What's to argue with? GW is all in favor of letting the illegals continue to flood into our country and avail themselves of our already bloated entitlements. Further, according to the WSJ, non-discretionary spending has risen over 30% under Dubya. So far he's a fiscal failure.
There is no 'trust fund' and hasn't ever been such a thing as far as I know. SS funds are confiscated from our paychecks and go right to the general fund to pay out to the SS receivers.
There is no algore 'lockbox'...never has been. SS $$ go to buy some bonds too, I think...
That is all I know, nuthin' more and I don't care that I don't know more. It's like Wonder Bread, I like it and don't care it's white poison!
There is no "Trust Fund".
Uh there has been no SS trust fund since LBJ, but what the hey blame Bush, who is trying to get rid of that ponzi scheme.
What he really means is that Bush's agreement with Fox WOULD raid the Trust Fund, not that Bush HAS raided the Trust Fund. I'm not even sure that part is accurate though. In any event, there is no way that Congress is going to let illegal Mexican aliens collect social security benefits.
There seems to be a plan to join the North American countries into one. Something like an EU. That seems to be President Bush and President Fox's plan. I would like to see it stopped , but it doesnt appear that the Congress has the guts it takes.
Debt to the penny.
$7,776,939,047,670.14
Alarmist, but true. However, can we stop using the term "Third World?" It is a relic of the Cold War. Besides, many "Third World" countries (Korea, Singapore, even Chile) are more prosperous than second world countries like Ukraine, Albania and Bulgaria.
How about his "unpopular war" statement? How unpopular is it to fight terrorists who want to kill Americans and destroy the American economy?
You'll find all sorts of scarey data here at the US National Debt Clock page:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
There isn't and never was any trust fund. What there is, is a pile of government IOU's called treasury notes obligating the government to pay itself back at a future date. Obviously a failure to repay cannot be pursued legally because no entity can sue itself. SS as a pile of money does not and never did exist. There was nothing to raid.
Well, it's clear that he teaches college - probably a history professor because he doesn't seem to know squat about it.
SS existed pretty much as a Trust Fund until LBJ's Great Society initiative that included the War on Poverty. The Ware on Poverty opened the federal checkbook wider than it had been and allowed people who had never paid into SS to collect money from it. It also allowed the Federal government to co-mingle funds earmarked for SS with general revenues.
Since then, politicians from every party have protected this dirty little secret that they have ALL been involved in robbing SS and writing worthless IOU's. Now that the chickens have come home to roost (payments due, baby boomers retiring), folks are starting to ask where the money is and why a "trust fund" has had several tax increases to avoid going broke? By definition, a "trust fund" should only go broke as the result of mismanagement
So now, Congress, in their usual gutless manner, is blaming taxpayers for the failing economic health of SS. After all, in their world, we wanted the War on Pverty and we wanted them to fund every stupid, pointless, waste of tax dollars on social services for the "poor" and chronically stupid.
But, nothing could be further from the truth. LBJ was just a kindergarten socialist compared to today's crop of college level, Clintonista socialists. Bush inherited the economic mess Clinton left behind (including a failing SS system, something Clinton actually did try to address) but, given the template of the MSM to blame Bush for everything that is wrong with society today, it suits their needs to ignore the truth and blame Bush for SS's woes. And, those woes began in the 60s, when Bush was still in high school.
But, given the communist agenda of today's embedded "educator" class, facts are never allowed to get in the way of pushing their cause.
There is NO trust fund and has not been since LBJ and the democrats passed a law allowing Social Security funds to be included in the general funds of the treasury.
He did this to pay for the war in Vietnam so he and the democrats could say it was costing nothing.
The SS Trust Fund has been 'raided' every year since it's inception. The govt. each year took the money and spent it, leaving non-negotiable Treasury bods as IOUs.
President Participates in Class-Action Lawsuit Reform Conversation February 9, 2005
Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out.
I report, you decide. /faux Fox
Go to the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/fedgov.pdf
Scroll down to Table No. 461. Federal Budget—Receipts, Outlays, and Debt: 1960 to 2004
Look at the column headed "Federal Government Account". That column represents a cumulative total of the money borrowed from the trust funds - mostly from Social Security - and the interest that is promised on the borrowing.
You can scroll to Table No. 468. Federal Trust Fund Receipts, Outlays, and Balances: 2001 to 2003, and see the breakdown between the various trust funds. If you really want to track the SS trust fund you can go back to previous issues of the Statistical Abstract.
Previous issues (back to 1995) can be found at:
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-04.html
You want to look at Section 9.