If elected, will a Dem continue to wreck havoc on our Social Security System?

Question

I'm deathly afraid of their continued neglect of Social Security. What do you think?

Answer 1

I don't know if this is the "answer you are looking for, but I sure hope it starts some debate. I am so tired of both dems and reps using this issue of SS to rile the AARP set and generation "z".

Social Security is not in crisis, nor will it ever be with four common sense initiatives:


1) How about really making the SS Trust fund a "locked box". Most of the numbers people are using to demagogue this issue are based on the fact that the government is constantly "borrowing" from the surplus.

2) Raise the age of eligibility and tell your older siblings (50+) to relax. They will be grandfathered. Ladies and gentle men our current system and taxation/payout rates are based on the fact that we (American citizens) weren't living in great numbers to 90.

3) Means testing (I know the third rail), but has to happen, why because social security isn't and never was meant to be a retirement plan. it is an intergenerational anti-senior poverty contract. There is no reason what so ever for Bill and Melinda Gates (and others) to receive a social security check. Trust me if at the age of eligibility billionaires "need" social security we will be facing much larger economic problems.

4) Alternatives. Look just like you can offer charter schools and voucher programs without decimating the public school systems you can have personal savings accounts without destroying the social security program

Now I know these seem like radical ideas and that is because they are. However, anyone who thinks we can continue without at least discussing some of them is fooling themselves.

Answer 2

i think it's time for that debate on national priorities - though radical republicans will prefer to have this debate put off until after the 2008, 2012 or 2016 elections - we wouldn't want some low life politician to be personally embarassed while the citizens of new orleans live in a city that looks as though the hurricane happened yesterday.

when radical cons decided to not rescue new orleans because it would mean that some dems would leave the city, YOU lost the moral high ground PERMANANTLY.

GO FIX UP NEW ORLEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

then you can give away social security to some republican friendly companies who will loot it, the same way private companies are looting the iraqi war effort...

Answer 3

In 1983, legislation was enacted to improve the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund which ran small budget deficits for seven years in a row from 1976-1982. The legislation was designed specifically for the purpose of building up a surplus in the Trust Fund in preparation for the staggering new obligations the Fund would face when the baby-boom generation begins to retire about 2010. Both Social Security tax rates and the Social Security tax base were gradually raised over a seven-year period so the Trust Fund would be solvent when it took the big financial hit resulting from the retirement of the baby boomers. Specifically, the legislation gradually raised the Social Security tax rate from 6.7 percent in 1983 to 7.65 percent in 1990, and raised the tax base from $35,700 in 1983 to $51,300 in 1990.



The game plan worked. By 1986, the off-budget surplus of the federal government, which is made up mostly of the Social Security surplus, had risen to $16.7 billion. The Social Security surplus was $52.8 billion in 1989, and it had soared to $123.7 billion in 1999. This planned surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund will be wiped out over the next several years by increased Social Security payouts to the baby boomers, and the Trust Fund is expected to begin experiencing deficits again beginning about 2015. Yet, politicians cant keep their eye off that temporary surplus in the Social Security cookie jar and are making plans to use it in various ways, including giving part of it to higher-income Americans in the form of a tax cut.



Actually, the government has been borrowing the Social Security surplus and spending it on general government programs for several years. The net effect has been to disguise the true size of budget deficits in past years. For example, in fiscal year 1995, the government experienced a $226.4 billion deficit in its operating budget. However, since the Social Security Trust Fund had a surplus of $62.4 billion that year, the government simply borrowed the Social Security surplus and spent it as part of it general operating budget. The $62.4 billion Social Security surplus was deducted from the $226.4 billion deficit and the government reported an official deficit of only $164 billion.



In 1997, since there was a surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund of $81.4 billion, the actual $103.4 billion on-budget deficit was reduced by that amount and the government reported a total deficit of only $22.0 billion. It was in 1998 that the American people first had the wool pulled over their eyes on a grand scale. In that year, the operating budget of the federal government was still in the red with an actual deficit of $30 billion. It was the $99.2 billion surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund that enabled the government to report a budget surplus of $69.2 billion. During a year in which the United States Government spent $30 billion more than it collected in general revenue, it announced that there was a $69.2 billion overall surplus!



From that point on, the American people seemed to believe that there truly was excess money in the federal budget, and cunning politicians began building schemes to further mislead the people into believing that money was available for new programs and/or for cutting taxes. Any reader who has doubts about whether the government had a deficit or surplus in 1998 need only check out the size of the national debt in 1997 and 1998. The United States Treasury Department maintains a web site on the internet that provides public debt figures updated on a daily basis.



The total debt at the end of 1997 was $5,369.7 billion ($5.37 trillion). By the end of 1998, the debt had risen to $5,478.7 billion ($5.48 trillion). How could the national debt rise by $109 billion if the government had a $69.2 billion surplus? It couldnt. The United States Government had to borrow $30 billion to pay the on-budget deficit. In addition, since the Social Security Surplus was all invested in United States Treasury securities as required by law, the governments debt to the Social Security fund also went up.

Answer 4

It will only stop when a million old folks take to the streets to demand their money.

Answer 5

the soc sec system can't get any worse, than it is now, have you ever had to deal with those imbeciles that work there?

Answer 6

they will continue to ruin it.