|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Civil & Human Rights : Elections & Legislation : Labor : Political-Economy |
|
Scaring Americans Out of Social Security |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sam Smith
(No verified email address) |
27 Feb 2004
|
|
It's rather odd that politicians have borrowed Social security funds for years to balance the budget, but when Social Security _might_ need an infusion of cash a couple of decades from now, they say its going broke. They are playing smoke and mirrors with your retirement. Besides, repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy and there'll be plenty of cash. There is NO need for Social security benefit cuts. |
ALAN GREENSPAN has given the effort to scare Americans out of Social Security another boost, aided as always by a non-critical press. NPR even reported falsely this morning that the Social Security trust fund would go broke in 2018 when in fact that date is only when it is estimated that expenses will exceed revenues. Here, once again, are a few facts to keep in mind as the robber barons try to steal your old age pension:
1. The trustees make three long-term estimates. The one that politicians and the media invariably use is the most pessimistic which assumes economic growth so low that you certainly wouldn't want your Social Security invested in the stock market because it wouldn't be going anywhere. Using the more reasonable intermediate projection, the trust fund will not run out until after 2040.
2. The trust fund is an artificial accounting creation If it runs out, then Social Security can be funded from other sources including the incredibly bloated military budget. To understand this game, imagine the defense budget came out of a trust fund. Would we stop defending ourselves when this fund was drained thanks to typical defense cost overruns?
3. While it is true that there will be an increase in older Americans in coming decades, there will also be a smaller percentage of younger Americans to educate and take care of. In considering public costs, it is the combination of these two - the so-called dependent population - that matters. Here is what you are not being told: the dependent population was larger during the Kennedy administration than it will be in 2020 during the Great Social Security Crisis. Here are the actual percentages of total population:
1960
Children: 36%
Seniors: 9%
Total dependent population: 45%
2020
Children: 24%
Seniors: 16%
Total dependent population: 40%
Incidentally, as of 2000, the total dependent population was 39% so we're talking about a one point increase.
In short, you are being conned on Social Security and the media is doing nothing to defend you.
* THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW'S SOCIAL SECURITY ARCHIVES
http://prorev.com/socsec.htm
* DEPENDENT POPULATION STATISTICS
http://www.childstats.gov/ac1999/pop2.asp
* 2003 TRUSTEES REPORT
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR03/index.html
* ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_socialsecurity_socsecfacts |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
|
Alan Greenspan Has Got to Go |
by Matthew Rothschild
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Feb 2004
|
Alan Greenspan's got a lot of nerve.
Instead of excoriating Bush for running up a $521 billion deficit, instead of demanding an end to the tax giveaways to the rich, which will bloat the deficit for years to come, Greenspan says slash Social Security and Medicare, and make the poor and the middle class suffer.
The class bias of the Fed chief could not be more clear.
Social programs are always the favorite whipping boy of the right.
On Medicare, Greenspan at least recognizes a real problem with costs skyrocketing, but his paymaster Bush refuses to let anybody do anything to lower costs. In fact, Bush's Medicare "reform" plan prohibits the federal government from bargaining with the drug companies to lower costs, and it prohibits people or states from importing drugs from Canada. If Greenspan were truly concerned about Medicare's costs, he would have opposed this inflationary gift to the drug companies.
By contrast, on Social Security, Greenspan continues to hype a threat that is almost nonexistent. Like many economists, journalists, and pundits (Tim Russert high among them), Greenspan claims that the baby boom generation is going to bankrupt Social Security.
Not true.
The Social Security Trust Fund's own report says it will be able to meet all its obligations through the year 2042, as Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has noted. "Most of the baby boomers will be dead by then," he says.
What's more, these figures are based on the economy growing at only a 2 percent annual rate, Weisbrot wrote in an op-ed in January. If it grows faster than that, the trust fund will have more money to shell out.
And even if it doesn't, the Social Security system will still be able to meet most of its obligations after that. To make up for whatever gap occurs then, the government could lift the ceiling on the payroll tax, which today is at $87,900.
That means that if you make $87,900, you pay the same amount into the Social Security Trust Fund as Bill Gates.
Why not lift that ceiling today?
Two reasons: Bush and Greenspan.
Their life's life work is to protect and enlarge the assets of the upper class.
Dennis Kucinich is right. Alan Greenspan should be fired.
Copyright 2004 The Progressive
http://www.progressive.org |
