Posted on 09/01/2010 8:08:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Alan Simpson violated a taboo last week when he likened Social Security to "a milk cow with 310 million tits." But contrary to the dictionary-deprived critics who accused him of sexist vulgarity, the former Wyoming senator's transgression had nothing to do with his use of a perfectly acceptable synonym for teat. Simpson's real sin was "belittling a bedrock program," as the AARP put it -- i.e., showing insufficient reverence for a sacred cow. To Simpson's detractors, it is self-evident that a man who supports entitlement reform has no business serving on, let alone co-chairing, a presidential commission devoted to fiscal responsibility. But anyone who takes an honest look at the federal budget can see how crazy that position is. Just three entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- account for two-fifths of federal spending, representing 10 percent of gross domestic product. Without reform, they are expected to consume half of the budget and about 20 percent of GDP by 2050.
It's true that the fiscal outlook for Social Security, which has about $18 trillion in unfunded liabilities, is not nearly as bad as the fiscal outlook for Medicare, which has a long-term shortfall five times as big. Simpson's controversial comments nevertheless reflect some important truths.
First, Social Security is neither a pension fund nor a means-tested assistance program for the needy. It is a pay-as-you-go system of transfer payments that takes money from relatively poor workers and gives it to relatively affluent retirees.
Second, despite all the talk of a "$2.5 trillion surplus," Social Security is indeed "in trouble," thanks to a shrinking ratio of workers to retirees and repeated raids on its revenue by legislators looking for easy spending money. The year of reckoning is not 2037, when the program's imaginary "trust fund" is expected to run out -- it is now, since the cost of benefits already has begun to exceed annual revenue. There is nothing in the trust fund but IOUs from the federal government, which can be redeemed only through cuts in other programs, more taxes or more debt.
Third, entitlement reform -- including Medicare cuts as well as changes to Social Security -- will be fought tooth-and-nail by the AARP, the National Organization for Women and other denialist defenders of the status quo. That much was confirmed by the reaction to Simpson's complaints about charges of "ageism" and "sexism," which were cited as further evidence of his ageism and sexism.
Yet this self-hating senior citizen, who turns 79 this week, is right to question a retirement age that was set at 65 in 1935 and has been raised by only two years (for people born after 1959) since then. Meanwhile, life expectancy at 65 has gone from about 13 more years for men and 15 for women to 17 for men and 20 for women, and those numbers are projected to continue rising.
Simpson is also right to point out that Americans receive Social Security (and Medicare) benefits regardless of how wealthy they are. You might think progressives would welcome means testing. But as Trudy Lieberman explained in the Columbia Journalism Review, they worry that targeting benefits to people who actually need them would undermine "the program's social solidarity."
Translation: Voters love middle-class entitlements, but they hate welfare. That's why progressives were so upset about Simpson's cow comparison, with its implication of unseemly dependence. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., claimed to find the simile "beyond comprehension" but nevertheless concluded that it was both "false" and "demeaning."
Transforming Social Security into a true pension program by letting workers invest part of what they now see disappear in payroll taxes is likewise anathema to the "social solidarity" crowd, since it would let people go their own way instead of forcing them to participate in the government's Ponzi scheme. Simpson is not suggesting anything nearly so radical, which makes the silly, sanctimonious storm over his comments all the more depressing.
Simpson actually had a pretty good point, but the number was wrong. It’s more like a milk cow with 535 teats.
I think we all know that Social Security changes will have to include some combination of:
1.raising the retirement age
2. raising taxes
3. changing the CPI formulas used to increase benefits
4. means testing
5. changing formulas for full benefits. Right now, I think you get full benefits after 10 years of work.
6. reducing benefits if you already get another government pension.
And there may be other ideas talked about. But some combination of these things has to happen to balance the budget of Social Security. Something’s got to give. Yet it seems that anyone who talks about various things that could be done is attacked for daring to suggest that any particular change should happen.
I’ve read some pretty dumb things about SS over the years but “It is a pay-as-you-go system of transfer payments that takes money from relatively poor workers and gives it to relatively affluent retirees. “ takes the cake! My wife has paid the max all her life, what she is getting back, will never come close to what she paid in... My mother never paid in a dime, but has collected a check for 20 years. And this guy acts like my wife, shouldn’t get any of her money back.
AMAZING....
We’ll never see the end of social security. Too many old people living on social security checks, medicare, governemnt subsidsed housing with nothing to do but vote and campaign democrat.
In many ways these old peeople disgust me more than your average welfare rat. They’ve had their whole lives to save and prepare to retire but rather than work hard and build up a nest egg they hit retirement and the my tax dollar takes care of their medical needs, housing, and eventually the nursing homes where they languish for a decade until they die and the state pays for cremation.
I’m in a black mood this morning. Just looked at my paycheck and I see all the social security tax taken out and I know I’ll never see a dime of it.
“Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger”
You are more likely to see a UFO than your S/S...
There is no problem here, we just need the key to VP Al Gore’s Lock-box where all of the cash is stored. Simple, right?
What’s a paycheck?
It’s so small sometimes I almost forget that I get one every two weeks.
Circle number 4. The most successful, and hard working among us will receive nothing. Tantamout to grand theft, if done in the private sector.
Then when the money runs out you can share a room in a state facility awaiting your visit to the crematorium.
I’m self employed, trying to keep afloat, but savings are dwindling. Current cash flow goes towards paying bills and taxes.
Not exactly going as planned.
These politicians knew intellectually that they were bankrupting the system but they also knew that it was a legal way of buying votes. More Democrats have been elected and gotten the permanent affiliation of AARP and the like by expanding benefits and demonizing opponents as heartless skinflints who want to force Granny to eat dog food than any other issue.
There have been multiple opportunities in the 70+ years of SS to put it on a firm and sane financial basis and there have been many attempts that have lost the proponent's next election. Now we all are paying the penalty for past and present vote whores who love to demonize anything other than an ever flowing SS check!
It especially is unlikely to last when our elected officials and their bureaucratic allies start eyeing IRAs and 401ks for "equitable contributory taxation" to help the poor have an equal shot at retiring. After all if you had surplus fund to put aside for retirement, you must have been rich enough to pay those higher taxes that should have been levied at the time. [Trying to channel left-think really makes my head hurt!]
I fully anticipate that those lovers of social justice and equal outcomes, to wit: those guys in power now, to find spurious but facile justifications to raid retirement accounts. It is just a matter of time and the wrong votes in November!
Now cutting those programs is a good idea, I can't disagree, but if you cut them all it would not make a noticeable dent in the SS and Medicare shortfalls.
The idea that it is "her" money to "get back" is purely a fiction, and the biggest delusion in the whole SS scheme.
The federal courts have affirmed that no one has a "right" to SS, and that the government could end the program tomorrow without owing any SS recipient one red cent.
“The most successful, and hard working among us will receive nothing. Tantamout to grand theft, if done in the private sector.”
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Government coerced theft? Nothing new of course.
See the decades old, trillion dollar racist theft scheme, known originally as The War on Poverty.
It is not really even a synonym. It is more a difference in pronunciation. In the south “teets” is not a possible pronunciation. It is like the Southern pronunciation of “Negro” which the yankees turned into a sin and a capital crime. The folks down south dutifully practiced and practiced and learned finally to say “knee-grow” and that then was anathematized. The acceptability of a pronunciation depends on who is doing the pronouncing.
Good point.
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