Notes from Howard's Sabbatical from Working. The name comes from a 1998 lunch conversation. Someone asked if everything man knew was on the web. I answered "no" and off the top of my head said "Fidel Castro's favorite color". About every 6-12 months I've searched for this. It doesn't show up in the first 50 Google results (this blog is finally first for that search), AskJeeves says it's: red.
Good article. But conclusion is suspect. Excerpt: "Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years."
This is the problem. The money "loaned" from SS to the government is simply gone. There wasn't any "lockbox" of savings to pay it back. It must come from existing taxes. Everyone knew this was a problem while we were spending the SS surplus. Now, not only is there no surplus to feed the rest of the budget but SS is paying out more than it receives in SS taxes.
Yes, we can balance out SS but that simply moves the problem. The primary issue is how to balance the entire US budget.
Social Security has been an ideological target for Republicans since the day it was first enacted over 70 years ago.
You see, It really is so much more than just another government program. It represents the concept that a society is no better than how it treats the weakest of its members; the elderly, the disabled and the orphaned.
I'm not saying that changes such as slightly raising the retirement age (for the under 40 crowd), or cutting benefits by a small amount (< 10%), or taxing hedge fund billionaires (it can't hurt), are out of the question. I'm just saying that social security, as a concept, represents the best of the American spirit, and needs to be defended as such.
But of course we can't do this now because there are wars to fund, and tax cuts to maintain. Otherwise, the terrorists will kill us all, and the economy will collapse. Thanks just the same, but, I'll take my social security check and my chances with Bin laden. Oh yeah, I'm also really gonna miss my trickle down windfall should taxes go up on the uber-wealthy.
Work hard, get something back and help those who need it. Wow that could be dangerous; I'm sure it sounds pretty Marxian to some.
3 comments:
Good article. But conclusion is suspect. Excerpt: "Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years."
This is the problem. The money "loaned" from SS to the government is simply gone. There wasn't any "lockbox" of savings to pay it back. It must come from existing taxes. Everyone knew this was a problem while we were spending the SS surplus. Now, not only is there no surplus to feed the rest of the budget but SS is paying out more than it receives in SS taxes.
Yes, we can balance out SS but that simply moves the problem. The primary issue is how to balance the entire US budget.
Agreed.
Social Security has been an ideological target for Republicans since the day it was first enacted over 70 years ago.
You see, It really is so much more than just another government program. It represents the concept that a society is no better than how it treats the weakest of its members; the elderly, the disabled and the orphaned.
I'm not saying that changes such as slightly raising the retirement age (for the under 40 crowd), or cutting benefits by a small amount (< 10%), or taxing hedge fund billionaires (it can't hurt), are out of the question. I'm just saying that social security, as a concept, represents the best of the American spirit, and needs to be defended as such.
But of course we can't do this now because there are wars to fund, and tax cuts to maintain. Otherwise, the terrorists will kill us all, and the economy will collapse. Thanks just the same, but, I'll take my social security check and my chances with Bin laden. Oh yeah, I'm also really gonna miss my trickle down windfall should taxes go up on the uber-wealthy.
Work hard, get something back and help those who need it. Wow that could be dangerous; I'm sure it sounds pretty Marxian to some.
TT
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