Sunday, February 07, 2010
Alan Greenspan wants to dishonor the special Treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund:No other way to interpret what he said on Meet the Press. Note that he's talking about Social Security, not Medicare or other programs that are paid out of the general fund. MR. GREENSPAN: Well, I, you know, I, I agree with what Hank is saying. I think the thing that disturbed me most in the last week or two was when the discussion was involved in, I believe, in the Senate on the issue of forming a commission--a congressionally-authorized commission, as I read it, there was a 97-to-nothing vote to exclude Social Security from the deliberations of that commission. That said to me that we have gotten to the point in this country where spending is untouchable. I have no doubts that we have to raise taxes in order to close this huge deficit. But we cannot do it wholly on the tax side because that would significantly erode the rate of growth in the economy and the tax base, and the revenues that would be achieved would be far less than anybody'd expect. We have to recognize the fact that one of the things that we have to do, as tough as it's going to be, is that benefits are going to have to be paired in conjunction with tax increases to resolve this very serious long-term budget problem. Of course, David Gregory had no follow up question to those remarks. It was the 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka Greenspan Commission) that increased payroll taxes which went towards purchasing the special Treasury bonds that the Trust now holds.
posted by Quiddity at 2/07/2010 10:35:00 AM
6 comments
OMG, is anyone still listening to Greenspan?
that benefits are going to have to be paired in conjunction with tax increases
I like how MSNBC did their part to whisk Greenspan's comment under the carpet by substituting the homonym "paired" for his actual word "pared"
Yeah, anon. It couldn't possibly be that the idiot who transcribed the interview simply misspelled the word.
Hanlon's razor, dude.
Yeah. The one radioactive word, completely changing the meaning of the sentence.
"pairing" benefits with tax increases means that one is raised in conjunction with the other.
"paring" benefits means that benefits are reduced while taxes are increased.
Don't those guys have some sort of special jeernelizm school that makes them extra smart and able to think?
Yeah. Like the person who conducts the interview on TV is the one who transcribes same.
You really don't understand the division of labor in a TV newsroom, do you?
This time, look up "Hanlon's Razor" before spouting off, okay? Perhaps you'll cease embarrassing yourself, although I seriously doubt it.
that increased payroll taxes
fuck you, reagan.
taxing unemployment benefits is likewise obscene.
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