Social Security Going Broke if Gov't doesn't pay back what it owes

[Fireweed247]

"The federal government will have to start paying back what it owes the Social Security trust fund in 2017 so the program can continue paying 100% of benefits. By 2041, if the system is left unchanged, Social Security will only be able to pay out 78% of benefits promised to future retirees."

How dare they take the money from Social Security and then tell us it is not working. How fucking dare they!!

That is our money for retirement. They cannot take it and spend it on war and their own salary increases and then tell us the program doesn't work.

But hey, Bush cut taxes.

[babylonsister]

1. Can you imagine if * had invested SS in the stock market? nt

[papau]

5. True - but just investing in top quality corporate bonds makes "pay back" no longer an issue -other

counties Social Security type programs invest in real assets other than government bonds because it is too easy to run a deficit with easy borrowing from the Trust.

[Mountainman]

24. Our county retirement is not managed by the county. It is a private company.

If the money is not there to pay the retirees then the county has to make it up. We just had a new actuary and he said the retirement fund was underfunded. So that amount was added to the budget and we are now $19 mill in the hole for it. Ask county citizens how to fix the problem, they say just don't pay the retirees.

[stray cat]

2. They shouldn't spend the SS money for other things and then say their broke

SS was never intended to help the government pay their own salaries and pet projects. It should be used to support the program it was paid into...

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

7. But it *is broke*

Even if a penny was never taken out of it we are still looking at anyone under that age of 67 in 2041 (born after 1974) not getting their retirement...

[Fireweed247]

10. I don't think that is true

If they didn't take the trust fund and use it, there would be plenty for everyone's retirement.
They admitted it in this article.

[Romulox]

16. "If they didn't"... They DID. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

18. No, it's not 'broke'. It will be broke only if the US government elects to default on the bonds.

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/social_security_2005_03_09.pdf

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. One word...

"lockbox"

[Uncle Joe]

20. That's what I was thinking, Viva_La_Revolution

Only I was going to use some witty retort such as "My kingdom for a lockbox", oh well I'll save it for later.

[LakeSamish706]

4. Sorry, but some have maybe missed the main message that Bush has been...

trying to give for some time now. He is doing his best to destroy middle class Americans, so please get out of his way so that he can succeed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Absoultely. He is drowning us in the bathtub

[mediaman007]

9. We need more wars and weapons!

Fat chance that the soldiers are going to see their benefits. If there is no Social Security, I doubt that there will be any money in the Veteran's Administration. Only eight years to destroy America, then off to Paraguay. Thanks Gorge, eh I mean George*.

[Fireweed247]

8. Isn't this a crime?

I can't believe they admit it like this.

If it is just another tax, then call it what it is.

[RebelOne]

11. I'm not going to worry about it because

I am collecting full benefits now and I won't be around in 2041.

[Romulox]

17. How "progressive" of you. nt

[RebelOne]

22. Why should I worry? I will be dead in 2041.

[Fireweed247]

25. because you care about other people?

and the future of the country and the children??

[Fireweed247]

12. Imagine your stock broker telling you this...

You know that money you have been putting away? Well I borrowed it and I'm not paying it back.

[Hannah Bell]

13. In 1982, the Greenspan Social Security Commission recommended

increasing SS taxes in order to generate surpluses, supposedly to "save" for the boomers' retirement.

Reagan signed off on it, & a bipartisan Congress enacted it.

By 1936 law, any surplus SS collections MUST be invested in US Treasuries; that is, they must be "borrowed" into the general budget by the US gov. There never was a "lockbox," or any possibility of one. The gov can't "save" like an individual. The gov is the guarantor of savings.

Everyone involved in the 1982 "reform" knew this, so why'd they do it? Well, the upper-bracket tax cuts enacted at the same time should be a clue. Taxation on ordinary workers was increased, then borrowed into the general fund, in order to support tax cuts at the top.

When SS began, it was designed to tax 90% of total income & pass it to seniors. Taxation was capped at 90% so that it would be a worker-funded program - not "welfare" funded by the wealthy, which is easy to hit, politically.

The Greenspan fix & all the "crisis" hype since are just part of a long-term strategy to take SS down. Read the 1982 Cato paper, "Achieving a Leninist Strategy" - I kid you not. The free marketeers at Cato looked to Lenin for advice on stealth tactics to destroy the crown jewel of the New Deal.

The whole public debate on SS is the best example of the Big Lie technique I know. Repeat crap long enough & people will believe it & go along with whatever you have in mind for them. The debate is fraudulent in almost every aspect; both the supposed "good guys" & "bad guys" are lying, & honest obervers can't even get a letter published in the NYT.

When I started looking at the history & numbers for myself, & gradually began to understand how deep the fraud went, it was a big wakeup call.

[Hannah Bell]

15. Can the SS borrowing be paid back over the course of the

boomers' golden years (about 30 years)? Of course it can. In 5 years we've spent close to a trillion on Iraq; that's half the TF right there.

Over 10 years, Bush's tax cuts benefit the top 5% to the tune of about 1 trillion. There's the rest.

However, if current trends hold, there won't even be any need to redeem any of the TF. The SS Trustees' projections are spectacularly wrong (proven wrong when real numbers come in & diverge from their projection) - yet you never hear this fact in the media, which should raise red flags). They can't even get the short-term right, but we're supposed to believe them when they project the finances of SS into INFINITY?

Yeah, I've got a bridge.

In every way imaginable, the SS debate is BIG LIE. The lies have so sunk into the public consciousness that to pick them apart one by one is a big task. Individual facts don't fit into their mental system, which is constructed of lies.

[Fireweed247]

14. Kucinich Introduced Legislation to demand Bush stop lying...

:rofl:

H.RES.170
Title: Of inquiry requesting the President to transmit certain information to the House of Representatives respecting a claim made by the President on February 16, 2005, at a meeting Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that there is not a Social Security trust.



“Tonight, the President will make a rare prime time appearance before the press and the nation. With our troops caught in a quagmire in Iraq, with no exit in sight; our economy weakening; gas prices on the rise; and the President continuing the create a false crisis in Social Security it is time to hold this President, and his Administration, accountable for their failing policies.

“Whether standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, in an auditorium in Cincinnati, before the United States Congress, or the press at the White House, the President has repeatedly used the media and prime time appearances to mislead the nation.

“Now more than ever, it is urgent that the media and the public hold this Administration accountable:

“For two years, the Untied States has been bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq. Over 1500 US soldiers have died and ten of thousands have been injured. Despite the presence of well over 100,000 US troops, Iraq has become a training ground for terrorists and chaos rules the day. Despite elections, the Iraqi people know that decisions about their future are made in Washington and not in Baghdad. Yet, this Administration has offered the American public no plan for securing Iraq, no end game, and no exit strategy. The American public deserves better, and the press and the public must hold the President accountable.

“For months, the President has traveled the country repeatedly using misinformation in an effort to sell his Social Security privatization scheme. The President has repeatedly asserted that there is ‘no Social Security Trust’. Such misleading statements by the President do the debate on Social Security a real disservice. As the President is well aware, the Social Security Trust Fund is not just a filing cabinet, as he claims, but represents $1.7 trillion dollars in solemn obligations of the United States. The President is also all well aware, that the Trust Fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States treasury. The American public deserves a honest debate about the future of Social Security, and the President must be held accountable.

[bryant69]

19. They didn't take money from the Social Security Trust Fund

The Social Security Trust Fund invested in Government Securities, which have been considered among safest investments possible.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[magellan]

21. It's the general fund that's the problem, isn't it?

Whether there will be money in the general fund to pay off the T-bills when they come due?

[bryant69]

26. Yeah and if it's a problem (and I'm not convinced it is) it's going to be a lot bigger problem

than just social security. I mean how many people, institutions, governments have invested in US T-Bills?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Mountainman]

23. And call social security an entitlement. It's not a entitlement as they mean it

but we are entitled to the money. We and our employers paid into it for a specific purpose.

I think privatization is a means to not pay back what was borrowed. You put you money into stocks and bonds, you lose it, too bad it's not the government's problem.

[aldo]

27. SS going bankrupt is a lieing meme

The thieving Republicans are just preparing us for their own theft.