Posted on 01/08/2009 12:14:12 AM PST by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.
As the Congressional Budget Office projected a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit for this year even before the costs of the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package being taken up by the House and the Senate, Mr. Obama stepped up his effort to reassure lawmakers and the financial markets that he plans a vigorous effort to keep the government’s finances from deteriorating further.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to consume a growing share of government spending as the baby boom generation ages into retirement over the next two decades. But he said he would have more to say about the issue when he unveiled a budget next month.
Should he follow through with a serious effort to cut back the rates of growth of the two programs, he would be opening up a potentially risky battle that neither party has shown much stomach for. The programs have proved almost sacrosanct in political terms, even as they threaten to grow so large as to be unsustainable in the long run. President Bush failed in his effort to overhaul Social Security, and Medicare only grew larger during his administration with the addition of prescription drug coverage for retirees.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There are structural reforms of Social Security that need to be made. Currently, payroll taxes are used to fund more current government spending, and there should be personal accounts where the money is actually set aside. After 2008, many people have lost faith in the stock market, but people should have the choice of investing their personal accounts in bonds or stocks.
I bet Obama's "reform" of Social Security will be to means-test SS benefits for the "rich" and to lift or eliminate the cap on income that is subject to the payroll tax. Democrats have long favored both ideas, which will make SS almost entirely a welfare program.
By my math that's $2 trillion. But I do have to admit, Obama has already performed his first miracle: I thought it would be impossible for anyone to make Bush look fiscally responsible in comparison - I was wrong.
First thing a RAT can think of is cut SS. Same with Klinton, when he finds that there aren’t enough rich folks to go around, he’ll blame Bush.
This doesn’t mean he’s going to take away hubby’s SS, does it?
He worked 50 years for it and we depend on it.
Yes.
We are not only facing a Fiscal meltdown, but to some extent that even is minor.
We have a demographic time bomb. You can not have presently high taxes, in total, and a booming elderly and a declining young workforce.
In other words, we can not pay our bills now, expenses are going up, and income from fewer and fewer workers is declining.
This is why housing is also going bust. Who’s going to buy? There are, over all, less and less young people.
So the general conditions are now high taxes.
The general conditions tomorrow are higher taxes on workers, less workers, more elderly, more expenses, houses worth less.
Government is going to raise taxes, and cut spending on services.
The only options are to borrow more, which it is, and to print money, which it might.
In a way, they are right. Bush, Hasteret, Lott, the GOP spent more than FDR/Johnson ever imagined.
As a brand, the GOP is garbage. Yugo. Cadillac Cimmeron. New Coke.
Bush, to his credit, tried to address Social Security and was shot down by the left. If I remember correctly, the AARP started running ads almost immediately against Bush.
So where will these hypocrites be when Zero starts messing with S.S.? Democrats are vile hypocrites and little more needs to be said than that.
Well, along with your demographic time bomb has been the tide of illegal immigrants showing up in our country and a Hispanic population that is dropping out of our schools at a higher rate than even the black population.
Our nation is turning into a third world country, only without a youthful populace. And without even a common language. Only 50% of the kids in the LA Unified School District even speak English.
I’m not an Obama supporter, but this an area we agree on. If the country wants to have a national pension, we should fund it out of the budget and means test it. Also, the social security tax is regressive as it is only collected on the $102k of income. Combined with an age eligibility scale based on life expectancy, this would make for a manageable program that would meet its objectives for the rest of time.
I didn’t want to cloud the picture by saying that what youths that are officially counted, a significant number of them are/will be poorly educated, low income producing thus low tax generating and most likely also tax eaters in general beyond what they pay.
Future tax payers will be paying for increasing elderly and increasing with in their own age group, welfare consumers. How this less productive and smaller work force is suppose to pay off/service 50 trillion in debts escapes me, but I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, so maybe it’s beyond me anyway.
I don’t see it happening. I can go into light industrial parks and half the ‘businesses’ are off the books, operating on cash. I know of a three bay garage where the whole thing is cash/checks. The workers/owners philosophy is that federal tax prison isn’t worse than working, paying taxes and having little to show.
I love the country, but I could care less about the government, at any level.
Although I know it would be worse, I often feel like letting the whole shebang just blow up. Naturally, if that should near come to pass, we would find ourselves under a declared state of emergency.
The present work force can not pay as it goes now.
The demographics are pulling apart. More elderly, less workers, higher taxes, slower or worse economy to come.
Dream on.
You can not have one high school dropout son of an illegal being taxed to death to pay for two elderly.
Math, spending, plans are fictitious. Like Hitler in his bunker moving around divisions that don’t exist, you can not tax young people that don’t exist, or don’t make enough to be taxed.
Other than that, your plan might work.
Here's Obama talking about cutting Social Security.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
No. You may have some smaller problems coming up but in general terms you are safe. The most likely scenario is for them to means test SS or to tax it. If you depend on it like you say you do, you should be safe in both instances.
There are a lot of people (like my parents) who also paid into SS but don't really need it to survive. It's nice to have but not necessary. They will be the ones who are likely to be hurt. If it is means tested, they will have other income high enough that they will not qualify for SS benefits. If it is taxed, their other income would put them into a high enough bracket that the benefits are taxed away. If you really do depend on the income then you will qualify for the benefits and they will not be taxed away.
If I were you, I wouldn't worry about that at all. Where you might have cause to be concerned is Medicare. You might lose some benefits and the services will be slower and poorer in quality. As a country we can and will handle SS benefits to you and those becoming elegible in the next few years. For the ones coming after that, who knows?
Don’t know if you are a baby boomer; but we have been targeted for a very long time. The SS fund is a private slush fund for the use of our elected officials and they have to find some way to cover up what they have stolen; instead of being fiscally responsible.
Let’s get rid of them.
Let’s see, Bush mentioned doing something about SS and Medicare and got flamed. The Chosen One mentions it and it is a good idea to the MSM’s.
I wish they *would* get rid of his Medicare.
It’s worthless to him.
He was -forced- into accepting [and paying for] it even though we pay for excellent health insurance already.
He asked if he had “a choice” about the Medicare and they told him yes; you can refuse it and we’ll cancel your BC/BS *or* you can take it and pay for it.
His SS is already being taxed.
Why do I have a horrible feeling that the societal leeches will prosper under That One’s reign and the rest of us will suffer mightily?
Because it’s “fair”?
How is it fair that those who will not work will have the same [or more] rights than those who will?
Exactly...his reforms will take SS benefits away from the “rich”...that’s how he’ll overhaul SS. Medicare, that’ll be more thorny to contain, IMHO.
No...I’m a late Gen-Xer.
To see BO say he may let the Bush tax cuts expire tells me he is clueless. He obviously has no real plan to grow the economy. It’s only a spending spree.
Instead of saying the economy is bad......it should read we are experiencing a much needed correction. Let the Free Market correct itself.
Remember 2003? The stock market was at 7500. In late 2007, it was at 14,000. You never see this mentioned.
That is not a national pension. That is redistribution.
If you support redistribution, you do not belong on FR.
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