Posted on 12/22/2004 8:26:42 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
PRESIDENT Bush's entire plan for Social Security privatization rests on the premise that the system is in severe crisis. But a careful look at the numbers suggests that the financial crisis is largely a myth.
For years, the Social Security Trustees have used very conservative assumptions about future rates of economic growth, productivity growth, and growth of the labor force. These assumptions, in turn, affect the projected payroll tax collections that will fund Social Security payouts.
Five years ago, in the late 1990s, they estimated the long-term economic growth rate at just 1.7 percent. The reality has been well over 3 percent.
Most economists now believe the economy can do a lot better than 1.7 percent annual growth. In its 1997 report, the trustees projected that the system would no longer be able to meet all its obligations by 2029. Just six years later in 2003, based on their acknowledgement of stronger economic growth, the trustees moved the crisis date back to 2042. So if the system can gain 13 years of life in six years, there's not much of a crisis.
But that's just the beginning. In June, the bipartisan Congressional Budget office used more realistic assumptions about economic growth. CBO puts the first shortfall year at 2052, not 2042, and it projects Social Security's 75-year shortfall at only about four-10ths of one percent of gross domestic product. Currently, that's about $40 billion a year, or one-fifth of the revenues that the Bush administration gave up in tax cuts for the wealthy.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
So, the national debt is a crisis, but the Social Security deficit, which is even bigger, is no big deal. I'm glad they clarified that for me; now I understand why I want the Dims to be in control of my life. /sarcasm
Let's wait until the whole system comes crashing down, and then tax the h*ll out of the people.//sarc//
Here's a crisis or two for ya that is worthy of "fixing" Social Security: I'm not getting enough interest on the money I'm investing in SS. Here's another, I want less of my money to be available to Congress for pork. Sounds reasonable to me...
Perhaps but, if that is so, why has this same MSM been pounding us with the threatened insolvancy the system for the past 10 years?
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil..
I have heard so many Democrats in the past call SS a crisis that it is not even funny. I guess it stops being a crisis the minute a Republican wants to do something about it.
"Just six years later in 2003, based on their acknowledgement of stronger economic growth, the trustees moved the crisis date back to 2042. So if the system can gain 13 years of life in six years, there's not much of a crisis. "
Why wait for it to become a crisis. Address it now before it becomes a serious problem. It is going to be a problem at some point and this President obviously has the foresight to realize we must address it sooner or later. The longer you wait the more expensive it'll become to fix.
The crisis is in the lost opportunities. If all the SS money was saved and invested versus being pissed away, the economy would grow by leaps and bounds.
So they are suggesting that we should not fix social security until it's a crisis?
Then it's too late. You don't wait until you are 64 before saving for retirement.
But this is the "Worst Economy since Herbert Hoover"!
Right. When Dims want to raise taxes to "shore up Social Security", it's a crisis. When President Bush wants to take the tiny step of setting up 2% personal Social Security accounts...shazam!!!...."what crisis?" say morons like Kuttner.
What crisis?? There is no stinking crisis!!!!
If investors put money into a fund that would not let them get out because of horrible returns (~1%) the fund managers and organization would be investigated and charged by the SEC. Why don't we hold our government to the same standard?
Now they need a strong economy to defeat Bush's Social Security reform, and they have zero shame about turning on a dime and telling us that economic growth is far stronger than expected. This is why the leftstream media has no credibility. They think we can't remember what they said from one week to the next. Lying crapweasels, the lot of them. |
These people would rather see Armageddon than admit one of their socialist programs is a failure.
That's what this issue is all about.
AS A CARD-CARRYING member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I'd like to have one more card in my wallet. The card I want, contrary to the views of most civil liberties activists, is a national ID card.
In other words, he's a certifiable whack job.
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This is hilarious. When they still thought they had a chance to elect John Kerry, the media (and Kuttner in particular) droned on about "the worst economy since Herbert Hoover." It was "the jobless recovery." Doomed R us.