I don't understand why we do not come with our own SS plan

[question everything]

First, yes, it needs fixing, for the simple reason that we are moving to fewer and fewer working people supporting more and more retirees for more and more years. Also, I suspect that as the gap in earning is widening, lower income provides lower amount of SS and Medicare tax.

I should not care. We are baby boomers and supposedly the system will not start unraveling until after we are gone.

Still, I don't understand why we - Democrats - do not come with our own plan instead of just shooting Bush's down. Yes, I know, many say that one should not stand in the way of a train wreck - we've heard it during last summer campaign and look where it got us.

We need to build the image of the Democratic Party as one that can come up with action plans that are not tilted toward the rich while tossing everyone else by the wayside. That can be clear and detailed.

Ideally, SS should not be a separate line item. Right now it is very regressive for many working people; their SS and Medicare taxes are higher than their income and state taxes. Ideally, these taxes should be added to the general funds and would be added to the income tax: each bracket should be increased by 7.15 percent.

Then, each one would be guaranteed a minimum payments upon retirement - I don't know, $14,000 in today dollars?

Above this, there should be means testing. The ones who cannot make it on this amount would be provided more, while the ones with a multimillion dollar portfolio would get nothing.

This way, no one would scream that: this is my money that I paid into Social Security. It is tax that goes to the government for it to use it to benefit all the citizens - at least in theory.

Of course, our friends the Conservatives will then say that many people would not bother saving themselves knowing that they will be provided. First, I don't know that a minimum amount to live by is such desirable. Second - so what. There are many who take advantage of "the system" - any system left and right, starting with the ones who transfer all their assets to family members so that tax payers would pay for nursing homes.

Yes, I know that this will never pass but still, can't we come up with something positive?

What am I missing?

[snowbear]

1. What about Wexler?

for starters... :shrug:

[Raiden]

9. So if the Dems call for a payroll tax increase

The Repigs can say we're gonna raise taxes... Duh!


I'm tellin' you, the Repubs have nothing to run on in 2006, that's were SS comes in for them. I don't think (or I hope anyway) that we won't get fooled again.

[Mojambo]

2. The Democrats are waiting until closer to the 2006 elections

to unveil any of their plans. This allows a floundering Republican party to dig themselves deeper and keeps them from doing what they do best, tearing down other people's ideas.

I don't know if that's good strategy or not, but that's what they're doing.

[snowbear]

4. That's true!

I like your answer better ;)

And you're right!

[question everything]

23. I hope that you are right

and that the Democrats will provide with a detailed plan right before the elections.

[question everything]

33. Glad to be in the same company as E.J. Dionne

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1797358

[LuPeRcALiO]

37. Dionne doesn't have a plan either

Anyway he's a reporter, not a politician, so I wouldn't expect him to.

[question everything]

41. No, he does not. But he wants Democrats to be the party with action

plan, with a positive campaign, not the 'NO" party and this includes Social Security, as well as other issues mentioned here.

Just saying NO to everything might be a good tactic now, but is a bad strategy to win the next elections.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

3. Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake...

I think Napoleon said that and it's just as true today. IMHO

[question everything]

15. Yes, this was what we said during the summer when Iraq was getting

worse with "mission accomplished" disappearing, when it was clear that Bush slept during Vietnam, when the it was a jobless economy - and it was a mistake.

[Dr Fate]

5. He already have part of it: HANDS OFF, Bush.

n/t

[LuPeRcALiO]

7. that's all the plan we need

"HANDS OFF, Bush!!"

[LuPeRcALiO]

6. raise the cap, or far far better,

don't meddle with it until there's a Dem in the oval office (hopefuly not a triangulator). There is NO emergency.

[nashbridges]

11. There is no emergency NOW

But there will be one in the future. The way SS is currently structured depends on current employees paying for the retirement of others. Once retirees outnumber current employees, simple math dictates there is going to be a shortage of money.

I like the idea of restructuring tax rates. If a progressive tax code is going to be used for anything, then SS is the best place to start. The brunt of SS right now is paid for by the middle class because of the cap. Raise the cap for earnings that have to pay in, and you've raised the amount of money coming in for the program as a whole.

Better yet, shift some of the burden off people with lesser incomes by imposing a low end limit, say $34000 a year, which will not be taxed for SS. Then make the higher end cap something not unreasonable, like $300,000 a year. Anyone pulling in that kind of money is already moving their own funds for retirement, and they won't be so rattled when they retire and SS doesn't give them back the exact dollar amount they put in.

[LuPeRcALiO]

13. SS has a $1.4 trillion surplus which is growing, not shrinking.

But you wouldn't know it.

[question everything]

18. Yes, it is growing now, but in six years the first baby boomers will start

taking money from SS instead of contributing and you will see how quickly it will start shrinking.

And by then we will have to pass emergency measures that will be worse, that will require "everyone" to participate in the austerity measures which, of course, will be heavily burdened by lower and middle class.

This is why I would like us to take the initiative and to come with a clear plan, not to wait until it is upon us.

[LuPeRcALiO]

25. So we're told. I'd be happy to wait until the surplus goes to zero,

which is pessimistically predicted to occur in 2042, before taking action.

Because frankly I don't think it's going to happen. SS takes in way more than it pays out, thanks to "reforms" initiated by Ronald Reagan in the 80s, which basically raised payroll taxes and cut benefits.

[fob]

36. You do realize that's exactly what was intended to happen, right?

The Trust Fund was never intended to be a permanent source of funding SS, it was put in place to hedge against the Baby Boomer retirement time. It's SUPPOSED to go to zero at some point and the worker to retiree will balance back out. When bush*co LIES about the "system goin' bust" he's talking about the Trust Fund as if it IS the Social Security System, it is not.

This is the upshot, in 1983 they saw the train acomin' and developed the TF to pay for the bump in reitrees per worker, it turns out NOW, that in a shitty REPUBLICAN-NO-JOB-PRODUCING economy when you run the numbers the system comes up short in either 2042 or 2052, which is either 59 years or 69 years out from the date of the 1983 solution! Not too fucking shabby! So if you recall there was no SS "Crisis" during the RED-HOT-JOB-PRODUCING-CLINTON economy, so a big part of the "crisis" is who is at the wheel and what are thier policies doing to YOUR economy.

Still, we don't wanna be totally hands-off so what should be done is start where they left of in 1983 and go from there. Raised the retirement age, raised the payroll tax and then they got the hell out of the way. So the actual problem is not so bad when you consider that even if you do NOTHING, SS can still pay 80% of the benefits in 2042 (or 2052). So we could close that with a little kick to the trust fund, either raise the cap on income subject to payroll tax or make the tax rate more progressive. Hike it on the top 1%ers from 6.2 to 8 (or whatever works to close the gap) for the next 10 years (again or whatever it takes, the sale point here is that it is temporary) and LOWER the tax on the other 99% form 6.2% to 4% and get a little short term economic boost that in turn will generate more jobs and more income into SS which then makes the problem smaller!

Note: For the above plan there are 2 side choices: 1) Leave the employer part at 6.2% or 2) Lower it to 4% too and free up some money for hiring. It would seem like raising it to 8% should be an option too but that would kick in the fucking whore lobbyists and scuttlefuck the whole deal, it's much easier to ask the top 1%ers to step up to the plate.

So you see, the DEM plan IS Social Security, it's currently in place and it's working. The repukes want US to offer a solution because THEY are the party of NO IDEAS and any plan we put forth will be stolen, coopted, ridiculed and all of the above by those heartless fuckers.

Remember SS has been rolling on just fine for 70 plus years (Dem Plan) and the 1983 fix (Dem and repug plan) has been rolling for 22years and is actually good for 59 or 69 years EVEN IN A bush* ECONOMY! The repukes "plan" for Iraq was gonna cost a few billion, gonna take a few weeks and we were going to be greted with flowers. Now who do YOU want to fix SS?

[question everything]

46. OK, so we agree that the Republicans screw the system with running

the deficit and with a lousy jobs - in quaint and in quality. But this does not mean that we should do nothing to let them long enough rope to hand themselves, because it will be us, regular folks who will not have the guaranteed benefits when we retire.

I like your idea of a progressive SS tax because, as I said at first, many pay a lot more in SS taxes than in income ones.

This, of course, is the Republicans screw the working people plan and help the investors. Working people still pay alot in SS taxes - otherwise called payroll taxes, while the ones whose income is not from working but from investment - got their taxes on dividends and capital gains cut. Plus, the elimination of estate tax will assure that the rich get richer in the next generations while the rest of us... well, you get it.

[ProudDad]

43. Yep, starts going into the hole

in 2047...

Quick, quick the house's on fire?

The real problem is medical coverage -- Medicare/Medicaid.

It's REALLY going bankrupt and only Single-payer can save it...

[magellan]

20. Bush** is spending the surplus every day

...to offset the deficit and pay for his wars.

THAT'S the source of the crisis. THAT'S what needs to be stopped.

[ProudDad]

44. Actually

the bastard is using my grandson's taxes (he's 9 now) to pay for his dirty little war. It's all borrowed money. Borrowed mainly from the Chinese...

[Psephos]

24. The reason you wouldn't know it is because it's already been spent

It has been used to fund other general budget expenditures, and in its place have been left I.O.U.s that must be repaid out of future general revenues. That's the real crisis.

[msongs]

8. there is NO republican SS plan at this time - - - >

just a lot of ideas being thrown around. there is no plan because bush and his hacks have not presented one to congress, nor have the republicans in congress written and proposed one for discussion.

the onus is on the anusses (sp?) cause they are the ones squawking.

they :own: the issue until such time a proposal in writing is presented, why stop them from masturbating themselves over it?

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[kaygore]

10. There are so many other pressing problems

that need to be addressed first. SS is a smoke screen. If we addressed health care and assured it for all then the problems of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' health care, and so on would go away (OK, be reduced. I like hyperbole sometimes).

We need to address the budget deficit and the trade imbalance.

We need to stop the war and the red ink it is causing in both our economy and in the blood of our soldiers and the Iraqi people.

We need to address so many issues first. For goodness sakes, we will soon have nukes from unfriendly countries pointed at us.

There may be a asteroid due to hit us in 2029 or 2036 we just learned today (long before SS will run out).

By coming up with a counter proposal we only play into the hands of the very people who do not want to address the significant issues.

I could go on and on. SS is the least of our worries, especially if that asteroid hits ;)

See fr yourself. We have much greater things to worry about. Let's not let the Republicans decide the agenda:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A former NASA astronaut will call on the U.S. Congress to evaluate an asteroid with a small chance of hitting Earth in 2036 and suggest lawmakers consider a space mission to monitor the object, SPACE.com has learned.

Russell Schweickart arrives here today to make his case. He'll also ask Congress to assign to a government agency the responsibility of protecting the public from space rocks.

The call to action stems from an orbiting hunk of stone that for a few days around Christmas had scientists on the edges of their seats.

The asteroid, named 2004 MN4, was found last year. It orbits the Sun but crosses the path of Earth. In December, preliminary observations showed it might strike in 2029, according to NASA scientists. It briefly had the highest odds ever assigned to a possible collision. Further investigation ruled out the 2029 impact scenario, but scientists cannot yet rule out an impact in 2036.

The odds of a collision in 2036 are about 1-in-10,000, Schweickart says.

In fact, there are several scenarios between 2034 and 2065 in which 2004 MN4 has even smaller odds of striking. Schweickart and other scientists stress, however, that future observations are likely to reduce all these odds to zero.

Time to act

Meanwhile, Schweickart thinks the time to act is now.

SPACE.com was provided a copy of the paper Schweickart will present. In it, he carries out an informal analysis of the situation. He notes that the asteroid will be mostly out of view from 2006 to 2012. When it re-emerges, fresh observation will likely reduce the 2036 impact chance to zero, he said.

[LuPeRcALiO]

12. right. Medicare is a problem; SS is solvent.

The fake crisis is all about Bush-backers not wanting to return the money they "borrowed" from SS to award themselves mammoth tax cuts.

[kcass1954]

14. We already have one...

It's called "Social Security", and it's worked real fucking well for the last 70 years.

Yes, it needs to be tweaked a bit. I believe that raising the cap will pretty much do it.

But we do not need major changes. After all, if your car starts running a little rough, you don't overhaul the engine; you tune it up.

[question everything]

22. It worked well for the last 70 years because the work force was growing

while there were few retirees - the WWII generation.

But in seven years the first baby boomers will start retiring and the rate will accelerate each year for about 20 years, while the work force is shrinking plus the salaries are not that great to generate enough taxes. By then it will be too late.

[LuPeRcALiO]

26. don't worry, the sky is not falling.

And who says the work force is shrinking? Is the population shrinking? Of course it isn't. It's growing by leaps and bounds, largely due to immigration, and most of those people are working and paying into SS.

In any case there are plenty of other federal revenue streams besides payroll taxes.

[question everything]

29. Relative shrinking

when SS started there were about 15 working per one retiree. Now there are only 5 or 6 and in 15 years there will be only 1.5.

Now, I think that in 40 years it would start improving again, since the balance of working people to retiree may shift, again, but until then..

[LuPeRcALiO]

32. there were similar dire predictions about Japan's worker-retiree ratio

in the 80s. Whether they actually came true I don't know, but the problem dropped out of the news. And whatever Japan did, if anything, would probably be better than what Bush is trying to do.

But ANYTHING would be better than letting Chimp and Cheney get their mitts on SS.

[Yupster]

58. Japan is currrently shipping its old people

to nursing homes in the Philippines because they can't aford to keep them at home.

[LuPeRcALiO]

61. We need a plan to repay the trust fund securities, yes,

but that's an entirely different question.

No need to make workers pay twice for the same benefits, even if Bush is trying to convince us to pay twice for no benefits.

[Yupster]

67. But the money the workers paid

the first time has been spent.

It's gone. Disappeared. As Monty Python would say, it's a dead parrot.

If your mom gave you $ 2 to go down the block to buy a loaf of bread, and you lost the money, you'd go back to her and say you lost the money and just can't find it.

Your mom can say, well there's no reason to pay twice for the same loaf of bread which is fine, but then there won't be any bread because the $ 2 really is gone.

And so is the social security surplus. It's gone - spent - wisely or unwisely it doesn't matter. It's gone.

If you want the money to be there, there better be a plan to get it there because saying we already paid for it once is like mom saying "well I already gave you $ 2." That's fine but it won't buy a loaf of bread.

[LuPeRcALiO]

70. you're forgetting the T-bills.

When my $2 go into the general fund to be spent, SS gets a $2 T-bill. How the feds decide to back those when they come due is not Social Security's problem. It's the Treasury's problem.

[Yupster]

72. Don't you understand?

An entity can't owe money to itself.

Once the trust fund is folded into the general budget, the T-Bills will be automatically cancelled out as an asset and equal liability. It will just be zeroed out through the accounting department.

The obligation of sending out the checks won't change. It will still be an obligation of the federal government. Also the fact that the government won't have the money to send the full checks out won't change either.

The only thing that will change would be an actual ledger of how much one part of the government owes the other. That sham will disappear.

And the money will have been officially looted.

[LuPeRcALiO]

75. Fortunately, nobody's proposing to abolish the SS Administration.

At least not yet. But I really don't think anybody will.

[Yupster]

77. No - nobody will

The checks will still go out just like they always have.

The only difference is there will no longer be a ledger saying the general budget owes the social security trust fund however many trillions it owes.

Eventually congress will pass a a law raising the payroll tax or the retirement age or cutting the benefit formula and that will bring the cash flow back in balance.

The only thing that will change is the sham about a trust fund with IOU's in it.

[LuPeRcALiO]

79. They'd have to.

Right now, SSA takes in the payroll taxes, pays out the benefits, and exchanges the surplus for T-bills. It's a big operation. You're talking about a massive congressionally-mandated reorganization, and Chimp or no Chimp, SS is still the third rail of politics. Nobody in their right mind would propose or vote for that.

[question everything]

85. Thank you. You explain it better than the way I tried n/t

[Yupster]

57. It worked well for the last 70 years

because every ten years or so major changes were made to it.

It started out as a 1 % tax on the first $ 2,000 of income. No widow or orphan benefits or disability.

Would "Leave your hands of social security" have been a reasonable position to take for the last 70 years?

Why is it then reasonable today?

The program has undergone major changes and will have to continue to undergo them.

My two suggestions.

1. Raise the income cap and also the benefits so the rich pay on their entire income but also get a benefit figured on their entire income. Since the bendpoints of the formula are so incredibly progressive, the rich would get very little extra benefit for the massive extra taxes they'd pay, but I think ading the better benefits would make it more likely to get it passed and just seems to be more "fair."

2. Force workers who are able to opt out of the system back in. Universal programs should be universal. The largest group currently not in is most public schoolteachers in 12 states including the two biggest. Put them back into the system and social security would be under much less stress. I have no idea why some workers were allowed to opt out and others not anyway. It's just not a defensible system that allows some out but not others. The law shouldn't priviledge some occupations over others.

[rocktivity]

16. Raise the salary cap and roll back the tax cuts

Thank you and good night.

:headbang:
rocknation

[snowbear]

19. Hey! You're hired !!

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

[Ksec]

17. Repeal Bushs tax cuts to the top 2% nt

[leftofthedial]

21. the current system, with the kinds of minor changes that have been

made throughout the program's life, is fine.

It does NOT need fixing, certainly not in these partisan, contentious, criminal times.

[LuPeRcALiO]

27. this SS fact sheet from answerla is pretty interesting:

Fact Sheet: Bush and Wall Street are Lying About Social Security

The Bush administration has launched a major campaign to privatize Social Security. If they succeed, there will be a massive transfer of wealth from working people to Wall Street, banks and corporations.

Question: What is Social Security and who does it benefit?
Answer: Social Security is a social program designed to provide a basic safety net for the elderly and sick. Over 44 million people in the U.S. receive Social Security benefits. More than 90 percent of all workers hold jobs covered by Social Security. Retirees, disabled people, the spouses or children of sick workers, and Medicare recipients 65 years old or older all benefit from the program.

Question: What is the Bush administration's plan for Social Security?
Answer: The Bush administration wants to divert part of the money workers contribute to Social Security into individual private accounts. Banks and brokerage houses would manage the accounts. They stand to profit in many ways: higher transaction fees, more administrative costs, interest income and more. Privatization is no more about “saving” Social Security than the invasion of Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. What is really going on is a scheme to channel hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars to Wall Street banks and investment firms at the expense of the vast majority of people.

Question: Should Social Security be privatized?
Answer: No. Politicians and financial institutions have manufactured a phony “crisis” in Social Security to justify privatization. They say privatization is the only way to “save” the program. This is a lie. The supposed “crisis” is based on a view that the Social Security fund is a giant pool of money being drained away. But this isn't how Social Security works. It's a contributory system-workers contribute by making regular payments. Each worker's income is taxed to pay for half of the future benefit. The employer pays the other half as a kind of deferred wage.

Question: How can Social Security be improved?
Answer: The Social Security fund is not short of money now, but it may be in 40 or 50 years. These are ways to address this future problem that would benefit working people, not the banks.

1. Fund social services, not war: The Bush administration spends more than $200 million per day to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. The total U.S. military budget for 2005 is more than $500 billion. Immense amounts of money are spent on militarism, while much less goes toward badly needed social services.

2. Tax the rich: Bush's tax cuts save billions for the rich. In total, 257,000 U.S. millionaires will save $32 billion from the cuts. Instead of giving millionaires a break, the money should go to Social Security and other social programs.

3. Remove the Social Security tax income cap: The rich pay proportionately less in Social Security taxes than poorer workers. Currently, people who make more than $90,000 don't have to pay Social Security taxes on anything above that amount. The income cap should be removed. This would add hundreds of billions annually to the Social Security trust fund-more than $1 trillion over 10 years.

4. Benefits should be increased and the retirement age should not go up: This is the richest country in the world. No elderly person should be living in poverty or near poverty in their retirement years. Social security benefit payments should be increased for low income workers and the money should come from the 1% of the population that today owns or controls 40% of the nation’s wealth.

[tyedyeto]

28. Our plan should be.....

stop taking money out of SS to pay for this goddamned war and...

raise the cap for who pays into FICA to those earning up to 200K.

[Mountainman]

30. It is not prioity number one. We have jobs and health care etc to take

care of. Social Security reform is the republican game where they are shooting theirselves in the foot and we don't need to stop them from doing it by offering our plan at this time.

Wait until the next elections and offer to fix social security by reversing all the things that got us away from the surplus.

[Warpy]

31. The first thing that has to be done is to take overpayments out of

Congress's hands. Completely.

This is something Congress doesn't want to do, because it'll show just how bad those tax cuts for rich men and corporations were for the country's finances. Since so many of them voted for those big tax giveaways, they're not going to look to good when the real cost becomes fully known.

Any other idea is a scam. Bush has proposed doubling the OASDI rates, and Dems have proposed raising the cap on taxable earnings. Neither will work as long as the overpayment goes into the general fund.

That's the key, you see. Get it out of the general fund before anything else is done. THEN you can figure out how much you'll need and how to raise it.

[Yupster]

59. Agree warpy

As long as the surplus is within the reach of congress it will be spent.

The money needs to be physically invested each month in bank cd's or insurance fixed acounts. Anywhere where it actually exists.

The current sham of spending it and putting an IOU has gone on too long.

The money's been spent. There's no money to pay it back. That's over and done with, but next month's surplus needs to be taken out of congress' reach.

[ComerPerro]

34. Bush doesn't even have a real plan. Its all bullshit

Have you ever heard him outline any specifics about how the transition would be accomplished, how much it might cost, how he would pay for it, etc...

Bush's "plan" has always seemed to me to be nothing more than empty rhetoric. That's why they haven't done anything to try to actually pass his plan.

If he had anything of substance, they could pass it right now.

[Disturbed]

35. The Bush Fascist Regime. wants ...

Dems to offer plans so that they can scoff at those and then co-opot those very plans at a later date and claim them as their own ideas.

Piss off Fascists!

[mcar]

38. We have a plan

It's called Social Security and we invented it a long time ago.

[dcfirefighter]

39. I don't think that the harm caused by payroll taxes is truly appreciated

It is a tax on labor, which causes less labor to be used, at lower wages.

SS reform would be cheaper if we gave each retiree (67 year old or disabled) $14,000 a year, rather than attempting to corellate the disbursements to past payments & income.

I suggest that the funds be raised from the least harmful tax possible: those that do no induce a deadweight loss, because they are assessed against things that are not produced. Typically this includes land values, government granted rights (to broadcast, mine, extract, fish, timber, graze, etc. as well as patents), and pollution charges.

I'm quite sure these taxes could fund the half-trillion or so a year it would take to pay each 67+ person $14,000 a year. These rights should increase in value over time, and with them the revenue generated.

[LuPeRcALiO]

40. Now THERE'S a plan!

and as long as we're abolishing the payroll tax, let's add:

-- full medical benefits for all U.S. citizens and residents
-- retirement age of 55 (what the hell)
-- full financing from upper-tier income taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, and estate taxes

Now that's a show that would really pack 'em in!

edit to add: sarcasm OFF

[ProudDad]

42. Raise the cap

That's all that would be needed to support SS until the end of the Century.

By that time, the oil will have run out and humans will have a hell of a lot more to worry about than a pension.

[Pepperbelly]

45. You are approaching it ass-backwards, partner.

In order to solve for something, that something needs to be frimly identified. You haven't even come close. A few passing comments regarding the #-of-workers-per-retiree cannard is absolutely meaningless. If you want meaning, what you have to look at is the financial status of the system, not irrelevencies.

The hard fact is that even under the most chicken-little of the data sets assumed for forecasts, the system is very close to solvency for the next 75 years with ONLY marginal changes ... either in income or outgo. Minor changes.

Now, if you deciede to apply assumptions that do not assume an ongoing economy worse than the U.S. economy in the depths of the Great Depression, then you have total solvency out to 75 years. What is magic about 75 years? It is the very outer fringe of what economists look at. Any further out and the data is absolutely without merit.

So what exactly are you trying to solve for?

[question everything]

48. I am not familiar with all aspects of the system and I don't think

that many are as it is quite convoluted with the trust funds with the IOUs and Gore's "lock box." But I read - from liberal sources like the Minneapolis Star Tribune - that in 2020 "entitlement" payments would consume a large share of government payments. This means that while retirees and their widows and the disabled will continue to get payments, many other programs will have to be cut. I don't think that we would like this situation, either.

As I posted above, yes, the Republicans are making things worse by tolerating the deficit, by their bizarre tax plan that gives gifts to the rich while screwing the working people and by encouraging the gaps in earning so that payroll taxes are a lot higher than income ones for many working people. But just sitting back and pointing fingers at them is not going to make things better and negative campaigns do not win elections. At least, campaigns that just say who bad the other guy is without offering an alternative.

This was one of Kerry's problem. He attacked the war in Iraq but had hard time explaining why he voted for it in the first place, or that unfortunate sentence: "I did vote for this before I voted against it."

Oh, and by asking about our side offering something I certainly do not agree with Bush "private accounts." I suspect that before Nov. 2006 rolls he, too, will no longer talk about it.

[Pepperbelly]

52. So what are you wanting to fix?

Do you want to default on the bonds issued to the SS and do something else instead?

You need some pretty big reason to justify the government defaulting on bonds? Again, what do you want to fix?

[question everything]

54. I want to make sure that worker can retire with dignity

and that their widows and disabled people can live with dignity, too. But I don't want SS and Medicare payments to consume twice as much of the budget which, if nothing changes, would mean a 50% cut in other programs.

Without knowing the details we should understand, intuitively, that as the number of retirees balloons - the baby boomers - and as retirees live longer and as the ratio of workers per retirees shrinks, that there is going to be shortage of funds.

Perhaps the financial are too convoluted. There are too much spins from both sides. Bush wants private accounts - which will never happen, and we just say no (since when is Nancy Reagan our role model?)

I would like us, and perhaps we are waiting for the summer of 2006 - I hope so - to plainly explain what is and what is not happening with the system, given current conditions. Just eliminating Bush's tax cut for the wealthy is not going to solve it. It may reduce the deficit somewhat, but not by much. Not even Kerry claimed this. Bush dug us in a deep hole that will take years, if at all, to resolve. Mostly because the salary structure has changed.

When Clinton took over the deficit in 1992, first he cut many of the military expenses after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Second, many good professional jobs were created and the income of every worker went up, even adjusted for inflation.

Now many good, middle class Jobs evaporated and will never come back, so the gap is widening. Taxes on income from flipping hamburgers or from custodial work in hospitals and nursing homes will not get us out of the deficit. And this is where the majority of new jobs take place.

But I am digressing. No, I don't have specifics of what I want to fix. If I did I may not be unemployed now. But we have to agree that that, if nothing else, SS, Medicare and Medicaid will consume twice the percentage as they do now which will mean cutting other programs. We also have to agree that right now SS tax is the most regressive tax on workers and the "tax reform" of this administration made it worse for working people.

One last thing. I think that there is one unknown. We say that boomers will live longer, based on what we have seen with our parents and grandparents. These are people born before the advent of antibiotics and vaccines. These were strong babies that survived when infant mortality was the norm. We now have million of people alive who would not have been a generation ago. Would such an intervention hold for 80 and 90 years? No one knows.

[Pepperbelly]

65. No, we don't have to agree on those things ...

have you actually looked at the actuarials?

And the underlying economic assumptions?

Under the most dire of forecasts, the system will be, over 75 years, just shy of 4 trillion dollars. To put this in perspective, the amount of revenue lost from making Bush's 2001 tax cuts permanent, over the same time frame, is 11 trillion.

And that is under the very worst case of assumptions. With an economy only marginally better than that of the Great Depression, erases most of it.

[Yupster]

60. Those bonds are gone pepperbelly

Don't put any faith in them.

In about ten years, the government will fold the debt into the general fund, and the debt will then magically disappear, cancelled out by an accountant as the general fund will have an asset and debt of equal size so they will cancel each other out. Pffft. It's that easy.

Talk about those bonds if you'd like, but they are gone. There's no intention of paying them back and there wouldn't be any money to do it even if there was the will anyway.

[Pepperbelly]

63. they can't do that without defaulting ...

and they will not do that. Ever.

[Yupster]

66. They will not default

They will just unify the budget and the bond obligation will be folded into the general fund.

No one will care and no bonds will be defaulted.

They will just disappear.

Here's an example.

You save $ 100 a month in your underwear drawer as a vacation fund. One day your engine blows up and the only available cash you have is the cash in your vacation fund. So you take out $ 2,000 and fix your car and to remind yourself to repay your vacation fund, you write out an IOU and put it in your underwear drawer.

What if one day ou take your IOU and throw it in the trash?

Will your motgage company care?
Will your car loan people care?
Will your credit card company care?

No, no, no.

Everything will go on like before. No one will care and the IOU will have simply disappeared because your creditors don't care whether you keep your money in your right pocket or your left pocket, as long as they get their checks. They don't care how you account for your money and they don't care if you have IOU's in underwear drawers or not.

[Pepperbelly]

69. that metaphor does not work because ...

it just isn't the government involved in this.

They cannot afford to default.

[Yupster]

73. It's not a default

when you owe money to yourself and don't pay yourself back.

You can't default to yourself. Only you would care.

And a budget can't owe money to itself. Once the two budgets are joined, the debt will simply erase itself. It's just simple accounting. Equal asset and liability adds to zero. Pffft gone.

[LuPeRcALiO]

53. about those "2020 entitlement payments":

The reason there's an unfunded mandate (as Greenspan calls it) is that the securities in the trust fund will have to be repaid from the general fund.

That's because it's been "borrowed" to pay for unsustainable expenditures, like $500 billion/year wars and tax cuts. But the money has already been collected from workers.

p.s. sometimes newspapers confuse the issue because they report on what politicians say, and if politicians lie or intentionally obfuscate, then so do the articles.

[question everything]

55. We agree on the some of the reasons

huge deficits aided by tax cuts and war expenses. But this is done, we cannot take this money back. We are in a hole as far as Iraq goes and I don't see any Democrat calling for immediate withdrawal and for shutting the faucet and get elected. Canceling the tax cuts for the wealthy will help some, but not to dig us from the deficit hole, not for years to come.

[zulchzulu]

47. The Democratic Plan has been said many times...

If we took away the freebie ride tax breaks for the top 2%, many issues could be solved.

The deficit would get some needed attention, the burden taken on by the Middle and Lower classes would be alleviated for the useless Wars AND Social Security would be financially solid well into the 22nd Century.

There's more, but that's a start.

[jmcon007]

49. What you are missing is...... Social Security IS our plan.

The most genius government plan to date has been Social Security....created by Democrats for those who end their working lives facing the very real danger of being destitute. Before SS these people were simply warehoused in horrible conditions, void of any dignity. Just as when Newt Gingrich not so long ago yearned to return to the days of orphanages, the neocons today are nostalgic for the return of poor houses, which will mean the elimination of SS....their ultimate goal.

The Republicans KNOW what it will take for SS to be "fixed" as well as Democrats, i.e. raising the cap from $90,000, reducing benefits for some, raising the retirement age, or a combination of the three.

The neocons are ready to pounce the moment Democrats mention any of these fixes so that they can attempt to shift the spotlight from themselves to these "Tax and Spend" Democrats. I, for one, am glad the Dems aren't taking the bait.

Let em squirm. They wanted to govern....let em govern.

[question everything]

56. Sounds like a Catch 22

and I really don't know the answer.

Yes, it is fun to let them squirm and I can see your point but will this get us elected? I don't know. And by the time the masses will cry for the government to "do something" because all of a sudden our parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles cannot afford to live in their own appointments and we don't have room for them in our large houses - it will be too late.

[LuPeRcALiO]

64. nah, more like a false choice.

They're asking workers to pay back money the government borrowed from SS. No dice. We already paid once.

It's a spending problem, not a Social Security problem. SS has its T-Bills and until the U.S. Treasury declares bankruptcy there is -n-o- -c-r-i-s-i-s-.

[sandnsea]

50. Bush stole the money

Bush needs to raise taxes to put it back. The last thing we want to do is be the first to say "raise taxes".

[TheGunslinger]

51. I thought Pelosi explained it on ABC's This Week last week?

Stop spending the SS surplus as part of the general fund.

Also, lift the cap on income for SS taxes.

[many a good man]

62. Have you checked out AARP's 9-point plan?

Its sort of a compendium of all the best thoughts out there.
http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/socialsec/ss_ideas.html

Those of us in the reality-based communities realize that we really only have two options: raise payroll taxes and/or cut benefits.

The faith-based plan avoids both of those hard choices. No taxes! No benefit cuts! Widow and kids can inherit it all! How you can compete with a plan that's so marvelous??? (Unfortunately its all total BS).

The AARP plan takes a little bit of each idea out there to soften the impact. SS can be made solvent in perpetuity. I'm sure Dems will latch on to at least a few of these ideas when it comes time to present their plan. Medicare is presently in a much bigger crisis due to underfunding and skyrocketing health costs.

As it is right now, we'll have to hike taxes big time to pay back the trust fund when the time comes.

[question everything]

86. Thank you for the link. It confirms what I have been saying

knowing it intuitively without having the facts.

I like Senator Graham's "doughnut hole" approach to keep relatively high earners subjected to the cap, and then to reinstate it on real high ones - over $200,000?

I also like raising the taxation of benefits for the wealthy and to make it universal - as stated above.

Of course the estate tax should remain in place.

[NMDemDist2]

68. if the goverment hadn't spent every dime I sent in every week for

decades, there would be plenty of money for my SS benefits.....

we boomers built up a huge surplus for just this reason, but it has been spent as fast as it come in... if the surplus is used there is no "crisis"

the "crisis" is that the g'verment doesn't want to pay me back for all my (and my employer's) contributions all these years.

[LuPeRcALiO]

71. exactly

And Chimp is still on his tin cup tour, begging us to surrender our retirement benefits so that he can keep killing people and handing out tax breaks to his friends. Cuz he's such a cutie pie.

It's so friggin' insulting! :puke:

[Yupster]

74. If the government did want to pay you back

it couldn't.

The government doesn't have any money.

It's running a $ 500 billion defecit.

You can say they should pay you back if you like, but it's not there. It's not going to be there anytime soon either.

[LuPeRcALiO]

76. They'll either have to raise it or borrow it.

It's never stopped them before. The Treasury is not going to default on its securities, I can promise you.


p.s. crackpot stuff like that kind of muddies the water. . . . we have enough disinformation to deal with already, don't we?

[Yupster]

78. Correct - they will either raise it, borrow it, or

change the law to pay out less.

But don't you see that none of that has anything to do with any IOU's in a trust fund.

When the money is needed, congress will either find a way to pay it or change the law so they don't have to pay it.

Regardless of which way they choose, it won't have anything to do with any number on a trust fund.

The trust fund and its IOU's have no standing in the outcome. It is tuly meaningless.

There is no money in the trust fund so when more money is needed in 2017, will congress provide it? If it feels like it, it will, but not because a trust fund tells it to

It will do it if one group of tought controlls congress then. It will rduce the payout formula if a different thought is in chage.

Regardless, the money supposedly in the fund is gone.

[LuPeRcALiO]

80. they aren't really "IOU"s, they're T-bills.

And you can't pass a law to make them go away.

[Yupster]

81. Congress can pass any law it wants to

and my prediction is that around the year 2017, when the trust fund will lose its utility as a budget defecit mask, the trust fund will be done away with by congressional law.

The obligation to send out the checks will become just an obligation of the general budget like any other expenditure, and the trust fund surplus will have magically disappeared.

That's my prediction.

If it comes to pass, remember to give me credit for it, and remember all those who pooh poohed it please.

[LuPeRcALiO]

83. They're not going to abolish the Treasury AND the SSA.

I mean theoretically, anything's possible, but don't forget that most these guys and gals have to get reelected the old fashioned way, with votes.

[Yupster]

84. As long as the checks go out

no one will care about the structure of the organization sending them out.

When the debt is folded into the general budget someone could complain that the trust fund surplus is being zeroed out by accounting.

The average person will ask "does this mean I still get my same check?" and when the answer is yes, that's the end of the average person caring.

[LuPeRcALiO]

87. Did President Bush recently visit your city?

Or what? No offense at all, but that's the kind of total baloney that Bush and his corporate backers would just love us all to fall for.

It couldn't happen without a HUGE, HUGE fight in Congress, and Bush or whatever clone they replaced him with would lose, just like Bush is losing now.

Have you noticed that the more people find out about his "modernization" plan (word du jour), the more alarmed they are?

[Yupster]

91. Bush will be long gone

when the accounting is changed. He'll have nothing to do with it.

The reason congress will do it is there will be no other choice.

You think they would rather come up with a few hundred billion extra every year starting around 2017.

That will be a non-starter because the money just isn't there and won't be.

Just my own prediction. Remember where you heard it when it happens.

[LuPeRcALiO]

92. It would take one hell of a lot more brainwashing

than an army of Karl Roves could manage before Americans would agree to "cancel" the SS surplus.

We may be deluded and vote for all the wrong reasons but we're not THAT stupid!

[dchill]

82. Here's a plan!

Stop ripping off the SS Trust Fund.

[DuaneBidoux]

88. Don't know...but it is a very easy fix

Lift the cap on ss taxes to include all income levels, start means testings at $200,000, and just for the heck of it increase by 2% the amount an employee can contribute to a private account over and above what is already taken (although make sure this only applies to those making less than $200,000).

Case closed--problem solved.

[woodleydem]

89. The Republicans never came up with their own healthcare plan in 1994.

Hillarycare was doomed to begin with, and they it let it die on its own accord. Reid and the Congressional Democrats are following the same exact script as the Republicans did right up until the mid-term elections in 1994--hammer the Repugs on ethics and portray them as power hungry and out-of-the-mainstream. When the time is right, that's when you introduce all of the policy proposals. Remember, the Contract with America wasn't made public until about two months before the 1994 midterms--when most people usually start paying attention. By introducing policy proposals only a one or two months before the midterms, it also prevents the Republicans from being able to dissect the plans fully.

[question everything]

93. I hope that you are right

Because at some point, even the least interested voter will start asking for action plans, instead of just hammering on the Republicans.

[ClassWarrior]

90. Rep. Obey has a plan... Rep. Wexler has a plan... The question is...

...why the fuck hasn't the press reported them? Oh yeah... THEY'RE CORPORATE MEDIA WHORES.

I wish Progressives would learn once and for all not to fall for the Radical RW's bullshit.

NGU.