There Is No Social Security Crisis

[marmar]

from the American Prospect:



There Is No Social Security Crisis
It is time to remind everyone about the real facts on Social Security.

Paul Waldman | February 24, 2009 | web only


There's a time-tested way to curry favor with the permanent Washington establishment. That is, having David Broder praise you for being "responsible" and being considered a Very Serious Person by the Sunday shows. All you need to do is proclaim ominously that entitlements are a ticking time bomb, a looming storm on the horizon, a hungry beast ready to devour our nation's finances, or whatever metaphor you find most frightening. The more unpleasant the solution you propose -- tax increases are good, but benefit cuts are even better -- the more the Beltway Brahmins will approve.

So yesterday's White House entitlement's summit, which appeared, when announced, to repeat the conventional doomsday wisdom, wasn't too much of a surprise. And indeed, at various times over the past couple of years, President Obama has seemed to suggest that he will be addressing this thorny long-term problem, leading to no end of heartburn among progressives who view Social Security as one of the cornerstones of the American social contract.

But as he has made clear, Obama is not unsheathing his blade to begin hacking away at our government pensions. Nonetheless, because conservatives will continue to conflate issues that should be separate and to further the assault on Social Security launched at the program's enactment in 1935, it's an opportune time to get a few things straight. The most important is this: There is no Social Security crisis.

If there is an "entitlement crisis," it's a crisis in Medicare. But as Ezra Klein explains so well, there really isn't a Medicare crisis, either. Medicare's funding problem is a problem of the ballooning cost of health care in general; fix that, and you've fixed the Medicare problem. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=there_is_no_social_security_crisis

[valerief]

1. There is if that 1% wants to take it away. nt

[Cetacea]

2. You really nailed the source of it all right there.

And it's why splinter issues are the life blood of the republican party.

[damntexdem]

3. Raise or eliminate the cap on taxed income.

Social Security would then be fine for the foreseeable future.

Now, Medicare is a different matter -- but it can only be 'reformed' by a thoroughgoing reform of healthcare coverage, including universal coverage. Actually, Medicare for all would be a viable single-payer plan -- with a reasonable drug plan, that is, not the atrocity foisted by the GOP on Medicare as Part D.

[acmavm]

4. K&R

[bemildred]

5. Well duh.

I mean thank you for saying this, but where is the real money getting thrown away? In defense, in "health care" (quotes intentional), in the drug war, in the prison system, in corporate welfare.

[Danascot]

6. Krugman had something to say about this yesterday

Entitlements on the back of an envelope

Today’s “fiscal responsibility” summit, which was originally much feared as a Trojan Horse for Social Security cuts, has apparently been downgraded into relative obscurity. But I thought it might nonetheless be worth talking briefly about the math of the entitlements issue.

Usually this is done with fairly elaborate projections, but I think the essence can be explained with a back-of-the-envelope calculation. So here goes.

Right now, the federal government spends about 9 percent of GDP on the three biggies, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with the total roughly evenly divided between retirement and medical care.

We have an aging population, which will tend to increase the share of GDP spent on these programs. Looking ahead to circa 2050, we’ll go from about 3 workers per retiree to 2. This would, other things equal, raise spending on the programs by about 4 percentage points of GDP. (Not 4.5, because only part of Medicaid is age-related). That is, we’d spend 6.75 percent of GDP on retirement, 6.25 percent on health care.

Now, 4 percent of GDP is a lot, but not catastrophic: remember, the share of GDP spent by the government currently is 10 percentage points or more higher in a number of wealthy countries than it is here.

What makes the projections you actually see so scary is the assumption that “excess cost growth” in health care will continue — that is, health spending per person will continue to rise at close to 2 percent faster than GDP per capita. This means, circa 2050, that health care costs will be roughly double what pure demography would predict, adding another 6 plus percentage points to the entitlements projection. Looking beyond that, demography adds very little — it’s all health care.

So if excess cost growth in health care can be brought under control, the entitlement problem is manageable. If not, even savage cuts in Social Security will make little difference.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/entitlements-on-the-back-of-an-envelope/

[AdHocSolver]

7. Bring jobs back to America. Working Americans pay Social Security and income taxes.

Put Americans to work manufacturing the goods that Americans buy and you fix Social Security, Medicare, reduce government deficits, and revive the U.S. economy.

To accomplish these goals, we have to reorganize trade and rewrite the tax code. Get rid of NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and reorganize the Federal Reserve to serve the public, not the corporate crooks.

The solutions are technically straight forward. There is no need to debate the issues. The Republican "debate" is designed to confuse the issues and persuade the public to screw themseleves. Let us not fall for their fraud.

[Two Americas]

8. k and r

Why we dally around giving the right wing lies about this any serious consideration is beyond me.

Are we ready to start looking at the cause - the people who are creating all of these crises: the wealthy and powerful few and their political agents in both parties - and take the power they have over our lives away from them?

And, no, it is not impractical or impossible; and no, we are not all ruling class and we do not all have a stake in the system - hardly any of us do; and no, we will not all be hurt if we reign in Wall Street and the financial manipulators; and no, this does not mean anyone will be sent to the gulag; and no, it does not mean violent revolution; and no, the American people would not oppose it; and no, the quality of medicine will not go down if we socialize health care; and no, people will not all be sitting around collecting welfare checks; and no, the terrorists will not come and get us; and no, to whatever the latest fear mongering right wing propaganda bullshit is.

Clarity and courage are all we need. We need to start thinking and stop reacting and emoting, and stop being such cowards. This can be done, it must be done, and it will be done.

[LynnTheDem]

9. I know that. You know that. Even the republic party kows that.

But as with the "Saddam did 911" trick, the rightwingnuttery will keep lying.