Posted on 03/13/2011 4:00:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
With most of Washington locked in a debate over just how big a bite should be taken out of a (relatively small) portion of overall government spending, one group of senators is pushing forward to face larger budget challenge.
President Barack Obama has kept a cautious distance from the recommendations issued last year by his own commission on fiscal responsibility — particularly when it comes to entitlements like Social Security. But this bipartisan group of six senators, led by Sen. Mark Warner, D- Va., and Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., is keeping the commission's proposals alive and drafting them into legislation.
Fiscal retrenchment, including reining in entitlement spending, can no longer be delayed, they argue. “If we put this off, we are approaching financial Armageddon," Warner told an audience in Richmond, Va., this week. This week, commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles put Social Security — and its often-misunderstood trust funds — squarely in the center of the debate.
The commission, co-chaired by Bowles, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, and former Senate Republican Whip Alan Simpson, recommended slowing the future growth of Social Security retirement benefits, particularly for higher earners, increasing taxes on higher earners, and raising the eligibility age for collecting benefits, except for workers with physically demanding jobs.
But skeptics wonder: why pick on Social Security? Since Social Security will be solvent until 2037, why must it be part of any fiscal overhaul now?
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., a member of the Bowles-Simpson commission who voted against its recommendations, has accused Republicans of wanting “to raid Social Security to pay for their past failures to balance the books.”
He said Social Security has “$2.6 trillion in reserves dedicated to paying the retirement, disability and survivor benefits that American taxpayers have earned” and that $2.6 trillion “doesn’t add to our deficit.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
There are no SS reserves, only paper IOU’s.
There are NO RESERVES...just IOU’S..they spent it all...to pay the iou’s they have to raise taxes or cut spending..
Let’s wait until it is totally insolvent~!! Thats always wise.
Ignore problems until they become disasters~! life is more fun that way
We’ve still got ‘crazy checks’ to give out and all kinds of other social security ‘programs’
Why lower the rate by 2% AND deny COLA??? Seniors have no way of making up that money...working people do.
THERE IS NO MONEY IS SOCIAL SECURITY, ONLY UNFUNDED LIABILITIES—THIS TURD NEEDS TO QUIT LYING...
Answer: Because it’s insolvent right now.
There is no money in SS—it has been spent.
Because it is better fiscal policy to avoid problems before they become disasters?
Why are Dems so bad at Math? This is as simple as looking at inflows and outflows, it does not take JP Morgan to grasp the idea that SS has to be shored up now to avoid problems later.
I’d like to say, “Because confiscating money from someone to supposedly finance his own retirement should not be part of a free society. Much less, taking that money and spending it and financing current payments with current receipts and leaving nothing but debt in the supposed retirement fund.” But, the fact that I should not be forced by government to contribute to a corrupt, bankrupt, immoral, illegal (by any other entity), illogical program never comes up for discussion. The only way to fix Social Security is to end it. It will take a slow weaning off, but end it.
The truth is, that it’s simply not possible for a large country to save money. Whatever is produced each year is consumed.
A small country could have a sovereign wealth fund, and invest in private industry abroad. Most of the countries that have tried this have either been swindled, or had the funds stolen by insiders.
Suppose the US had really tried to invest the surplus. That would mean that taxes would have been much higher for the past 40 years, and the surplus would have been invested in the stock market. The government would now own enormous amounts of stock. In order to pay the benefits, they would have to sell this stock to someone....but to whom? If we had had such high tax rates for the past 40 years, no one would have any money to buy it. Foreigners? Would we really want to sell our entire industrial base to foreigners to pay for the baby boomers retirement?
The correct answer is you can’t have a society where there is one retiree for every three workers. It is just not possible.
Republicans are idiots. They are going after Social security instead of defunding oppresive government. I am disgusted and ready for 3rd party.
Because it’s LIKE an UNDERWATER MORTGAGE you ignorant Democrats
And they will go to the taxpayers to pay the IOUs.
There is no money in SS—it has been spent
It said $2.6 reserves. I should have noticed the source.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
The alleged "solvency" of SS is due to accounting chicanery. SS is solvent on paper, if those bonds (IOUs) are redeemed...from general funds.
The problem is that the U.S. is running a trillion plus dollar deficit, and redemption of SS bonds--without corresponding tax increases--would push that deficit higher and possibly cost the U.S. its AAA rating.
There are a number of available policy options, including higher taxes, reduced (or no) benefits, spending cuts in other Federal departments, straight-up deficit spending (with the potential for more inflation), or some combination thereof. However, the Federals are caught in a catch-22 or no-win situation, since higher taxes and deficit spending will strangle the economy, folks who paid SS want their money back (though their willingness to support Big Government for decades makes this claim somewhat questionable), and folks of all stripes want to cut government largesse except for the programs from which they benefit.
Basically, it's a recipe for "epic fail" on a national scale, which leads me to the following statement:
We as Americans are our own worst enemy.
The existential threat to the U.S. is neither kooky Islamist terrorists nor Maoists in Beijing nor former Soviets in Moscow. The existential threat is e pluribus unum (from many, one) going in reverse instead of going in forward; in essence, we as a nation (and collection of sovereign States) devolves into, well, something that's not the United States of America.
[As an analogy, consider this situation: you're driving on the highway, with your automatic transmission in drive, when your passenger all of a sudden decides to shift the automatic transmission into reverse. We all know what happens.]
First things first:
DEFUND OBAMACARE NOW!
If you don’t defund it now, it will be here forever IN ADDITION to the problems with Social Security.
Prove you can defund 0bamacare THEN we can support your efforts on SS.
Got it?
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