Bush hopes SS guar. benefit+SS per. accts.inv earnings will exceed cur SS

[papau]

but there is, of course, no guarantee of that.

Krugman - in the first of 2 weeks worth of columns on the Social Security attempted distruction by Bush - also note the long in the future cutback to 80% of current benefit point of 2043 is quite possibly a "forever" OK - never a cut back situation since the 2043 SS estimate and the CBO 2052 estimate use projections that "assume that the economy will grow much more slowly in the future than it has in the past."

Krugman also points out the lie in the GOP's "trust fund doesn't count because it's invested in U.S. government bonds, which are 'meaningless i.o.u.'s." and refers folks to his article in the online journal The Economists' Voice (http://www.bepress.com/ev), noting that the only way the Trust fund bonds have no value is ther's a "fiscal crisis that led the U.S. to default on all its debts. The other would be legislation specifically repudiating the general fund's debts to retirees"

ABC NEWS in the NOTE shows no bias in stating that "Krugman's "Medicare and Medicaid are bigger problems" mantra is one that the White House is just waiting to bash back" - implying that there is a logical bash back. - I do love my US Media

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/opinion/04krugman.html?oref=login

Stopping the Bum's Rush
By PAUL KRUGMAN

he people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government.

In the next few weeks, I'll explain why privatization will fatally undermine Social Security, and suggest steps to strengthen the program. I'll also talk about the much more urgent fiscal problems the administration hopes you won't notice while it scares you about Social Security.

Today let's focus on one piece of those scare tactics: the claim that Social Security faces an imminent crisis.

That claim is simply false. Yet much of the press has reported the falsehood as a fact. For example, The Washington Post recently described 2018, when benefit payments are projected to exceed payroll tax revenues, as a "day of reckoning."<snip>

That doesn't mean nothing should be done to improve Social Security's finances. But privatization is a fake solution to a fake crisis. In future articles on this subject I'll explain why, and also outline a real plan to strengthen Social Security.

[MsConduct]

1. It's easy enough to figure out. If bush though of it, it can't be good.

n/t

[DaedelusNemo]

2. His own assumptions deny it

That growth projection you mentioned that puts SS in 'trouble' also sets the return from the market at a very low level.

>>ABC NEWS in the NOTE shows no bias in stating that "Krugman's "Medicare and Medicaid are bigger problems" mantra is one that the White House is just waiting to bash back" - implying that there is a logical bash back. - I do love my US Media

I would bet that's what they're hearing from republican contacts, for whatever reasons, and they feel all 'insidery' passing it on. However, i do think Krugman is missing the stronger argument here. By the Bush commission's projections, INTEREST PAYMENTS ON THE DEFICIT are going to be a much larger liability than either SS or Medicare/aid. And this - the larger problem, mind you - will only be exacerbated by the scheme of borrowing over a trillion dollars unnecessarily to 'solve' a smaller problem.

[LynnTheDem]

3. bush "hoped" Saddam Hussein would "disarm" and thus prevent war.

OOPS...Saddam Hussein had been telling the TRUTH every time he said Iraq WAS disarmed years ago.

BUSH was the liar.

Again.

[DaedelusNemo]

4. Of course, there at the end, they were afraid he might have

which is why Cheney came out and denounced the very idea of inspections and they were cut off in favor of rushing to war. Paraphrase of Cheney: "The danger is that people will be lulled by inspections into thinking they are safe."

[MsConduct]

6. Bush was the liar? What a surprise, huh? LOL n/t

[robbedvoter]

5. Just a sneme to welch out of a debt. Enronized again

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_01_02.php#004327
(snip)
But about $3 trillion of those dollars we needed to fund the 1980s and 1990s deficits we managed to borrow closer to home. We borrowed it from the Social Security (and a few other government) trust fund(s).

Almost the entirety of President Bush's Social Security phase-out plan comes down to a simple proposition: finding out how not to pay it back.

[proudbluestater]

7. Why not raise the cap above 89,000? Why no means testing?

The freaking system is the LEAST broken item IN the government today. Let's just leave it the hell alone. Everything the man touches turns to shit.

His plan to save something that doesn't need saving will cost 1 to 2 TRILLION. C'mon Rapture! We can't afford to live another day! ;)

[DaedelusNemo]

8. raising it to 110,000 => 40% of problem solved

and returns it to including 90% of national wages which is how it was set up by Greenspan in '83, but wages have changed since then.