Brace Yourself for Exploding Heads Here on C-D: 18 Reasons to Thank a Liberal (interview, Reagan)
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It's not our fault our "elected officials" raided it and replaced the dollars with IOUs (well it is technically, we can always vote out these treasonous douchebags).
As for #3, see my previous post. GOP of then is not the GOP of today, same thing with Dems. MLK was a Republican but those on the far right would call them (economically) a socialist today.
Social Security is NOT FUNDED.
"This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes (http://www.cbo.gov/budget/factsheets/2010b/OASDI-TrustFunds.pdf - broken link),"
Actually they are un-funded, the only funding for SS is current tax payers and future tax payers. The 2040 date you cite is a projection based on a set of assumptions made.
SS is a pay-go system, meaning your taxes fund current retirees. The years when excess revenue is more than payouts we are left with a surplus, that surplus is placed in nontradable government bonds earning interest. (Trust fund) The trust fund is actually smaller than most think, it is only about $2.6 trillion. (SS and Medi trust funds are $4.6 T)
Unfortunately that is also just a claim on future workers. When a bond is redeemed they bring it over to the "on-budget" portion of the government and first look for excess tax revenue to pay off the bond. If we are running a budget deficit the bond proceeds will be redeemed by issuing new on-budget debt through the normal budgetary process.
SS reports you cite are based on the median economic and demographic assumptions, if in the future we do worse than their straight line estimates (for example) 5.5% unemployment. They assume that in the next 75 years unemployment will drop below 7% by 2014 and after 2018 never go above 5.5%. Their WORST CASE assumption puts unemployment never going back above 6.5%. Needles to say these assumptions are not realistic.
We all need to take note whenever we hear about Social Security solvency and funding dates, they are talking about very generous median economic, birth/death rates, etc. Basically these projections have been off dramatically in the past.
In 2010 SS was in the red by $49 billion, both the CBO and SSA show that we will have a trillion dollar deficit over the next decade. Reports as recent as 2008 said we would have a trillion dollar surplus over that same time.
A deficit does not mean missing checks (yet) it just adds more to our on budget debt. When they redeem trust fund bonds they get added to the annual deficit and our national debt. So as opposed to running up intergovernmental debt that does not need to go into the open market for funding, they issue the bonds to themselves. Once it is transfered to on budget debt it increase the about of bonds we need the world to buy.
In 2010 there were 1,509,278 net new beneficiaries of SS checks. Ten years ago in 2000 the number was 462,740. Those dying usually have much smaller checks than those now retiering.
The problem is compounding fast.
Read about probability analysis, and banding of economic forecasts. They are giving you a fantasy about SS and the future.
so in other words you recommend that we open up another line of credit so we can pay the old lines of credit.........hmmmm, i wonder how that would go over with your personal creditors.
We have enough money to pay our debts. The ceiling was raised so we could keep the gov't running by borrowing billions every month.
There is no reason why cuts in gov't should not take place in order to REDUCE what we have to borrow.
No, my premise was correct and exactly on target.
I simply stated that refusing to pay bills for goods and services already purchased was wrong.
I didn't say anything about not making government cuts - in fact, I said that I'd have more respect for those Tea Pary / Republican congressmen and senators if they fought for budgetary restraint at the time the spending was done and not at the time the bills for that spending came due.
As for having enough money to pay our debts already incurred, you'll have to point out this hidden horde of treasure to the rest of us...because nobody, including those on both side of the aisle in Congress, knows where that mythical motherlode exists.
Gee, I wish I could watch the facial reactions of CERTAIN MEMBERS here on C-D when they read this article!
18 Reasons to Thank a Liberal: A Partial List of Liberal Achievements; 1935-2010 | Addicting Info (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/26/18-reasons-to-thank-a-liberal-a-partial-list-of-liberal-achievements-1935-2010/ - broken link)
Here's just eight of the historical reasons:
1. The 8-hour workday, overtime pay, and the federal minimum wage (Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938)
The original House version: 290-130 (69%–31%).
Cloture in the Senate: 71-29 (71%–29%).
The Senate version: 73-27 (73%–27%).
The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289-126 (70%–30%).
[edit]By party
The original House version:[12]
Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:[13]
Take number 3 for instance. Of course Republicans were responsible for the passage of civil rights legislation.
...
And of course the Dems filibustered the Civil rights act and the Republicans broke that filibuster.
Anyone who believes that the Republicans of 1964 are the same philosophically as the Republicans of the 1990's and the 2000's or that the Democrats of 1964 are the same as the Democrats of the 1990's and 2000's is either incredibly misinformed or wilfully twisting the truth and ignoring the Republican Party's Southern Strategy that originated in the late 1960's.
A quote from Kevin Phillips, an advisor to Richard Nixon, during a 1970 interview with the New York Times:
Quote:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
Liberals, Conservatives, and those in between have all added so many good things to America. I could make a list about things I like about Liberals and not like about Conservatives.
However, liberals have evolved into something not so liberal. That's why I bang that drum hard against their hypocrisy here.
Gee, I wish I could watch the facial reactions of CERTAIN MEMBERS here on C-D when they read this article!
18 Reasons to Thank a Liberal: A Partial List of Liberal Achievements; 1935-2010 | Addicting Info (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/26/18-reasons-to-thank-a-liberal-a-partial-list-of-liberal-achievements-1935-2010/ - broken link)
Here's just eight of the historical reasons:
1. The 8-hour workday, overtime pay, and the federal minimum wage (Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938)
If you'll just go down to the very bottom of that link at tell us what those numbers in red mean, thanks!
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