This Social Security thing has me pissed off royally

[lancdem]

I just read Josh Marshall's post on Bush's plans for Social Security (http://talkingpointsmemo.com). All I can say is, anyone who voted for this fuckwad is a flaming idiot. He wants to destroy Social Security, and he has the chance to do it because enough dumb shits voted for him (even if there was fraud he got too damn many votes to begin with).

Sorry for the rant, but I'm still furious at anyone who voted for Bush. And I'm sure that'll never change.

:mad:

[Cary]

1. You are not alone, lancdem

I feel your pain.

[lancdem]

2. Thanks for your support

I've been trying to take a bit of a break from politics (the election wore me out emotionally), but when I read Josh's post all my anger came flooding back. I despise George Bush more than I ever have.

[Ian David]

3. If we can invest in gold or Euros, I'm for it

[lancdem]

4. Social Security is one of the two best anti-poverty programs

this country has ever had. The other is Medicare. And Bush wants to dismantle it. Fuck him.

[JI7]

5. old people voted for him

[lancdem]

6. I know

That makes it even worse. Did they know what he was going to do to Social Security?

[MsUSA]

8. You would think with the fiasco of Medicare they would have guessed

that social security would be as bad or worse.

[SharonAnn]

17. No, he didn't "campaign"on it. He's lying when he says that.

He would've lost a lot of votes if he'd been up-front about wanting to dismantle Social Security.

Then, of course, comes Medicare.

[RebelOne]

38. Bush lie? Our honest president lie?

How could you think such a thing?

[SammyWinstonJack]

61. Didn't Kerry accuse the Evil Chimp of wanting to privatize SS?

Wasn't that during one of the debates? And didn't the Liar say that wasn't true, that he wasn't going to touch SS? Or am I wrong here?

[Cobalt Violet]

31. I don't think Faux News ever covered that. n/t

[tsuki]

36. Yes, they did. According to my county email group, they believe

that they have been promised that their benefits will not be cut. And they really don't care about anyone else's benefits.

They went on this long rant about Jimmy Carter destroying social security.

BTW, I live in a very red area with a lot of military retirees.

[n2mark]

14. Depending on who you consider old

I'm one retiree who did not vote for shrub. I voted against him for many reasons, one was SS.

[watercolors]

32. I didn't vote for him

one of the old people here,most of my fiends didn't either. So don't put the blame on us, we knew he wants to change SS.

[dissenting crone]

18. Not all of us.

There are still some of us old fogeys that remember when America didn't resemble a fast-growing dictatorship.
Damn.

[Lugnut]

58. This "old people" did not

Is 59 old? Regardless, I'm disabled so I'm in the same boat as the "old people" when it comes to SS. After the Medicare shit that got shoved down retirees throats what the hell did they think he was up to? Shithead wants old folks and disabled people to just go somewhere and die. It's hard to believe that any old person with a brain voted for the asshat.

[Chef]

7. Bring it on

Soon, hopefully, we will get to the point that even the media cannot hide what a disaster this guy is. We knew there were no WMDs, but the press and congress did not. We knew the tax reductions would eat up the surplus, but the press and the congress did not. We knew Iraq was a sham war that would lead to a disaster, but the press and congress did not. Now, we know this social security fraud (reform?) and tax reform (fraud?) is bull shit, but the press and congress do not. If these lessons have not taught us anything then things need to get so bad that when the * supporters' mothers get kicked out of the nursing homes with no drugs and there is no social security for them or public housing, then we deserve *.

Most of *'s "solutions" were in the out years so the pain was not evident. But, Armagedon is getting closer. Now that all the "A Team" have left the administration, let's see this "C Team" do their magic.

[Cary]

12. The Social Security thing is more of the same, Chef.

We know Bush's pattern. He succombs to all the radical rightist ideologues, like neo-conservatives and in the case of economics, neoconomists. This are fringe theorists--very risky propositions.

He embarks on policies on pretexts. These pretexts are lies, of course. As the underlying rationale for his lies withers away, like WMD, the rationale changes.

Reminds me of that old movie where the cheating husband's friend advises him to just lie and deny, no matter what. There is a scene where the wife catches him in bed with another woman. He and the woman very calmly get up and get dressed. All the time he just denies that there is a woman. The wife calms down and forgets the whole thing.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying? One of those things.

I don't know. Will the sheep stop succombing to the lie and deny strategy? I wish I could say yes, but I do not have that much confidence in the sheep.

[blondeatlast]

45. Unfortunately, the media is directly linked to the propaganda machine.

I can't emphasize enough the need for smart progressives such as the people in this thread to read "The Republican Noise Machine."

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-1400048753-0

We are up against a monster, folks.

[Dem2theMax]

9. Does anyone have a FACTUAL article on what * is going to do

to Social Security? The talking points article is great, but not great if you are trying to get repukes to pay attention. They would stop reading the talking points article as soon as they got to the 'this has to be a Democrat' thing.

I have been looking for something to scare the pants off people. Anyone have a good link?

[joanski01]

11. Bush* ain't telling.

That's why there is no good link.

[j-t]

15. Here ya go

new here...hi everybody...

i have heard that everything in this project compiled by Cato has already been drafted into legislation and is waiting to be introduced at the appropriate time...i haven't had time to read it yet...

http://socialsecurity.org/pubs/ssps/ssp32.pdf

[blondeatlast]

48. Cato--nothing more need be said.

Hi to you, j-t.

:toast:

[blondeatlast]

49. All you need to do is read the introductory page, and count

the weasel words:

"growing consensus about the need to reform social security"=BS
"benefits based on revenue"=SS will lose money like crazy in this scheme, so if you don't buy, you subsidize the gamblers, and receive none of your earnings.

I haven't got the time now, but I suggest everyone just look at the intro page and watch for the "terminological" BS. There is plenty to be found.

[blondeatlast]

47. They are being incredibly stealthy, but WaPo had a good article

Dated September 22, 2004.

It's archived, so you'll have to search it on your own subscription.

[Dem2theMax]

59. Thank you everyone for the information.

I really appreciate it! :)

[joanski01]

10. Remember when Newt Gingrich said

that Social Security should wither on the vine. Well, they are sure trying hard to do it. America - the country of rich people with their slaves. I can't stand it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[donkeyotay]

13. This set of lies is every bit as outrageous as the Iraq War lies

The government entered into a contract with the American people when they raised Social Security withholding in order to build a surplus in order to cover the boomer's retirements.

It's nothing less than FRAUD to steal this money and give it to the rich. But what would you expect; isn't this what crime families do? After raiding so many state pensions and company pension plans (there's another future fiasco: that pension insurance fund) what was left for them to do except go for the big one?

:nuke:

Most people I know need social security and have paid into it in order to have that little bit of security. We already have the 401K for getting an investment boost for your retirement, and we all know how well that's worked out... well, it worked pretty well for Kenny Boy, but lots of little people got screwed.

[diplomats]

16. This is another retired person who DID NOT vote for *

Lancdem's mother here.:loveya:

Chef makes some good points. How come we knew these things and the people and Congress didn't? My husband is positive that the whole Republican agenda is going to self-destruct. And the sad part is - a Democrat will have to pick up the pieces.

Gee, I just hope the country doesn't suffer too much from his mistakes.:cry:

Throw the rascals out!:kick:

[bobedwards]

19. Privatizing?

From what I heard, is Bush privatizing social security? Why would he want the private sector to handle it, when the government can take care of our social security? Giving too much for regular people to control themselves is a dangerous precedent.

[davepc]

20. what?

"Giving too much for regular people to control themselves is a dangerous precedent."

Yeah, straight out of the mouths of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that quote.

Bush's plan is a sham that will hurt people who rely on social security, but we're not going to be able to fight for them by telling the middle class that the government can plan for their retirement better then they can.

I support raising the retirement age and Al Gores "lock box" idea. The problem with social security is that their are too many retirees and not enough workers and that congress keeps raiding the social security fund willy nilly. Fighting that will fix social security.

[bobedwards]

21. Clarification....

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like a nazi or communist, just meant that letting too many areas getting privatized is dangerous. Should've chosen my words better...

[tsuki]

37. Lately, I have been wondering how the new widows and dependent

children have been affecting social security. No one has commented on that. All the old stats are for the status quo. Bushco is creating a new group dependent on SS.

[davepc]

41. I assume you mean dependents of soldiers in Iraq?

Statistically insignificant. 1200 dead, 10,000 wounded. Even if every single one of thoes wounded was 100% unable to work and drawing their full allotment of benifits.

We're talking tens of millions of people here. 15,000 is a drop in the bucket.

[nickshepDEM]

22. Can someone explain to me in very simplistic terms why this is bad?

I understand letting people who have little to no knowledge of the market handling their retirement is a bad idea.

Also, privitizing social security will ruin it for those who need it most (am I right here)?

It will cost 2 trillion in transaction fees to make this thing happend?

Why else is it that bad? (I dont really understand the full complexity of the issue so I am just looking for some guidance. Im only 20 so SS is 45 years away from me, LOL.)

[davepc]

23. the premise back in the 30's

was that instead of putting your money in a bank that might fail, or in a stock market that might crash, the government would look after your money in trust, and give it back to you after you reached retirement age or could no longer work. Back during the height of the great depression which had destroyed generations of savings via those two things, this argument had a lot of weight.

Of course life expectancy was lower then, so fewer people actually lived long enough to collect, and thoes who did collect only collected for a few years and not a decade or two like they do now. Also the population as a whole was much younger so their was a grated ratio of worker to retiree.

As the 20th Century marched on, people began living longer past retirement and the number of workers actually increased significantly. Thanks to the baby boomers anbd the swelling of the workforce their was a lot of money sitting in federal coffers untouched because it was part of the social security fund.

Some bright lads with the best of intentions in congress decided it would be ok to borrow some of that money for their pet projects here and there, because nobody would notice it missing and it would get paid back eventually. (remember, social security started as you getting back YOUR money, not getting back somebody else's money)

So now we find ourselves with a government that sees the social security fund as a open piggy bank, and have a population demographic that creates a situation where there are more retirees then workers. So we have lots of people expecting to get social security money but fewer workers to actually generate the income that funds the system. The system then puts an unfair burden on the workers, drives up tax rates, and drives down the economy.

It needs to be fixed. I don't trust Bush to do the fixing.

[nickshepDEM]

24. Thanx that actually helped me alot.

Now When you said some "bright lads" were you refering to Republicans (If so who? I always love having new amunition when I get into a debate) or where you just refering to the gov't in general? Anyways, thanx for the summary.


BTW was are some of the ways Democrats plan to fix SS? And are their ideas any better?

[blondeatlast]

50. First, don't expect us to do all your legwork.

Second, it's solvent for at least 40 years, which with very minor reforms--I'm talking very minor--there will be more than enough to protect your investment (you earn it, remember, it isn't really a "tax").

Check out the link above from the Cato Institute, and watch carefully the language they use.

The whole "Social Security needs serious reform" issue is utter nonsense.

[nickshepDEM]

56. First, I didnt ask YOU to do anything for ME.

I asked the previous poster. Also, I was asking because he seemed like he knew what he was talking about and explained the first post perfectly so I could understand it. As to the rest of your post, thanx for the input.

[Geek_Girl]

63. I believe

The congressional Budget office said that Social Security was solvent till 2052 if I'm not mistaken. And I agree the "Social Security needs serious reform" issue is quite silly.

[Geek_Girl]

62. I believe one of the ways

Is to raise the caps on Social Security. Anyone that makes 87,000 a year and over pays into SS as if they were making 87,000. So if you a CEO making 3 million a year you pay into SS as if you were making 87,000. The other solution would be raise the retirement age for SS.

[greenohio]

44. A few corrections. The government was not going to "look after our money"

The intention was to transfer money. The current working class pays for the current retired class. This worked great when the ratio of worker to retiree was 30 to 1. Due largely to birth rates declining, the ration is now 3 to 1. In 40 years it will reach 2 to 1. Project it out 100 years it will reach 1 to 1.

There was never any savings or trust account. In the 80s, Reagan doubled the tax and placed the increase in special t-bonds that could not be sold on the market. These t-bonds literally, loaned the money back to the government to spend. Every dime has been spent. NOTHING has ever been "saved".

[Geek_Girl]

65. Then why does the

Congressional Budget Office Claim that SS is Solvent till 2052? Is that just from what is currently being paid into SS?

[Princess Turandot]

30. Another question which needs to be answered is what happens..

if a large number of younger people do not invest their money well.
If someone is investing 50% of his FICA contribution in the stock market from the age of 25, but at the age of 50 makes a bad investment decision and loses much of that money, will the taxpayers have to then make up the difference or will that person simply be worse off than he would have been under the current system? That's the Enron employee scenario to some degree: it's reported that individual truck drivers lost $100,000's of 401-k retirement funds, when in reality what they lost was the make believe bloating of the Enron stock value.I don't 'blame' them for their situation, since there was a lot of hype for them to invest in company stock, but they could have invested in more secure options that would still exist today. No one is there to make up their losses for them.

A 'back-up' plan for losses on private social security investment is not something I foresee in a Republican plan, and frankly, as someone who is against the privatization concept altogether, I don't know if there should be a back-up plan for those individuals. I'm absolutely not referring to you, but I've read and heard comments from many younger people about the elderly 'stealing their money' or being 'parasites'via the FICA contribution. I've always viewed social security taxes as a commitment that each generation of Americans makes to the ones that came before them, to assure that they would receive some basic amount of retirement funding.

The issue of whether you or the government can better invest for your retirement is IMO a pink-to-reddish herring. Social security payments are based on formulas. Those formulas are not magical; they are based on various factors and assumptions, such as an individual's earning history and how much money will be in the fund in general. Abandon Star Wars, and put that money into social security. Abandon pork barrel projects and put that money into social security. That might even allow for the unthinkable: low income people might actual get social security payments which they could largely live on.

One thing that I don't hear Bush encouraging young people to do, perhaps because I try not to listen to him, is to take as much advantage as possible of 401-k plans that may be offered by their employer. Often, employers will match up to a certain contribution amount that an employee contributes into a 401-k savings account. The employee contribution is pre-taxes, so the effect on a person's net income is not as great as the gross contribution itself. People should be encouraged to participate in plans like that, in safer investments, as much as possible if their employer is matching their savings amount. Maybe that's not being encouraged because it costs the employer more money.

[greenohio]

46. It all depends on how its done.

Sweden has a model we should look at. Individual stock ownership shouldn't be allowed in these accounts...only large funds....minimizing the risk. In that scenario the economy would have to crash in order for there to be a large number of investors to take a hit. If the economy crashes we take a hit in either scenario. If unemployment hits 30% as it did during the depression, the current system where the current retired class is paid for the current working class will crash as well...simply because the current working class would be so small.

I don't trust shrub to get it right. But right now we Dems have no plans and there is a big problem. Punting on this issue is just bad.

[LiberalFighter]

54. You will have to wait until you are 67 before you can retire for SS

[Nordic]

25. doesn't anybody realize what this is actually about???

This is a giant pot of money, the biggest pot of money in the United States.

Bush and his gangster cronies want to get their hands on it.

There's nothing more to it than that.

Think about it -- Bush is going to release this unbelievably huge pot of money into the world so that the Kenny-boys of the world can GET THEIR GODDAMN HANDS ON IT.

It's about pillage, folks. Nothing more. There's no "policy" here. There's no "reform".

There is only a bunch of pirates in business suits looting our country.

[davepc]

26. the fund is already being looted, and has been for years.

Al Gore talked about it in length during 2000. Only problem is the only thing people remember him saying was "lockbox".

[Nordic]

28. have you more details regarding that?

I hadn't heard anything about that and would like to.

[davepc]

29. Its been happening since 1983.

Both parties routinely raid the fund to fund their pet projects.

Of course they dont call it "raiding" they call it "borrowing against".

[Pepperbelly]

33. Bob Somerby has been doing some landmark work on the subject

and one thing to keep in mind is that when we say "looted", what really happened is that the congress borrowed money from the fund, giving them bonds.

The government pays off bonds every day. It is nothing unusual.

[davepc]

34. Paying off bonds isn't unusual, but to do it on the scale necessary

after the depletion of the fund would require MORE DEBT to have the actually cash on hand.

Once the fund is depleted and those IOU's need to come do, more borrowing will have to take place to make up the shortfall. Except its not a temporary state. Once the fund is dried up and you're borrowing money to fill the coffers with money you took out of them years before you have a pretty big problem. The only way to solve it is to destroy benefit levels or raise taxes on productive workers to pay for unproductive (in an economic sense) retirees, an act which puts an unfair burden on the workers and does wonders at suppressing economic growth.

[Pepperbelly]

35. No, no, no!

The Baby Boom phenomonom is a sine wave that is congo lining into the future and then ... it will be gone. So what we are looking at is essentially a problem for about 10 years. Under the worst case scenario, the system, in 2052, without significant economic growth, will still be able to pay 80% of the benefits.

on edit: what they are doing is LYING through their teeth so they can find a way to steal the money. Bush and his thugs cannot abide a huge pile of cash that they are not tapping. They have been beating this drum for a long time JUST for this moment, when they can get their slimey mitts on the people's retirement and squander it and piss it away.

[davepc]

39. Social Securities problems go far past the Baby Boomer bump

Millions of workers are going into retirement and there isn't a 1:1 replacement of them. Birth rates are down, foreign immigration is strangled, there is no replacement worker. They just simply don't exist. We could simply throw open the borders, but good luck winning an election campaigning on an open border policy.

Another problem is that people live a LOT longer then they did in 1935. In 1940 the average life expectancy was 61. Today its around 72 for men, almost 80 for women.

So we have fewer workers because of our abysmally low birth rates (barley replacement level) and closed down immigration (illegal alien labor doesn't pay into or receive social security in theory).

OK fine, but we have an over-funded trust right? Well, not really. Because since 1983 congress has been raiding it with a promise to pay it back later. Of course that "later" is only going to be when the fund is depleted. You cant magically transfer a bunch of treasury IOU's into cash people can use to put food on the table overnight, nor can you make up for the shortfall all at once when the borrowing has been staggered over the years.

The result is that one day in 2020-2060 (pick your favorite projection) social security is going to go flat ass broke, and to make up the shortfall the government is going to have to trip over themselves borrowing money to fulfill the obligation.

The result will be anything from really bad to catastrophic. We're talking billions of dollars here and a significant portion of our GDP.

That is unless we fix the damn system.

How? Raise the retirement age to 68/69 or thereabouts. That help. #2) Al Gores lock box.

That will help to. Increasing the number of workers paying into the system would also be pretty good as well. The only way I see that happening is through immigration, but who knows maybe people will start to have 3-4 children families again.

Pretending their isn't a problem wont work. I don't have a hell of a lot of faith in Bush's plan either. But I wont sit by and let people say that the we're fully funded through 2050 or whenever like that means we don't have to do anything to the program.

Its broken, its going to run out of money. Its a question of WHEN not IF. We need to talk the LEAD on this issue to FIX it.

Instead Bush and his corporate cronies are going to fix it THERE way, and we'll lose AGAIN.

[Pepperbelly]

40. regardless of the rhetoric ...

the program is fully funded until 2052 and at 80% thereafter WITHOUT either raising the retirement age or increasing taxes.

on edit: I truly believe that this is a scare tactic that has been developed over the last two decades in an effort to both loot the stack of money being paid into the system AND to ultimately kill it. Disinformation and misanalysis is rampant BECAUSE of how long this scheme has been percolating. Peace.

[davepc]

42. Bold Democratic Leadership : "Let your kids deal with it"

[Pepperbelly]

43. While you were responding ...

I edited my post. Here is what I added:

"I truly believe that this is a scare tactic that has been developed over the last two decades in an effort to both loot the stack of money being paid into the system AND to ultimately kill it. Disinformation and misanalysis is rampant BECAUSE of how long this scheme has been percolating. Peace."

It's not a manner of letting future generations mend it. We simply disagree at this point about the extent of the problem. And by the way, solvency for 50 years is about as elegant a solution as one is going to find in a givernment program.

[blondeatlast]

52. You are correct. Read the Cato Institute link elsewhere in the thread

and pay careful attention to the weaselly words they use.

Two words that always indicate a lie is following, a big, stinky, glowing lie: "growing consensus."

And there it is, in the FIRST SENTENCE.

[sunnystarr]

57. I'm sure my idea has flaws that I don't see as yet ....

Social Security provided that safety net to the retired as has been mentioned earlier. Everyone doesn't have a pension fund or savings. Some had it but corporate greed raided it. Since nothing is for sure, SS was there to make sure that the elderly weren't left homeless with no money for food.

Now ... many collect SS that have very healthy retirment income. Many pension funds reduce the pension for early retirees when they start collecting SS by the amount of SS paid to them.

So why not have SS that stops once $2,000 a month is reached? If there is no savings/pension/retirement, the retiree would collect SS in the amount present today. Once a retiree reaches $2000 a month from combined SS/savings/pension/retirement income they don't collect SS. So when they apply for SS they would bring in what their other monthly retirement is, and SS would be added to reach the $2000 a month level.

People that receive stock/dividend income reflected on their tax returns, that exceed that $2,000 a month also wouldn't be eligible.

If they lose their income for some reason they can reapply.

[blondeatlast]

51. Ken Lay will have more access to SS funds than the people earning them.

You want to scare people?

Just offer them the image of the corporate greedheads like Ken Lay dipping into the money they earned in Social Security, money they worked their butts off for, with the promise of security and a comfort zone in their retirement years.

If that doesn't bring a shock to their system, they deserve what happens. But I don't.

[Nordic]

55. Grubman. Remember that guy (aptly named "Grub"-man?)

He's one of the big-swinging-dick (their term) Wall Street guys who figured out how to get money both coming and going.

Did he ever land in jail? He should have.

Who wants the Grubmans of the world to get their hands on their SS?

[Geek_Girl]

64. Fleecing The Sheep

I would argue that all of Bush's policies are pretty much about pillaging and plundering.

But this one is going to be the killer and if this goes down the way Bush wants it too, I bet the whole house of cards come crumbling down and our economy collapses.

[mvd]

27. As usual, they're trying to scare people

Social Security will be ok for a while. And then we can move the cap on contributions up. Something as serious as social security should never be involved in a gamble of any sorts, and I highly doubt Bush would provide the right safeguards anyway.

[Skittles]

53. people who voted for Bush make me sick

I cannot get over their utter ignorance and stupidity, voting against their own self-interests.

[Geek_Girl]

60. The Transition Costs for Privatizing SS are going to kill the Economy

The transition costs are something like 1-2 trillion dollars. With the way we are racking up debt with the "War On Terror" I don't see how the US economy will survive. :shrug:

Bannana Republic

Economic Armageddon