[Bob434]

just a heads up- you’re not going to convince him the government misused SS because the government told him they didn’t misuse it, and by golly that’s good enough for him- despite practically everyone else knowing the governed did infact misuse the money for general fund projects- Congressperson after congressperson has stated that the funds were misused, but the government tells lurkin they didn’t misuse it and so anyone who questions it in lurkin’s mind is an ‘ignorant liar’- I lost count of how many times he called me that in a ‘discussion’ with him in another thread on this issue

Fro m the other thread:

FEDERAL “BORROWING” OF SOCIAL SECURITY FUNDS

The following excerpt is from the 1998 Senate Budget Committee session. Note the underlined portions.

BEGIN EXCERPT

U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD CHAIRMAN ALAN GREENSPAN: .....making sure that surplus is there.

U.S. SENATOR ERNEST F. HOLLINGS (D-SC): Yeah, making sure that surplus is there. I’m telling you, Dr. Greenspan, that’s music to my ears.

GREENSPAN: Well, I remember you taking this song a long way over recent years, and I must say, Senator, a number of us were skeptical that was even discussable, figuring we would never get to unified surplus that we said which you were preaching was very interesting, scientifically sound, but unrealistic. I apologize.

HOLLINGS: Well that’s all right, because your Greenspan Commission report in section 21 says just exactly what you’re saying here. That was in 1983; here now, in 1999, on page two, “simply put, enough resources must be set aside over a lifetime of work to fund retirement consumption.” Now that section 21 said set it aside. President Bush, in section 13 3 01 on November the 5th, 1990 signed that into law. And we making headway. Let’s understand, though, that we’re still running deficits. ‘Cause I’m not going along with this monkeyshine about unified. ‘Cause unified is not net, the debt still goes up, is that correct?

GREENSPAN: If you’re...it depends on whether or not you wish to create the savings...

HOLLINGS: I’m not asking what you’re trying to create. The simple fact is the debt has been going up at least $100 billion for the last several years.

GREENSPAN: Outside, on budget, that is correct.

HOLLINGS: That’s right, on budget, you’re spending a hundred billion more than you’re taking in.

GREENSPAN: Correct.

HOLLINGS: And this president’s budget spends another hundred billion more than we take in.

GREENSPAN: I haven’t seen it yet.

HOLLINGS: You haven’t seen it? You’re testifying about it now.

GREENSPAN: I haven’t seen the budget. You haven’t seen it either.

HOLLINGS: Well, you know his plan. Look you think he’s going to spend less than a hundred billion more?

GREENSPAN: I will wait to see what the numbers look like.

HOLLINGS: Well, the truth is...ah, shoot, well, we all know there’s Washington’s math problem. Alan Sloan in this past week’s Newsweek says he spends 150%. What we’ve been doing, Mr. Chairman, in all reality, is taken a hundred billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund, transferring it over to the spending column, and spending it. Our friends to the left here are getting their tax cuts, we getting our spending increases, and hollering surplus, surplus, and balanced budget, and balanced budget plans when we continue to spend a hundred billion more than we take in.

That’s the reality, and I think that you and I, working the same side of the street now, can have a little bit of success by bringing to everybody’s attention this is all intended surplus. In other words, when we passed the Greenspan Commission Report, the Greenspan Commission Report only had Social Security in 1983 a two hundred million surplus. It’s projected to have this year a 117 million surplus. I’ve got the schedule, I’ll ask to put in the record the CBO report: 117, 126, 130, 100, going right through to 2008 over the ten year period of 186 billion surplus. That was intended; this is dramatic about all these retirees, the baby boomers. But we foresaw that baby boomer problem, we planned against that baby boomer problem. Our problem is we’ve been spending that particular reserve, that set-aside that you testify to that is so necessary. That’s what I’m trying to get this government back to reality, if we can do that.

We owe Social Security 736 billion right this minute. If we saved 117 billion, we could pay that debt down, and have the wonderful effect on the capital markets and savings rate. Isn’t that correct? Thank you very much, Sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

END EXCERPT

On October 13, 1989, Senator Ernest Hollings:

““Of course, the most reprehensible fraud in this great jambalaya of frauds is the systematic and total ransacking of the Social Security trust fund in order to mask the true size of the deficit…The Treasury is siphoning off every dollar of the Social Security surplus to meet current operating expenses of the Government…The hard fact is that, in the next century, the Social Security system will find itself paying out vastly more in benefits than it is taking in through payroll taxes. And the American people will wake up to the reality that those IOU’s in the trust fund vault are a 21st century version of Confederate banknotes.’ “

“We have stolen $2.6 trillion from it. We put paper money in there. The problem is, we spent the money – we didn’t just take it, we took it and spent it,” Congressmen Coburn said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Social Security ran about a $53 billion deficit last year – it’s projected to run a continuous deficit.”

Quote: “It has been clear for quite some time that the trust fund contained no real assets”. David Walker, Comptroller General of the GAO, stated on January 21, 2005, “There are no stocks or bonds or real estate in the trust fund. It has nothing of real value to draw down.”

“The myth of the Social Security trust fund,” which included the following statement:

A lot of people speak of those IOUs as if they can be pulled out and exchanged for money to pay benefit checks. They can’t. As the Clinton administration budget of 2000 explained, the securities in the Trust Fund ‘do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Those special-issue bonds can only be redeemed by raising taxes, cutting spending elsewhere, or borrowing — exactly what the government would have to do if the Trust Fund didn’t exist. The Trust Fund, said the Clinton budget message, ‘does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government’s ability to pay benefits.”

[[Social Security financing is completely independent of the federal budget.]]

you have no proof of that statement=- none- and infact the facts of the case, and confession of those in government and of the social security committee itself, indicate just the opposite- but by golly you now better than them all because a government website tells you so

[[Social Security financing is completely independent of the federal budget.]]

Really? Hmm:

http://www.nber.org/feldstein/wj020199.html

“To keep Social Security on track through 2055, the president arbitrarily transfers another $2.8 trillion—the remainder of the $4.5 trillion surplus—from the Treasury to the trust fund over the next 15 years. The president described this as equal to 62% of the projected budget surplus but it is not part of the surplus at all. The entire surplus is already spoken for by the new spending, the savings accounts and the automatic additions of Social Security surpluses to the trust fund. This $2.8 trillion is a completely new additional grant of money from the Treasury to the trust fund. The Treasury credits the Social Security account with $2.8 trillion and debits the governments general revenue account $2.8 trillion. This permits the trust fund to acquire $2.8 trillion in additional government bonds. Cashing in these bonds between 2032 and 2055 will pay for the projected benefits in those years. Magic!

The issue isnt just transferring money from general revenue to the trust fund. Its double-counting. The trust fund accumulates the $2.7 trillion of regular Social Security surpluses. The same $2.7 trillion is then counted again in the $4.5 trillion the president uses to finance his $2.8 trillion to Social Security. Thus the president raises the Social Security trust fund by $5.5 trillion while spending nearly $2 trillion on other things, all out of a total surplus of $4.5 trillion.

This amounts to the biggest and most creative budget sham Ive ever seen. If the government gave $2.8 trillion to private individuals, it would create $2.8 trillion of budget deficits, and the national debt would rise by $2.8 trillion. But since the Social Security trust fund is part of the government, this transfer of money (and the bonds that are bought with it) does not count as deficit or add to the national debt.”

[flaglady47]

Thanks for the heads up. You confirm what I have been thinking myself.