"If people are allowed to invest their Social Security and Payroll Taxes in mutual funds, when the government finally says that we cannont pay, you would still get to keep your money".

Fantasyland. I invested a considerable amount of money in Mutual funds that went South overnight leaving me with less money than I put in (fortunately I have other retirement vehicles). Just because you invest your money, doesn't mean you are always going to get to keep it. The investment loss scenario would repeat itself many times over under the Bush Social Security non-plan leaving the government to deal with the same types of social issues that it had to face during the Roosevelt Administration. Industrialization has left all industrialized countries with social issues not present or even imagined when we were mostly a bunch of farmers. We can kid ourselves that we can solve them by individual initiative but the truth is, it can't be done, and when the society starts to collapse the government will have to go step in. The Bush plan for Social Security would work no better than if we privatized home land security and made every individual responsible for protecting himself and his family.

Why is it that every time a wingnut gets on the subject of the deficit he has to bring up Social Security and Medicare? They are the only Federal programs that are taxed for directly and the only federal programs that are bringing in more money that they are costing.
If Bush had had to get a "war tax" through congress in order to invade iraq we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. Instead he went to war and cut taxes at the same time and used my retirement to pay for it.
"Entitlement programs" are underfunded? No kidding. So cut the non-revenue generating programs, like military aid to Isreal and strategic defense and raise taxes to pay for what you can't cut. And re-tool the drug benifit so the government is getting the discounts that largest buyer of perscription drugs in the world should be getting.
The idea that Social Security might not be authorized some year is pure, unadulterated horse shit. As the cost goes up, so does the percentage of the voting public that are either using it or are about to be.
Now if you want to put some money in the stock market and loose it. Go ahead. But I have to pay my SS and Medicare taxes. And so do you.

Two points:

KS - You fail to mention what happens to society when the only solution to the problem is to levy a 60% tax on income like they do in Europe, and then still cannot meet the demands of people. What then? I might lose SOME money in mutual funds, but not all of it. And 401(k)'s have been around long enough and survived the dot-com bust and the financing scandals. They went down, but then they went up. Also, if you look at the model in Chile, it demonstrates the stability of letting people invest in the country's economy.

IB - Thank you for demonstrating that these programs are nothing but vote-buyers having nothing to do with prudent finances or necessity.

You two also forget that warfighting is ACTUALLY in the constitution. That is the function of a national government - not social engineering and redistribution of wealth.

Aaron, All governments everywhere are about redistributing wealth. You just want it redistributed differently than I do.
How is it vote buying to take my money for a specific program for 40 years and then give it back to me? That's called keep a commitment. Or possibly taking responsibility. Something which I hear a lot about from so called conservatives but have never seen much of. I just want what I've been paying for my entire adult life. You seem to want the money I pay out for my retirement to be redistributed to the wealthy. Just like corporate retirement funds were "redistributed" to the boards of directors and major stock holders of US corporations in the 80s when Reagan changed the rules on private pension funding and suddenly nobody had a pension any more.
This isn't anything more or less than class warfare and unless you're rich you're on the wrong side of it. Who is paying you to take these positions on this blog? You can't really be this stupid.

I don't believe that at all. I don't think anyone should take away what you've earned by paying into the system.

As a young person, I want the ability to opt out (at least part of my payroll tax).

I also come at this as a minority--who are the people most screwed by social security.

We have a shorter life expectancy and have no ability to leave the SS to heirs. With a 401k type system where part of the money is OWNED.

You say you want all the money you've but in, but what if you die tomorrow? You get zilch except a couple hundred to get creamated.

If I die tomorrow I don't need it. But my wife will and under the current system she will get it until she dies of gets married again.
As long as you're responsible about who you have sex with your life expectancy isn't any shorter than mine. And since I have campaigned for gay marriage and you are against it you could now put down that patricular minority card.
Whether you have or choose to raise children is entirely up to you, also. You know my feelings on any but token or heirloom inheritance, so that argument doesn't get any traction either.
Sure, now that the money has been spent on other thing, mostly by your party, by the way, you want to opt out of the system. Let me point out that you ARE a young person. I have watched for the last 30 years while virtually every retirement system not tightly controlled by the federal government has been systematically plundered. If you're paying attention, you may have noticed that there's a bill in front on congress right now to let the airlines off of the hook for their pension system.
I can only conclude that either you are a civil servant and therefor have a secure retirement already. In which case you are a snake for taking a position that will hurt everyone except you. Or you actually believe that once you have saved a retirement fund that wallstreet will let you keep it. Don't bet on it.
Finally, No it isn't your money. Not any more than any other tax you pay. But I and every other worker was made a promise back in the late 70s when they raised the SGLI tax by almost double in order to make the babyboomers pay for their retirement in advance. Reagan spent it, Bush I spent it, Clinton at least started trying to save some of it for what it was being collected for. But when Bush II ran for President his favorite campaign slogan was the "America has been overcharged. We need to give that money back to the people that are paying the bills". By which he meant himself and every other scion of every other rich family in the country. Well America hadn't been overcharged. It had and has a debt that it has to pay and that Bush has ensured will be payed by people your age and younger. And still you think this thief, draft doger and liar is on your side.
Well, Son, your getting exactly what you voted for. I hope you enjoy it.
Me, I would have perferred that "party of personal responsibility" had actually displayed a little of it for the last 30 years. Because the only question now is which of the people this country owes money to is going to get robbed. And since there are a whole lot of us boomers and we all vote it ain't going to be us.