Bush, Kerry fail to come to grips with Social Security crisis ?????

[papau]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9782781.htm

Bush, Kerry fail to come to grips with Social Security crisis, experts say

By David Goldstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - <snip>The Social Security Trust Fund now stands at $1.5 trillion. Interest on that money and other financial steps could keep the program solvent for several more decades, experts say. But by 2042, the trust fund "will be exhausted," the Social Security Board of Trustees said in its 2004 report. <snip>

"The options are increasing taxes, cutting benefits or cutting other government spending," said Maya MacGuineas, the executive director of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "There is no magic bullet."

"We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account, a nest egg you can call your own, and government can never take away," he said at the Republican National Convention earlier this month.

Kerry opposes personal accounts because he believes they would threaten the government's fundamental promise to the elderly by introducing market risk to a benefit that's now guaranteed. <snip>


Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan fiscal watchdog group, said Bush promises a "free lunch,"( as the Bush "transition" adds $2 trillion to the deficit over the next decade and nearly $5 trillion over the next four decades), while Kerry offers a "do-nothing solution." <snip>

In addition, voting records show that when Vice President Dick Cheney represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives in 1983, he supported legislation to raise payroll taxes, among other steps, to rescue Social Security from insolvency. The Bush campaign wouldn't comment on the record about Cheney's vote to raise taxes.<snip>

[Inland]

1. Bush "cure" worse than disease

In the worst case scenario, thirty odd years from now SSI will only be able to pay 70% of benefits. Why? Benefits are outstripping collections from payroll.

Bush's solution: lower collections from payrolls. As the main post says, Bush privatizations would take about trillions of dollars out of the system, bringing the inevitable failure closer.

When Bush first floated his "cure", those trillions were projected in the Clinton-derived surpluses.

But he sunk the dollars into tax cuts to his patrons and his Iraq adventure instead.

Me, I would rather see the system go to 70% of benefits thirty years from now than spend one more second on Bush's plan. The cure is worse than the disease.

[papau]

3. I agree :-)

:-)

[napi21]

2. I'm getting pretty tired of this SS fix needed stuff AGAIN!

A number of years ago, the eligible retirement age was adjusted up from 65 to 67, and SS benefits were to be taxed as income above a certain amount. These steps were taken to "Insure the solvency of the SS program indefinately!

It would have worked too!!! if the Pubs hadn't gotten themselves into such a snit over "surpluses"! Yea folks! That's where most the Surplus came from!

Now, they're ptiching a fit again because SS faces problems in the future!!!

FORGET IT! Put the surplus money BACK in the treasury, and SS will be just FINE!!

[AirAmFan]

4. "Fixing" Social Security has been a profitable WH SCAM ever since Alan

Greenspan chaired Ronald Reagan's Social Security Commission in the early 1980s.

Social Security CANNOT be "fixed" until there is some mechanism to prevent FICA surpluses from being stolen and used as a huge political slush fund, containing hunreds of billions of dollars a year.

The realcities article continues to repeat the FICTION that there is a "Social Security Trust Fund", with trillions of dollars of debt accruing tens of billions in interest every year. Bill Clinton tried his best to provide a "pre-funding mechanism" for Social Security, pattererned after state employees' pension funds. But a twenty-years-older Greenspan and other Ayn Randers denounced Clinton's plan as "socialism". They want to stick with the current "honor system". All the current "Social Security Trust Fund" has in it is trillions of dollars of unfunded US Government liabilities that start coming due in a decade or so

"Fixing" Social Security by raising FICA taxes even higher or pushing back retirement ages simply widens the window of positive FICA cash flow through which Republicans since Reagan have stolen TRILLIONS of dollars from workers at the bottom of the ladder.

In my opinion, if no prefunding mechanism is going to be established, it would be better to rebate Social Security surpluses to workers during recessions, to stimulate the economy when stimulation is needed. Such a course of action would not bring the date at which FICA cash flow turns negative any closer (it's currently about 10-15 years off). But rebating positive FICA cash flow to workers would finally stop Republican reverse Robin-hood exploits, after more than 22 years!