Good post! You nailed it!
Yes, excellent post, I'll be posting it on my blog, giving credit of course.
This looks like something that should go up on KOS and Stakeholder. Nobody has made this distinction yet, to my knowledge. You even understate its importance for this debate.
Stocks are plunging even as we speak. Why would an INSURANCE program -- which is essentially a RISK SHARING/minimizing program -- invest their capital in a MORE RISKY package?
They wouldn't.
It deconstructs the phase-out Republicans' frame and talking points all in one fell swoop.
Cheers.
Thats so on..I almost thought "I" wrote it..Good Job!
While no one can argue the benefits to our society of SS providing a retirement income supplement, survivor, and disability benefits, the problem with our pay as you go system is we pay and the money goes away. To date SS has spent over 1½ trillion dollars in excess contribution leaving us nothing more than IOUs in the form of treasury notes putting the burden of these liabilities on the laps of future taxpayers. Insurance programs establish reserves for future liabilities so labeling SS as an insurance program doesn’t really fit the classic definition.
While Republicans are attempting to help fix the problem with private (personal) accounts in an opportunity to participate in equity or bond market growth motivated by their free enterprise, entrepreneurial spirit they miss the point of the problem just as Democrats do by putting their head in the sand trying to scam the public into the belief there is no problem looming for another 30 or 40 years so they can keep spending.
We do
We do not have a revenue problem with SS but a spending one. Within the next 15 years, SS spending & promised benefits will start to exceed revenues. We will have missed our chance to bank the excess funds and instead be faced with the IOUs of the past. The congress will continue to look to the solutions of increasing contribution rates and decreasing benefits as they have already done to delay the inevitable impact. Why isn’t a SS lock box part of a solution discussions anymore? Because if you give money to congress, they will spend it. That is one reason private accounts have so much appeal to many people.
Don’t worry liberals, congress will not enact President Bush’s proposed changes. They may increase the income cap level or eliminate it with a compromise on the other side of the isle to move away from wage to price indexing. But more than likely they will do nothing.
But if it makes you feel better to think SS is an insurance policy with your name on it, and ignore the obvi
and ignore the obvious problems because you hate the President, don’t complain when you retire and find out they changed the benefit rules (again) when it is time for you to collect.
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