Wednesday, November 02, 2011
This doesn't make any sense:From the NYTimes: (emp add) Mr. Bowles, speaking for himself and Mr. Simpson, outlined a package that he said could reduce deficits by $2.6 trillion over 10 years. The package includes $800 billion of new revenue, $300 billion in savings from annual appropriations known as discretionary spending, $600 billion from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, $300 billion from other entitlement programs and [savings of] $200 billion from use of a less generous formula to calculate cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security and other benefits. Social Security is not part of the federal budget. It is not going to go into the red in the next 10 years. What's it doing in this package from Simpson and Bowles?
posted by Quiddity at 11/02/2011 03:50:00 PM
3 comments
It's reflecting reality. Social Security is already in the red. It is paying out more than it is taking in and redeeming "trust fund" bonds. The increasing amounts of money being taken from the general treasury fund to redeem those ever increasing bond payment obligations is a very real part of the deficit that is going to grow and grow until the moment Social Security runs out of money and either leaves the elderly destitute or turns into another welfare program.
The Social Security trust fund sinkhole is just as much a part of the national debt as your left hand is part of the same you as your right hand. Loaning money from your left hand to your right hand is a cute trick but when the bill collectors come, if you point to your left hand, point to your left hand, and start showing piles of IOUs, the bill collectors aren't going to go away. You're going to have to give them real money you wanted to use for other purposes. Just like the government has to do now. That's the reality of the situation.
The socialist Democrats of the 1930s put everyone's retirement savings into one huge basket, then generations of Congress treated the basket like a slush fund. Now the basket is empty and the entire nation's retirement savings is gone all at once.
Perhaps this video will help explain the situation.
jms is bullshitting as usual.
The left hand is the rich people of this country who owe FICA payers $2.6T and counting.
FICA payers were sold these bonds and goddamn it they need to be redeemed, and to pay these redemptions we need to raise taxes on NON FICA payers.
Fat chance of that though, the fix is in.
Um, wealthy people pay into Social Security also. They are FICA payers as well. If you want to means-test them, be my guest. But calling them "non-FICA payers" is untrue. Maxing out your FICA payments is not the same thing as not making FICA payments. You are claiming that people paying the maximum they can be forced to pay under Federal law are somehow non-FICA payers. This makes no sense.
The "left hand" I am referring to is the Social Security Administration and the right hand is the U.S. Treasury. The poor didn't loan the Social Security surplus to the rich. The SSA loaned the surplus to the Treasury. That's not the same thing at all. Who is bullshitting who?
|
