Social Security report to be released

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

The odds that President Bush will be able to make significant changes in either Social Security or Medicare before leaving office appear increasingly slim.

But that doesn't mean Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the administration's point man in the effort, has given up trying to achieve a breakthrough in what Bush once termed the top domestic priority for his second term.

The debate will be revived Monday when the trustees of Social Security and Medicare provide their annual update on the health of the government's two biggest benefit programs.

The new report is expected to make only small changes in the estimates made last year for when both trust funds will be depleted.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/social_security

[xchrom]

1. the war and the financial crisis it creates makes a handy tool for

corporate conservatives to throw social security to privateers.

[Bitwit1234]

2. This guy Henry Paulson

is he related to the butt Rachel Paulson that got appointed to Minnesota as one of the attorneys under investigation. She is causing all kind of trouble already. Remember a bunch of attorneys in the office resigned because of her heavy handedness and her Bible quoting edicts in the office.

[Nickster]

3. The person you are thinking of is Rachel Paulose

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Paulose

[Bitwit1234]

4. You are correct...but she's still a pain.

[Ignacio Upton]

5. Wanna bet that they'll lower the insolvency date to 2039 this year?

It's been lowered twice since 2005, when Bush started pushing for privatization. Next year it'll be 2038, and then in 2009 it will be 2037, and after that we'll start seeing the real figures again.

[cal04]

6. Social Security, Medicare: Better news

The trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will last a year longer than previously estimated, trustees said Monday. That means 2041 for the Social Security trust fund to be exhausted and 2019 for Medicare.

In their annual report on the financial health of the government's two biggest benefit programs, the trustees said that slight reductions in projected benefit payouts and slightly higher tax collections had extended the date that Medicare is projected to be depleted.

For Social Security, the reason for the one-year extension was given as a change in technical assumptions governing how the trust fund will operate in the future.

The trustees said both programs continue to face serious financial problems with the pending retirement of 78 million baby boomers. The report for the first timed triggered a Medicare funding warning that will require President Bush to submit to Congress next year proposals for dealing with Medicare's problems.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/social_security