The Conservative Cave

Current Events => Economics => Topic started by: zeitgeist on March 11, 2011, 11:10:10 AM

Title: Will Voters Buy Hoax That Is Social Security
Post by: zeitgeist on March 11, 2011, 11:10:10 AM

When you really want to upset a liberal all you have to do is tell them the truth about Social Security.  Does it every time.

Quote

Will Voters Buy Hoax That Is Social Security?



(http://www.investors.com/image/ISSKrauthammerC.gif.cms)

Everyone knows that the U.S. budget is being devoured by entitlements. Everyone also knows that of the Big Three — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — Social Security is the most solvable.

{snip}
As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.

This claim is a breathtaking fraud.

The pretense is that a flush trust fund will pay retirees for the next 26 years. Lovely, except for one thing: The Social Security trust fund is a fiction.

If you don't believe me, listen to the OMB's own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal year 2000 under then-Director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust fund "balances" are nothing more than a "bookkeeping" device. "They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits."

Entire article links here > (http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/565640/201103101838/Will-Voters-Buy-Hoax-That-Is-Social-Security-.htm)

Of course the latest hot button topic is the plight of those under state pension plans, most of which are woefully underfunded and provide Cadillac benefits few in the private sector can hope to match.  I keep asking myself why, if the social security system is good enough for the rank and file, why should it not be good enough for the state worker?   Well guess what, some states are considering bailing on their state system and sending the state plans back to social security. 

Quote

Payback Time Maine Giving Social Security Another Look
Just as workers in the private sector participate in Social Security in addition to any pension plan at their companies, most states put their workers in the federal program along with providing a state pension

{snip}

 Entire article links here> (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/business/economy/21states.html)







and if you don't want to link to the NYT here is another link to a similar story...> (http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/amid_state_pension_funding_crises_maine_considers_a_long_term_transformation)

The federal employees have been under a hybrid system called FERS since the eighties.