The Washington Post (4/8/10) continues its crusade against Social Security (Action Alert, 1/6/10; FAIR Blog, 5/15/09, 5/13/09, 4/1/09) in a front-page news story by Neil Irwin and Lori Montgomery:
Social Security is already draining resources from the broader federal budget, as spending on benefits has risen above this year’s Social Security tax collections. While that gap is expected to be fleeting, the program, the largest single item in the federal budget, is projected to require sustained support within the next 10 years.
If you are a retiree under the age of roughly 90, then you paid extra Social Security taxes–cumulatively amounting to trillions of dollars– precisely so that the Treasury would be giving money back to the system during your retirement, thus keeping the system in the black. The Treasury is “supporting” Social Security in precisely the same way that your friend is “supporting” you when he pays back that money he borrowed from you.
To learn exactly how the onion was peeled, and find out why your eyes are watering –
americaretoday dot com
Social Security â┚¬” government report shows that program is healthy for decades to come
By Monique Morrisey
The Congressional Budget Office, the agency charged with providing Congress with objective analyses of federal programs, released a new report today that shows the Social Security program is in good financial shape and will be for decades to come.
In fact, the CBO report says, â┚¬Ã…“future Social Security beneficiaries will receive larger benefits in retirementâ┚¬Ã‚¦than current beneficiaries do, even after adjustments have been made for inflation.â┚¬Ã‚Â
The report, which forecasts out 75 years, finds that while the accumulating surpluses in the trust fund will be exhausted in 2049, ongoing revenues will still be sufficient to fund about 81% of promised benefits at the end of the 75-year period (in 2082). The reason for this is that wages and Social Security revenues will continue to grow as the economy grows. The trust fund will cushion the large baby boom retirement, as it was designed to do, but most benefits will continue to be funded by direct transfers from workers to retirees, as they are now.
The fact that future retirees will receive higher benefits than current retirees, even if no changes are made to the program, is common knowledge among Social Security experts, but may come as a surprise to the average American, and even to many policy makers. This may be why the CBO, headed by respected economist Peter Orszag, decided to make that point in the first page of the new report.
The report is a timely counter to the alarmism being peddled by Pete Peterson, a billionaire investment banker and Secretary of Commerce under President Nixon. The Peterson Foundation has bankrolled a new movie, I.O.U.S.A., billed as â┚¬Ã…“An Inconvenient Truth for the U.S. economy,â┚¬Ã‚ to sell the message that the country is on the brink of a financial meltdown.
In a 60 Minutes episode that preceded the film, Peterson Foundation President David Walker raised the specter of an entitlements crisis brought on by the boomer retirement: â┚¬Ã…“When those boomers start retiring en masse, then that will be a tsunami of spending that could swamp our ship of state if we don’t get serious.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Yet, according to the CBO projections, Social Security is in decent shape. Without any changes at all, the projected long-term Social Security shortfall equals a mere 1% of taxable payroll.
The big problem facing Social Security isn’t the boomer retirementâ┚¬”Âwhich was fully anticipated and is the reason there is a trust fundâ┚¬”Âbut rather growing income inequality. Because the earnings of most workers have stagnated while those at the top have skyrocketed, the share of untaxed earnings above the taxable earnings cap (currently set at $102,000) has grown from 10% in 1983, when the system was last in balance, to around 17% today. So a better way to address the modest shortfall than an across-the-board tax increase would be to raise or eliminate the cap on taxable earnings.
Actually I suspect that the Pentagon, the MI complex and the wars we are waging are drawing down a wee bit more than SS.
And the right wing attack on Social Security is just what Milton Friedman, the late noble prize winning economist, (shows even the nobel committees can make a serious mistake) long tried to remove social programs for average Americans from government. If you read naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” you will see the actual blueprint of the mess Friedman and his Free Market doctrine made of much of the world over the last nearly 40 years. His desire to eliminate public education, public health, social programs such as social security, medicare, designed to support and help the masses, was pre-eminent in his program. His desire to transfer wealth from the middle and lower classes to the upper crust, now truly in evidence, is killing our country.
Read the book and see what those persons of wealth are doing to us. This rubbish about the viability of Social Security is another right wing hoax to transfer our money to them.
Another excellent source for debunking these Social Security naysayers is ‘The Center for Economic and Policy Research’ (www.cepr.net) by Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot – – just go there and search on ‘Social Security’.
It’s important to realize that the conservatives have NEVER liked/approved of Social Security ever since it’s inception in the 1930’s. This is nothing more than a magnification of their continued, long-running objection – – it’s NOT because of any ‘fiscal emergency’ either now or projected (incorrectly) in the future.
I’ve always been extremely suspicious/skeptical of rich business leaders – – who don’t have any problem causing economic privation (i.e.; shutting down factories/outsourcing or reducing wages/benefits of workers) if it will help their bottom line in the next quarter – – being uncharacteristically concerned about what is supposedly going to happen with Social Security payments 10, 20, or 30 years down the road! The US executive management outlook is so short-term driven they have trouble focusing on their OWN BUSINESSES’ health 5 yrs from now, so what would EVER make an individual seriously think that corporate spokesmen care about the fate of low-income social security recipients 20 yrs from now? These same business leaders who employ people to work 45 hrs a week to separate all of us from our money in the name of ‘profit’, are all of a sudden going to be altruistic and socially benevolent in their policies?
Another source: the Social Security Administration itself. Essay available (so far) through googling “social security” and “off-budget”.
To paraphrase the folks who parrot their radios, “What part of ‘off-budget ‘don’t you understand?”
Does the Washington Post posit a Final Solution that would end these troublesome retirees and their entitlements?