Social Security crisis or more WMD's?

2005-01-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

I wrote a blog about this subject but lost it prior to posting. I wasn't going to attempt to recreate it but since Bush insists on repeating his lies about the system in his latest news conference, I couldn't hold myself back. Besides, an old friend thought I should and I easily weaken when encouraged by a woman.

I don't know how many were watching the media put Bush on the spot after he said "just check the numbers" during his last news conference. Questioning his numbers with "whose numbers should we check... S.S. Trustees, the actuaries or yours" regarding Social securities coming doomsday. This caused Bush to stutter and stumble through most of his reponses. Makes one wonder just how we let this man become our leader. He lost his cool with one newsman to the point that he talked over top of his question and then belittled him and brushed him off. That warned everyone else in the room not to press too hard or they could be eliminated from participating.

Anyway, I'm drifting from the point of this blog. Bush says that the S.S. will be broke by 2048. That a 25 year old man of today will receive nothing when he retires. That's his first Whopper.
Most economist have agreed that without doing anything the system would still be able to pay out 81% of promised benefits in 2052. Now, that doesn't sound "broke" to me. Bush has used this example to promote his private account plan from day one. He warns that the people who are against his plan use scare tactics that investing in an unstable stock market could be a disaster. I guess he does not think that going against the numbers of his own S.S. trustees and using the 25 year old man lie is not considered a scare tactic. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not totally against investing in the Market. I just don't think it's wise to have millions of personal accounts. Plus I feel something should be done ASAP.

Why are we in this dilemma you ask? Well, it goes something like this. Remember the old "lockbox" that used to be bantered about and seems to have disappeared from the scene?
Well, basically it's empty! Our legislators don't want to talk about it and here's why....
Congress has been raiding the "LOCKBOX" for years. Why we let them do it is anybodies guess but here's what they have taken over the years:

1968-1985 - $5 Billion
1986-1998 - $619 Billion
1999-2003 - $754 Billion
2003------- $156 Billion

As you can see Congress found it easier as the years went on to raid the LOCKBOX. It's really amazing when you consider the raging economy during the 90's when we were running budget surpluses. Did that slow them down? Nooooooooo way. Congress and Bush would have you believe that the reason for the projected short fall is not their fault. It's the fault of their constituents. We poor slobs did not put enough money into the LOCKBOX to cover their excesses. As a result, future S.S. benefits are at risk plus we slobs get to pay back all the IOU's in the LOCKBOX. We have allowed our elected officials to not only ignore the responsibility of maintaining Social Security and keeping it sound, but to plunder it also.

Now there is a reasonable solution to the problem. First, we must take the keys to the LOCKBOX away from our Congressmen. How do we do that you ask? Well, we quit putting the incumbent back into office silly! This is not a republican or democrat problem so you don't have to worry about partisan. The second thing is to raise the cap on S.S. contributions. ( contributions is what it's called...LOL) It shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a number since we know what is needed and we know how much people earn. Now I don't profess that this is a permanent solution but with periodic adjustments it should work. Who knows, if we can keep Congress out of the till we just might be able to refund some contributions in the future. But will the cap be raised? Noooooooo! Why won't it you ask? Well, that's simple enough. The people that would have to change the law to raise the cap are the people that it would affect the most. Most of us have paid on 100% of our earnings for most of our lives. Why should the rich only pay on 1% - 30%???

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not against investing into the Stock Market. In fact, I've been in favor of this for years. I just don't happen to believe in the "Individual Account" method. I've seen too many people slaughter their IRA's and 401-K's to have confidence that many people will end up at retirement with a substantial nest egg and not still be relying on help from you and me. There's no reason the government cannot contract out the responsibility for maintaining a conservative investment strategy for what's in the LOCKBOX. This should have been done years ago. Unfortunately, I can pretty much assure you that if the solution is left entirely up to our current legislators, it will end up looking like our Tax Code, Drug cards, pork spending, budget control, etc.

murrayT

Will this blog fly?

2005-01-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

My first Blog spun, crashed and burned. This is only a test to see if I can out fox the blogger posting system.

MurrayT

BrainDrain

Social Security crisis or more WMD's?

Will this blog fly?