I’m part of the boomer demographic (< 55 years old) for whom Congress has discussed changing the rules of Medicare and Social Security.   Are you kidding me?  There is nothing that gets me (and every other boomer) riled up as much as even having this discussion.

I have contributed to SSI/Medicare through payroll taxes every paycheck for 38 years since my first job in high school.  My employers have contributed an equal percentage.  Today the rate is 15% of gross income before taxes, up to the maximum threshold which increases each year – split between employee/employer.  If you’re self-employed, you pay the whole thing.

If you averaged only $30K per year income over a 49 year working life, that’s close to $220,500 in contributions made.  If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the government pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working, you’d have $892,920.

If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years.  If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had. Entitlement?  Are you kidding me?  We have all paid cash for our social security insurance.  Just because they borrowed money from the fund, doesn’t mean the solution is to cut our so-called “entitlement”!

There are a lot of other ways to solve this matter proposed by many economists – such as Robert Reich (UC Berkeley), Paul Krugman (Princeton prof and NY Times columnist) and others.  It’s time Congress started listening to them, instead of Grover Norquist.