Posted on 03/18/2006 3:04:56 PM PST by eeevil conservative
53 Senators vote to raid the Social Security trust fund
Yesterday, Senators Jim DeMint and Mike Crapo introduced an amendment to prevent the current Social Security Surplus from continuing to be spent. 53 Senators voted against it.
After the vote, DeMint issued the following statement:
Details about the amendment via a DeMint press release are in the extended section.“Sadly, fifty-three senators turned their backs on America’s seniors,” Senator DeMint said. “There is simply no way to save Social Security if we don’t have the courage stop using the surplus as a secret slush fund. I’m thankful there were forty-six senators who stood with America’s seniors to end the raid. We will not be deterred by cynics who offer no solutions.”
“Those who voted against this amendment voted to raid Social Security,” said Senator DeMint. “Now, every senator will be on record whether they oppose or support the raid. This said absolutely nothing about personal accounts, it was about whether you believe Social Security should be saved or allowed to wither on the vine.”
UPDATE: Pasted below are the 53 Senators who voted to raid the fund -- Republicans who should no better are in bold. Click here to see the whole breakdown.
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Burns (R-MT) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Carper (D-DE) Chafee (R-RI) Clinton (D-NY) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Dayton (D-MN) Dodd (D-CT) Domenici (R-NM) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Jeffords (I-VT) Johnson (D-SD) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Stabenow (D-MI) Talent (R-MO) Wyden (D-OR)
The current Social Security system allows Congress to spend the Social Security surplus on other government programs. Including interest, Congress has raided $1.7 trillion from Social Security since 1985. The surplus now only consists of IOU’s stacked in a vault in West Virginia that can only be paid back by raising taxes or cutting spending.
The DeMint-Crapo Amendment to Stop the Raid on Social Security would have allowed the Senate to pass legislation with the following requirements:
· Social Security surpluses must be used to help pay for future benefits
· That it make no changes to the benefits of those Americans born before January 1, 1950
· That it provide a voluntary option for younger Americans to obtain legally binding ownership of a portion of their benefits.
"Social Security is the greatest fraud ever FORCED ON FREE PEOPLE."
I agree with you there, 100%.
I agree. Politics are pretty ugly all the way around these days. Just sign me: "Still Overtaxed and Under-Represented in Wisconsin."
By 2017, this will become a moot issue. I would prefer to see us start going to a system of private accounts along with a core defined benefit program to attack the anticipated $13 trillion deficit.
I predict that both parties will take the easy way out as they did in 1983, i.e., raise taxes, increase the retirement age, and add more people to the rolls. It is a Ponzi scheme that is being loaded on the backs of future generations. In any event, the status quo is not an option. Our gutless politicians on both sides will kick the can down the road and trumpet it as a wonderous solution. Reagan signed the 1983 legistlation and praised Congress for its work. Whoever is President after 2008 will do the same thing.
the real problem doesnt begin in 2017..it begins in 2009, that is when the surpluses begin shrinking
I hope they keep raiding it. The sooner it collapses, the better. It's a socialist ponzi-scheme at the core...and we need to be rid of it sooner rather than later.
Let it go. Let them continue to raid it. The lie will be exposed for all to see.
Ping to Badray and Smokeyb
You should care, because these nimrods are extorting the money from your paycheck that you will never see.
All at the "whim" of a simple vote.
And that's not including what they already take out in Fed. taxes.
That's true
...and by 2017 the amount paid out will be greater than the taxes collected. We will then have to borrow money to pay for the IOUs...
Not quite accurate. At that point we will begin consuming interest income and will not begin paying off the IOUs, themselves, until 2027. The surplus is expected to see us through to 2041.
There is apparently quite a bit of disagreement concerning the FANNIE MAE. I would draw your attention to the following, from the publication "The Free Market", in an article titled "Redistribution of Risk", by David Barnes:
"...Government chartering of these organizations causes risk to be transferred from GSEs to the unknowing American taxpayer. The taxpayer will bear the full cost of Fannie Mae's risk assumptions in the event of widespread mortgage default. Each individual is burdened enough by trying to pay his own mortgage while government is plundering his paycheck...
The burden of millions of other mortgage payments should not rest on his shoulders as well. Fannie Mae preys on the common American's ignorance of financial markets for its own benefit. This would not be the case if Fannie Mae's government ties were removed and it were forced to take part in true free-market enterprise..."
FANNIE MAE is a GSE, or government sponsored organization, just like the Savings and Loans were in the 1980's, I believe it was.
The only reason that the FANNIE MAE can have the influence it was intended to have, in adding liquidity to the secondary mortgage market, is that it removes, (or at least severely attenuates), risk from the bundled securities it sells, commonly called Fannie Maes. If no government backing was implied, there would be no FANNIE MAE. If no government sponsorship was in existence, then no exemption would be in place from the rules of the SEC, the Security Exchange Commission, set up and functioning to insure the solvency of issued securities.
If no government backing were in existence, then the Fannie Maes being increasingly sold to overseas bidders would lay unsold at current interest rates. And since a significant part of the periodic issues of Fannie Maes are purchased by foreign investors, with the understanding that the risk of massive failure is underwritten by the US government... if it is ever determined that the full risk attaches to these instruments, the flood of foreign money pouring into them would dry up like Hilliary Clinton's tear ducts.
I have heard it argued both ways, as I am sure you have, but the predominate view, as I understand it, is that the presumption of good faith that the government will act, just as in the Savings and Loans debacle, is one of the few remaining pillars retaining liquidity in the secondary mortgage market. If that is ever removed, it's Katie bar the doors!
And yet... when challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, I believe a ruling on Social Security was that the American citizen had no actual "right" to the money he has contributed! This, also, is foisted upon us as a "secure retirement investment" provided by the government! This, however, was refuted in a written ruling of the highest body in the land.
Does it mean, then, that Social Security has been declared dissolved by the Courts? No. This is because any "guarantee" of any instrument or any institution is only as good as the preception of the stability of the guarantor. The guarantee on the amount in your Federally insured FDIC or FSLIC account is ironclad... as long as the US Government has the means and the political mandate to do so.
But what happens when ALL FDIC and ALL FSLIC and ALL debt instruments fail simultaneously?
Americans have been treated to a national disaster, recently, where a City Mayor, and a State Governor stood on the remnants of a failed levy, staring at the partially submerged school buses in a flooded city, and scrambled to explain why they were not at fault for failing to act. The saving grace being that all of the other Mayors and Governors will divert the taxes and increasing debt of all of the other Americans to make good the carnage of that city. And yet, as it becomes apparent to Americans that more money will be involved in the rebuilding than was ever contemplated before, and the certainty of waste and diversion becomes plain- the actual rebuilding is curiously taking much more time than originally thought. Surprise...
Our citizenry now needs to envision the day when EVERY City and EVERY State sees their houses submerged in a flood of debt. Where there will be no "rest of the country" to turn to, because all purses, Federal, State and City now look to each other for salvation from the disaster they allowed to happen.
I have a newsflash for the American family...when that "-moment of the dry mouth and the wet pants-" finally happens, and the horror dawns that there is not the government to save us... that instead there IS only us- it will be far too late.
As to a one-sided bill being a "publicity stunt"- everything, repeat, everything done in the political arena is currently a political stunt. We ceased some time ago doing things because they make prudent financial sense. Why would we concede to the liberals exclusive license to make points in front of the American people through political theatre?
Surely, you cannot believe that the only way to get things accomplished is to maturely propose restructuring Social Security in a sensible speech delivered from the Presidential pulpit? I have news for you- George Bush tried that. He tried explaining that we face a worsening crisis.
Guess what happened? He was answered by the staging of hundreds of immature, silly, Democratic sound bites, amplified and repeated by an irresponsible media, and culminating in the standing ovation that the defeat of Bush's best attempt to finally fix the problem received in his Presidential address before Congress. Publicity stunt?
It has nothing to do with interest rates- it has to do with making Americans understand that this awesome spiral of debt that we are descending into will preclude their hopes of eventually forcing their grandchildren into funding a nice retirement for them. As unconscionable as that is, it pales against the actuality we are preparing for them.
We demanded "no taxation without representation", and fought hard against it twenty four decades ago. But what, exactly, are we handing our descendants with this mad idea that they not only need to pay all of the debt that we have insanely charged up-... but that they also have to pay off the humorously designated "accrued interest" that we demand also on our national "I.O.U.'s", all while also supporting the retirements of those who dropped this cruel yolk upon them?
There is no clearer taxation without representation than this unconscionable, unbearable burden, voted and spent before they were even born, and yet we expect them to meekly submit to what we would don armor and heft our arms against in rage?
The art is not to stop the government from spending money that the citizens have cleverly been conned into thinking is "Social Security Money".
The art, rather, is to somehow alert the citizen that the government has no manifest destiny to take over the financial lives of our children, and has no irrevocable charter to do so.
The art is to let people know, through whatever theatre is necessary, that they are spending not just themselves, but generations yet unborn, into penury and fourth-world status, and that no legislation that they demand will then be able to return the American birthright to them and their grandchildren.
The time to begin building the dikes is NOT when the first raindrops fall, and the first hurricane winds blow. The time to access whether the money diverted from the strength of those dikes, into "social projects" instead, is not when the waters begin lapping at the top of the dike.
It is way too late by then.
And the flood is upon you....
"Social Security" is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme sponsored by government. Let those who are smart enough to see that get a better return for years of work.
The T-Bills are liabilities, not assets. They are worthless. They can only be cashed in by the USG, which must borrow the money. The interest is also a liability and represents nothing except a paper transaction. There is a reason why the SSTF is included as part of our national debt and is listed as intra-governmental holdings. There is no money in the SSTF, interest or T-bills.
SS is a pay-as-you-go-system. In 2017 we will start borrowing to pay the benefits. The 2041 date is meaningless in terms of the viability of the program. It is used by the Dems to give people the impression that the crisis is far off and the SSTF will see us through. It is nonsense.
Read my post #138. That's what I said. The "surplus" starts declining in 2008. In terms of the general tax revenue, Congress must come up with the shortfall, which is why a "solution" will be found in 2009 after the Presidential elections. The "soluton" will be to raise taxes and reduce benefits, as was the case in 1983 when we had to start paying off some of the IOUs in the SSTF. This spurred the 1983 legislation in much the same way that the declining surplus will in 2008.
Well surely Bush will veto this one..... (and 53 votes aren't enough to overide his veto.
Let me get this straight, the government allows you to choose to take a portion of your money, and tells you what that portion is; then government tells you what your government approved choices are, and you think you have control?
How will government decide what funds you may invest in? Do you think lobbyists will have a say in the choices you have?
With all those new accounts, and fortunes to be made in set up fees, commissions, and management fees, do you think the potential for mismanagement, manipulation, fraud, and outright theft exists?
Do you think this plan would grow or shrink government?
Keep in mind Congress is the same bunch of idiots who increased charge account payments in order to "reduce debt" and here they are stealing more money and raising the Federal debt limit to nine trillion. Hah!
""Let me get this straight, the government allows you to choose to take a portion of your money, and tells you what that portion is; then government tells you what your government approved choices are, and you think you have control?""
More control than I have now and certainly more control than youd allow me to have.
""How will government decide what funds you may invest in? Do you think lobbyists will have a say in the choices you have?""
They might but will private accounts give me a higher or lower rate of return, that is my question..adn not a question you seem to be at all concerned with
""With all those new accounts, and fortunes to be made in set up fees, commissions, and management fees, do you think the potential for mismanagement, manipulation, fraud, and outright theft exists?""
If your best argument against prvate accounts is fees and comission you have no argument..in fact it sounds like youd be against 401ks or IRAs for that matter.
""Do you think this plan would grow or shrink government?""
Absolutely shrink it. There would be less money for the federal govt to spend. That is shrinking it.
Your arguments agsint private accounts are stright out of the 1930s socialist class warfare text book.
1. envy of those who earn comissions
2. distrust of allowing people to control their retirement destiny
what is most amazing to me is you have no solution to SS imending bankruptcy, other than to pretend there isnt a problem
Stupid article.
"Raiding" the trust fund is better than letting it sit full of dollars doing nothing but losing their value. (Wrong!! Raiding the trust fund-which doesn't exist because Social Security is lock, stock and barrel part of the general fund-doesn't cause the dollars to lose their value. It just means that there is no extra money to fund the Syestem. It is never paid back. The System operates on a dollar in and dollar out basis. That is why the politicians are always saying the System will go broke in this year or that year in the future. They always want to raise your contribution to make sure there is a surplus to 'raid'.)
Do you really think it's a good idea to let your money sit in a back without collecting interest? Maybe we should stuff SS money under a matress so it will be nice and safe from those raiders. (What interest? If all that money borrowed-'raided'-over the past thirty years was collecting interest do you think there would be a problem with the System? I think not. That is why letting the younger people in this country have their own 'savings account' would be a good idea.)
I think we're using the wrong language when discussing Social Security. We can start by calling "raiding" what it really is: the purchase of government bonds that earn interest. (Wrong, again! If bonds were purchased they would have maturity dates and the principal would be paid back. That has never been done. Once the Social Security surplus is 'raided', it is gone, forever.)
Yes. The government is already investing social security money by buying bonds. (No! No! No!)
You know, that kind of sounds like you might be expecting the nanny state to supervise your investment choices and take responsibility for the safety of your investment dollars.
That we raised the debt to 9 trillion in order not to defualt on them! Great plan!
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