instead of talking of "reform" or "modifying" the program... IMO
Back in 2005, Thom Hartmann wrote a book review (Greenspan's Fraud by Ravi Batra) in which he laid out, IMO, very clearly how Social Security got hijacked by Reagan and Greenspan, and EVERY prez since... including Clinton, and unfortunately, probably Obama...
http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/07/har05007.htmlOnly Al Gore talked about and was ridiculed for the concept of the "lock box" for the SSTF...
The thing that has always stuck with me from that review is this line..
<snip>
Later, Senator Rick Santorum made an odd admission for a Republican: ""You can't pay benefits with IOUs," he said on the Senate floor. "You have to pay it with cash."
And where will that cash - now nearly two trillion dollars - come from over the next decades as Boomers begin to retire?
Technically (and legally) it's simple - the Social Security Trust Fund will give back its IOUs to the Treasury Department and in exchange for them get cash to pay the Boomers' retirement checks. Practically, though, it'll be a crisis of biblical proportions. In order for the Treasury to come up with that kind of cash will require either massive tax increases or increased massive borrowing - at a time when we're already borrowing so heavily that China is propping up our economy with weekly loans.
Thus, Bush talks about a "crisis" in Social Security with some accuracy. But he doesn't dare tell us what the real "crisis" is, or how Reagan and Greenspan set it up, because when it becomes widely known that the real crisis is that Reagan set the course to steal Boomers' Social Security savings, it will destroy the reputation of both supply-side economics and the Republican Party for generations to come.
<end>
To me this implies that
technically and legally this money (the IOUs)
must be paid back... otherwise.. it's theft on a scale even bigger than the bailout... (2 TRILLION in 2005..!!!!)
While there is always talk of "reform", there is absolutely no talk of the government meeting it's legal obligation to pay back the money it has already taken from the SSTF lockbox...
I've tried calling Thom Hartmann's show on Friday's to ask Sen. Bernie Sanders about this, but it's nearly impossible to get through in a timely fashion, and letters to my Senator (Akaka) and Rep. (Hirono) have been met with dead silence...
:shrug:
Anyway, raising the cap (per Edwards and Hartmann), paying back on the IOUs, and putting the SSTF in a secure "lockbox" (per Al Gore) would be real, positive reform, IMO...
Mahalo (thank you) for letting me vent...
:hi: