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You have no point. Only a smokescreen. I mentioned that adverse economic situations such as the Second Bush Recession cause financial projections to look worse, while favorable economic situations such as those we enjoyed under Clinton make them look better.
No need to go any further Saganista. "Second Bush Recession?" Neither economic growth nor economic recessions are caused by Presidents. Anyone with even just rudimentary economic knowledge knows that. Its Econ 101. If Presidents managed economic cycles, they'd give us unending growth. If you don't know that, what could you possibly know about Social Security?
You are incapable of decoupling Bush from pretty much anything. As such, you elevate him to God like status. Sorry Sag, I cannot descend to such cynical, not to mention inane, depths. I did not vote for the guy, but I also did not allow him to become some sort of obsession.
"This year's trustees report once again reminds us that the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."
Given that a lot of nefarious offshore operations are largely buying US Treasuries, in addition to their ever increasing difficulty to sell these cr@p securities to foreign central banks at auction, not to mention rumblings of the US losing AAA ratings (with the only naysayers being the same people who thought there was no housing bubble), I'm inclined to say that social security is toast, regardless of how much an internet rambler wants to recite governmental material and propaganda.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Social Security and Medicare retirement and health programs for the elderly will run short of funds sooner than previously thought because the recession has taken a toll on tax revenues, a government report released on Tuesday showed.
The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2037, four years earlier than previously estimated, and the Medicare hospital trust fund will become insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than estimated, said a report by the trustees of the two popular programs.
We could lengthen the period of solvency by many years if we could just get the fingers of Congress out of the monies paid in for these two programs. Since the 50s the Congress has been spending all "surpluses" of SS money as if they had been income taxes. If we force them to stop that practice we could easily have over $1 trillion more in the fund than will happen the way they do things now. I figure that the Congress has spent between $2.5 and $5 trillion dollars of SS money that should have been in a fund for the program by spending all those "surpluses". The US now owes retirees that amount of money and we can't possibly pay that back with the President telling us that his budget will create over $3 trillion.
We are back to square one where families have to take care of their parents, grandparents, etc.
Op-ed on CNN: Why Your Taxes May Double, by David M. Walker (President & CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Former Comptroller General of the United States and Head of the Government Accountability Office):
Regardless of what politicians tell you, any additional accumulations of debt are, absent dramatic reductions in the size and role of government, basically deferred tax increases. Remember the old saw? "You can pay me now or you can pay me later, with interest."
To help put things in perspective, the Peterson Foundation calculated the federal government accumulated $56.4 trillion in total liabilities and unfunded promises for Medicare and Social Security as of September 30, 2008. ... If $56.4 trillion in financial commitments is too big a number to digest, think of it as $483,000 per American household, or $184,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. ...
Get a grip. That's what happens when you invest cash in anything. The only question is over the likelihood that there will be timely repayment on the investment that you acquire. These particular IOU's -- US Treasury securities -- are the safest, most secure investment vehicle in the history of the world. Not one penny of principal or interest has ever been defaulted on such debt in the more than two centuries of its existence.
It will redeem instead of rolling over the securities as they mature.
The proceeds of every sale of government securities have always gone into the General Fund. The very point of issuing securities at all is to raise cash for the General Fund. Changes in the late 1960's were to the accounting mechanisms for Social Security. No operational change of any sort resulted. All that changed was the way the same old operations were represented on paper.
No sensible enterprise has anything but minimal working balances sitting around in cash. Your coffee can approach to finance leads you to silly conclusions. The US is currently carrying debt of a little less than 80% of GDP. It has been much higher than that in the past -- both here and in other countries -- without adverse effect. There is a zero chance that the US will default on any of its public debt at any point in the even remotely foreseeable future. The SSTF will receive every penny's worth of actual cash owed to it when it is owed (the debt is a series of laddered securities). That cash, coupled with receipts from payroll taxes, will be sufficient to make 100% of scheduled benefit payments to baby boomers and others through at least 2037, and that date is per the ridiculously pessimistic assumptions of the SS Trustees Report.
it is obvious that you as a liberal/republican do not know what you are talking about either.
if social security was actually worth anything at all, congress would never have put the social security trust funds into the general fund. now that they did, all they have to show for it 40+ years later is a stack of IOU's, which is worth less than the paper they are written upon.
it is obvious that you as a liberal/republican do not know what you are talking about either.
if social security was actually worth anything at all, congress would never have put the social security trust funds into the general fund. now that they did, all they have to show for it 40+ years later is a stack of IOU's, which is worth less than the paper they are written upon.
Congress critters never did intend to pay those funds back into that non-existent trust fund. They are to blame for the problem we have now. They could taken the hands out of Congress with a law but hey, that would mean they would have to raise taxes and that might cost them re-election and so on and on.
"Baby Boomers Reaching Retirement Age, Social Security Will Be Unable To Pay Out Full Benefits. But The Sooner Congress Acts To Avert This Crisis The Easier And Less Painful It Will Be."
(Sen. Dick Durbin, Reforming Social Security, Press Release, 9/15/98)
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I'll take Treasury Secretaries for $1000 Alex....
