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Yahoo had some new doom and gloom about Social Security. I kept the tab open not knowing whether I there was enough there for a blog post and there really isn't but something occurred to me with all the talk of benefit cuts and maybe means testing being considered, instead of forcing people to just eat it, is there a way to incentivize people who are admittedly pretty well off to be willing to impose their own benefit cut. 

This has been a crazy week so I have not had the time to crunch numbers for this idea but some sort of scenario where people give up a lifetime of income (beyond whatever age they plan to take it) in exchange for maybe just five years of their full benefit and then no tax on their RMD amounts or maybe no tax on any IRA distributions once they have started their five year Social Security window. 

If someone starts Social Security at 67 with a $4000 monthly payout and lives until 95, they would be taking 336 months at $4000 per (keeping it simple WRT to inflation) would total $1,344,000. Sixty months at $4000 per month would be $240,000. If this person has $2 million in their IRA and other sources of income, tax-free access to the $2 million could be appealing. 

My numbers don't make this seem too compelling, but I'd bet there is some fulcrum point where individuals benefit and the program can continue to pay full benefits for longer. The underlying point is that if something has to give at some point, but the program can be salvaged by giving people a choice, that seems like a far better outcome. 

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