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The results are in on social security

Catawba said:
Bush said he spent every dime of the $2.7 Trillion dollar trust fund. See the quotes I provided.
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I'm not sure how many times I have to say it but there is no trust fund. The money goes into the general fund. You are living in a world that doesn't exist that was born from lies.
 
Catawba said:
Bush said he spent every dime of the $2.7 Trillion dollar trust fund. See the quotes I provided.
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Whatever the quotes are do not trump the FACT that there is a social security trust fund, sorry.
 
Whovian said:
These quotes? From your link...



Funny. I don't see a quote that says 'I looted the SS trust fund to pay for the Iraq war.'

Maybe you could point it out to me?

BTW... your proof is a dead guy with a non-existent website. I just thought you might want to know.
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Bush when he entered office:

"my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security, and for Social Security alone."

Later in his administration: "The money-payroll taxes going into Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
 
Henrin said:
I'm not sure how many times I have to say it but there is no trust fund. The money goes into the general fund. You are living in a world that doesn't exist that was born from lies.
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That is basically correct, however there is separate accounting however. Because the trust funds can be used to offset current expenses that we don't feel like paying as we go through taxes is the reason that Gore proposed locking the funds from general fund usage. The trust fund accounting showed a 2.6 trillion surplus when Bush entered office and later in his administration he said it was all gone.
 
washunut said:
Whatever the quotes are do not trump the FACT that there is a social security trust fund, sorry.
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there is such a thing. but it is meaningless.

its like moving money from your savings account to your checking, spending it, but then still counting it in savings because you promise to pay yourself back. the actual money isn't there.
 
Catawba said:
That is basically correct, however there is separate accounting however. Because the trust funds can be used to offset current expenses that we don't feel like paying as we go through taxes is the reason that Gore proposed locking the funds from general fund usage. The trust fund accounting showed a 2.6 trillion surplus when Bush entered office and later in his administration he said it was all gone.
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There is no trust fund. The money comes in from SS gets spent as soon as it comes in. There is no money for any sort of surplus. It doesn't matter what bush said on it or what gore was thinking on it. There is nothing to talk about.
 
Catawba said:
Bush when he entered office:

"my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security, and for Social Security alone."

Later in his administration: "The money-payroll taxes going into Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
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<looks carefully>

Interesting. I still don't the the quote 'I looted SS to pay for the Iraq war' in there anywhere.

It looks like you're mistaken... or lying.

Which is it?
 
:shrug: originally he went with the "oh well it's really there"

later on, he decided the system needed to be reformed, and tried to do so. The Republican Party turned craven and abandoned him in it. We would be sitting a bit better today if they had not; and certainly would have more breathing room as we face the Medicare crises.
 
Anyone here care to answer me this question. Who here thinks that it’s a good idea for the United States Government to default on special issue Treasury bonds?
 
I think we need to stop lying to ourselves by claiming that they are something real. Just admit that Social Security overruns come out of the General Budget, and let's get to work on reforming the system to keep SS from eating everything else.
 
cpwill said:
I think we need to stop lying to ourselves by claiming that they are something real. Just admit that Social Security overruns come out of the General Budget, and let's get to work on reforming the system to keep SS from eating everything else.
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Sure thing, raise the cap and start paying the special issue Treasury bonds AKA ious with money generated.:thumbs:
 
Social Security and Medicare Need Reform Now, Say Trustees

Chuck Blahous and Robert Reischauer, the two independent trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund, had a sober warning Friday: act quickly or the nation's two most popular entitlements are in serious danger.

“The earlier we act to deal with these problems, the better off we're gonna be, certainly better off the vulnerable populations are gonna be,” said Blahous, referring to low-income seniors and those already receiving benefits.

The Medicare hospital trust fund will be unable to pay promised benefits in 2024, five years earlier than previously thought.
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“In 2036, if you wanted all benefit constraints to apply only prospectively, you wouldn't have a system in balance even if 100 percent of those benefits for new retirees were cut off,” Blahous said.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went much further, saying there's no crisis in Social Security and that we could wait until 2030 or later to fix it.

The trustees see it differently.

“In 2036, if we were to delay a resolution of the problem until that date, we would have basically -- and I would go so far to say -- almost insoluble problem,” Blahous said.
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Well, what the **** would the trustees know about it anyway, right liberals? :rolleyes:
 
Catawba said:
I mean tax cuts that add to the National debt and rob SS trust funds to pay for optional wars instead of increasing taxes to pay for them.
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Do you believe all wealth belongs to the government?
 
Social Security is useless. It would be much better to allow the percentage of a person's check that goes to social security, minus the amount that is used to help pay for disabled people, to be tax free.
 
Catawba said:
That is basically correct, however there is separate accounting however. Because the trust funds can be used to offset current expenses that we don't feel like paying as we go through taxes is the reason that Gore proposed locking the funds from general fund usage. The trust fund accounting showed a 2.6 trillion surplus when Bush entered office and later in his administration he said it was all gone.
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It is an IOU. It is worthless. It has always been worthless. It was a fraud. I wish we could go after the wealth of every politician that has ever voted for these entitlement that are so far out of control. I would start by bankrupting them and their heirs.
 
donc said:
Anyone here care to answer me this question. Who here thinks that it’s a good idea for the United States Government to default on special issue Treasury bonds?
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Who thinks we had better be seriously cutting federal spending? Including all of those awesome entitlement that steal from the grand kids in order to enrich the greedy geezers, the grandparents?
 
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Misterveritis said:
It is an IOU. It is worthless. It has always been worthless. It was a fraud. I wish we could go after the wealth of every politician that has ever voted for these entitlement that are so far out of control. I would start by bankrupting them and their heirs.
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It only became fraud when congress voted to allow the trust fund to be used in the general fund. Now its full of AAA IOUS (T-notes)
 
xpiher said:
It only became fraud when congress voted to allow the trust fund to be used in the general fund. Now its full of AAA IOUS (T-notes)
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FDR was in on the original fraud. It has been true from the beginning. Than you mister Roosevelt. Democrats love you. Right thinking Americans might have a different opinion.
 
donc said:
Sure thing, raise the cap and start paying the special issue Treasury bonds AKA ious with money generated.:thumbs:
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raising taxes on a very weak recovery is a bad idea that - historically - won't bring us any extra revenue.

It doesn't even come close to paying off even a small fraction of what we "owe" Social Security. It would be like having the Obama girls sell lemonade to fix the deficit.
 
I repeat

xpiher said:
Social Security is useless. It would be much better to allow the percentage of a person's check that goes to social security, minus the amount that is used to help pay for disabled people, to be tax free.
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10 char
 
cpwill said:
raising taxes on a very weak recovery is a bad idea that - historically - won't bring us any extra revenue.

It doesn't even come close to paying off even a small fraction of what we "owe" Social Security. It would be like having the Obama girls sell lemonade to fix the deficit.
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Bill Clinton raised taxes in a recession and nearly 40M new jobs were created.
 
donc said:
Bill Clinton raised taxes in a recession and nearly 40M new jobs were created.
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That is incorrect. Clinton raised taxes and it helped produce a Republican takeover of the House. Then Clinton cut capital gains taxes and what do you know? Investment increased.

In 1993, Clinton raised taxes on upper-income Americans, boosting the top rate to nearly 40 percent. But the higher tax rates didn't boost government revenues as Democrats and the administration hoped,... "The tax increases added very little to Treasury receipts despite their magnitude. Reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service all agree,"... Clinton boasts about his budget surpluses, but they did not occur until after the Republican-run Congress sent him a deficit-reducing bill in 1997 that he signed reluctantly. Among its tax cut provisions, it cut the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent. "The 1997 rate reduction on capital gains unleashed the economy, causing capital investment to more than triple by 1998 and double again in 1999. Treasury receipts for this category of tax obligation increased dramatically," Shenk found...
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none of which serves to answer the point at all - which is that you can't raise taxes enough to save the entitlements. Not "as a conservative i don't want you to", but rather "as a matter of mathematics it is literally not possible".
 
cpwill said:
That is incorrect. Clinton raised taxes and it helped produce a Republican takeover of the House. Then Clinton cut capital gains taxes and what do you know? Investment increased.




none of which serves to answer the point at all - which is that you can't raise taxes enough to save the entitlements. Not "as a conservative i don't want you to", but rather "as a matter of mathematics it is literally not possible".
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I hardly think cutting capital gains taxes alone would produce these numbers. Notice the four years from 1994 thru 1997…I believe that the capitol gains rate was 28% during that period, then it was lowered to 20%%.

I also believe that it was lowered by bush in 2003 to its present level of 15%. I guess we could get by with raising it to the Clinton level of 20% with no harm eh? :mrgreen:


He kept the top capital gains tax rate at 28% until 1997,

Clinton signed the law on August of 1993.On that date the unemployment was 111119 (bls figures) on Dec of the same year it was (112206)

Dec of 1994, it was (116057)

Dec of 1995, it was (118207)

Dec of 1996, it was (121001)

Dec of 1997, it was (124358)

Dec of 1998, it was (127359)

Dec of 1999, it was (130532)

Dec of 2000, it was (132485)
 
donc said:
I hardly think cutting capital gains taxes alone would produce these numbers
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actually, due to capitals' fungibility, it is exceedingly elastic.

Notice the four years from 1994 thru 1997…I believe that the capitol gains rate was 28% during that period, then it was lowered to 20%%.

I also believe that it was lowered by bush in 2003 to its present level of 15%. I guess we could get by with raising it to the Clinton level of 20% with no harm eh?
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only if we wanted to see investment go elsewhere, and job creation lowered even futher :) Canada is currently lowering their corporate tax to 15%, precisely because they know it will make them more competitive than the US.




when you reduce the reward of participating in a certain kind of behavior (be it work, investment, or what have you), you reduce the incentive to engage in it, and you thus reduce the amount of it that will be done. the process works the same in reverse.
 
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