Social Security Con Artists Are Lying About One of the Strongest Arms of the Program

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/news/148260/social_security_con_artists_are_lying_about_one_of_the_strongest_arms_of_the_program

AlterNet / By Joshua Holland


Social Security Con Artists Are Lying About One of the Strongest Arms of the Program

Why scare tactics people with the idea that the Social Security Trust Fund will run out in a few decades have no basis in reality.

September 23, 2010

You’ve no doubt heard about how the Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run out of cash a few decades down the line. What you may not have heard is that it might not run out at all; in fact, it may well continue to back-stop the popular program indefinitely.

If you want to know just how contrived the Social Security "crisis" really is, consider that the trust fund, created by a bipartisan act of good governance that’s almost inconceivable today, is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and more so. It is nonetheless cited by “entitlement” fearmongers as evidence that the program is unsustainable, a fiscal trainwreck just waiting to happen.

In fact, the opposite is true. In 1983, when we still had a somewhat functional Congress that was capable of tackling real problems facing the nation, Democrats and Republicans got together to address a very modest shortfall in funding for the Social Security system. But they went a step further. They thought long-term, raised payroll taxes and in doing so created the Social Security Trust Fund, a surplus that could be drawn down as the baby-boomers reached retirement age. Today, with $2.5 trillion worth of assets, the fund is so fat it’s projected to continue growing on just its own interest decades into the future.

The “reforms” were a victory for neither side -- Republicans agreed to a tax hike on businesses, and Democrats accepted a regressive tax on working people, while giving up an issue they had used to win 26 House seats in the 1982 midterms.


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[DCKit]

1. They'll say ANYTHING as long as there's any chance they might be able to hand it over to Wall St.

Just think how much longer the Wall St. traitors could've kept their Ponzi scheme going with another $2.5 trillion + the hundreds of millions monthly.

And it's not "stealing" if Congress simply hands it over to their loving care.

[G_j]

2. they drool over the thought ..nt