fund this. I figure it would be less than 2% to cover the above needs. I also suggest it would be fair to have a maximum level of income on which someone would be required to pay the tax--say around $106,800. Fair, considering a person with higher income will not ever qualify for benefits.
What should we name it? Well the word SECURITY sounds nice as it is providing SECURITY for those who truly cannot provide for themselves. And I already said it is a SOCIAL welfare program, so we might as well add that word in as well. "Security Social" doesn't ring, so let's go with "Social Security."
I spend too much of my time away from my family to pay for a round of golf for those without primary responsibility for the future of this country. Wait, is that another social problem being fixed? What else could "Social Security" help?
Be careful, or younger generations may have a tea party of their own and may not delineate between those who genuinely need the help, and those who do not.