Le Sabot Post-Moderne

The projected shortfalls for the Social Security trust fund in the future are nothing compared to the _current_ shortfalls in the federal budget due to increased spending (e.g. military, prescription drug benefit) and decreased intake (see Bush tax plans).

Worrying about social security 20 or 40 years from now is nothing. Worry about balancing the budget right now.

Don't drink the Club for Grwoth kool-aid.

Hektor:

Last month, December 2004, the US Government posted a $1 billion surplus on its balance sheet. The same month a year earlier (December 2003) it posted a $13 billion shorfall.

How can this be with Iraq, Bush, etc? Um, well, even with lower RATES the economy is growing so the actual DOLLARS businesses submitted in tax payments are more. Reaganomics .

This isn't to say that the deficit is gone. Like any business or individual, the government has some months when it receives more than it spends, and some months when it spends more than it receives. In December businesses send it their 4th quarter estimated tax payments. But we're comparing December 2003 to December 2004. Over the same reporting period one year apart growth in the economy is shrinking the deficit.

Remember, how did the US government go from a projected bazillion dollar surplus in 1998 to a projected bazillion dollar deficit in 2002? Had Bush spent a gagillion dollars in his first year in office? No, 9-11 happened, the stock market collapsed afterward and the recession that began in 2000 was being felt. The projected surplus became a projected deficit because the economy shrank so the government's projected slice of the pie got smaller.

Bush is spending on Iraq, etc, but its mostly spending to ourselves: pay for soldiers, weapons and supplies to US companies, etc. The lower tax rates are encouraging business investment and hiring and the stock market is growing.

Thus, in the immortal words of George W., we're getting "higher pies," and government tax revenues are growing.

Disco,

The politics of the whole thing have shifted. The vast majority of workers under 45 years old want private accounts, and even a 1/3 of seniors do. That means that there is close to a majority of american workers want them.

The issue is the transition cost, but...

There is another cost: the cost of doing nothing. Whatever the transition period costs are, those must be compared to the costs of bailing out and propping up the present system. It's not a matter that the transition costs (X) are "additional" expenses, it's X versus the bailout costs, Y. If X is close to or less than Y, then it's a wash.

Expect Bush to point that out over and over again in the upcoming year.

Bush and the Congress have increased spending much faster than under Clinton and reduced the government's intake. Under current projections, there is no way to close the deficit. Supply-side economics doesn't work - I'm sorry to tell you.

The cost of doing nothing is indeed large, for the current federal budget. That's why I suggest worrying about that, and not some mythical crisis in Social Security that won't happen for another twenty or forty or sixty years, depending on projections.

Give up on the Kool-Aid, gentlemen

Here's some evidence from the President's Economic Report 2004:

Total government receipts:
year amount (trillions)
2000 2.025
2001 1.991
2002 1.853
2003 1.782

So since 2001, government revenue has been steadily dropping, and I see no evidence that that is going to change. Combine this with truly large increases in spending compared to the Clinton years, and the budget deficit will continue to balloon.

Why don't you conservatives worry about this instead of going off on ideological musings on Social Security, which is still running a large surplus?

Go back and read the 10 myths post and take a look at how many times they said "could" in the most of the Fact sections. They are not saying that it WILL do something, just that it might...maybe...someday...if you play your cards right...might work.

re: The Baby Boomers afflicted us with Flower Power, Alan Alda, truck driving movies, and thirty years of self-indulgent reminscences. As if we hadn't suffered enough, now they plan to bankrupt the Social Security system.

Hey, we kept this inherently unstable system going for 40+ years by our sheer numbers.(Class of 1946 entered the workforce in serious numbers by 1966 and should start exiting in 2008). If we must get the blame for crushing SS sometime in the future, at least give us credit for keeping it afloat for a while.

Smiling,
Steve Scheiwe Class of 1951

PS And don't blame ME for Alan Alda......

The crisis facing the fiscal state of Social Security is but a symptom of a larger problem - the failure of our society to be able to operate a free market economic system while the federal government attempts to operate these entitlement programs as quasi-socialist/command economic systems.

The structural approach to the creation of these federal entitlement programs (education, welfare, and health care) automatically deprives them of the ability to control spending, provide a marketable return on the government's investment, improve quality, and encourage competition. These benefits ONLY occur within the context of the free market.

Sooner or later (and knowing Americans it will be much, much later) we will realize the only way to really "save" these programs is to privatize them.

If we privatize them we can eliminate the current $11 trillion Social Security Trust Fund deficit within 10 years (as well as eliminate all of the federal deficit) and create a basis for these programs to become self-sufficient without increasing taxes or reducing benefits ever again.

For those of you who want to learn more, I encourage you to visit our corporate web site and read "The Fix For Social Security" and see what REALLY can be done - and be done now.