Is there a Social Security 101 Primer for those of us who need

[Pacifist Patriot]

hand holding? I'd like to become involved in the lobbying effort but do not feel sufficiently versed in the subject. I've been up to my eyeballs in elector challenge and election reform. Any good websites to sum up for the intellectually lazy and time-challenged?

Thanks!

[EVDebs]

1. Chapter 8 of David Cay Johnston's "Perfectly Legal" book

will show you how the lower and middle class taxpayers subsidize the wealthiest 1 1/2 % of taxpayers, especially through the Social Security system.

Even conservative Republicans of the Concord Coalition variety should be enraged by the staged phoniness of the SS 'crisis'--- the real crisis is with healthcare, specifically Medicare. See Tom Abates' column "Medicare faces cost crisis" at

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/07/BUG0V9N54U1.DTL

""In fact, the secretaries of the Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services departments said just that in a March report, "The Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs."

"Medicare's financial difficulties come sooner -- and are much more severe -- than those confronting Social Security,'' the report said. So why does Social Security rather than Medicare top the president's agenda?

"Because Social Security is the easier of the two problems to solve,'' said Texas A&M economist Thomas Saving, who signed the report as a public member of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund, the board that oversees the financial health of the two programs.

Saving said elected officials of both major parties have been unwilling to face the future costs of federal health care programs.

"I don't have to be as careful,'' said Saving, who outlined the Medicare problem in an analysis issued after the official report.

In his analysis, he writes, "Although policy-makers have focused on the long-run sustainability of Social Security, the financial problem in Medicare is five times as great.''

Looking more than 75 years into the future, Saving estimates that the nation faces a $62 trillion unfunded liability for Medicare -- versus a $12 trillion gap for Social Security.

Yet, he said, lawmakers created a prescription drug benefit that added nearly $17 trillion in future IOUs to that $62 trillion shortfall.""

Congress is crazy ! They just added $17 TRILLION to the medicare mess just to make themselves LOOK GOOD ???

This is the old Reagan era all over again: To pay for Reagan's 1981 tax cuts they had to create a Social Security 'crisis' and in 1982-83 they set up reforms that resulted in SS surpluses; then Congress had to pay for Reagan's defense spending and increased taxes in 1982, 1984,1986,1990, and 1993. The new fiscal discipline of the 1990s is out because a new administration of former Reaganites is back in power ! To pay for the tax cuts of Bush II in 2001 steered to the wealthiest 1 and 1/2% of taxpayer, they have to have the lower and middle classes fork over their healthcare and pension benefits, stripped from them by 'globalizing' corporations who say they need to compete with low cost labor markets whose citizens have no benefits at all (see Businessweek's "The Benefits Trap").

They are telling us that government will have no healthcare and retirement safety net functions and the full costs will be borne by the INDIVIDUAL. "We are not our brother's keeper" is the neocon battle cry.

[stray cat]

3. I've got the book on order - what did you think of it?

[EVDebs]

9. I think the book should be REQUIRED Reading for congress n/t

[papau]

4. The Bush tax cuts are around $96T over 75 years based on the

procedure that developed the 17T for the drug benefit.

(I do not agree with these numbers - except they - the 96, the 12, the 62, and the 17 - are correct as to relative size)

Plus the Medicare 62T is easily shrunk via national health with single payer premiums at today's insurance company size of premiums going to the treasury, and the treasury them using current insurance company staff to administer a common contract.

[EVDebs]

6. I've been told $1.85 Trillion...got my other info from somewhere else but

"Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has proposed a very large federal tax cut as the centerpiece of his campaign. The $1.9 trillion ten-year cost of the plan would use up more than all of the projected budget surpluses over the next ten years, excluding the surpluses in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Most of the proposed tax cuts would go to upper-income taxpayers, with 43 percent of the tax cuts targeted to the top one percent." From
http://www.ctj.org/html/bush0800.htm

The Tom Abate SFChronicle article link, mentioned above is where the other numbers come from. I agree with you, that single payer is the way to go, however Businessweek in July did a story "The Benefits Trap" which shows that globalizing corporations are dropping pension and healthcare benefits in order to remain 'competitive' with low wage labor markets overseas, where incidentally many jobs have been offshored along with any tax savings the corporations received due to the US taxpayer subsidizing this job offshoring. A downward vicious cycle in the "Race to the Bottom" as Alan Tonelson's book of same name puts it.

The way I see it, healthcare and pensions are being dropped from the government in order to put the onus on the Individual in a social darwinistic policy move by the neocons. This is just more of the Reagan years modus operandi.

Furthermore, I think this phony Social Security 'crisis' is being whipped up in order to keep everyone's eyes off the amount of immigration that has been allowed to go on over the past ten or so years..."NATION’S IMMIGRANTS ACCOUNT FOR BULK OF LABOR FORCE GROWTH SINCE 2000 WHILE NATIVE-BORN WORKERS EXPERIENCE HEAVY DECLINES"
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.html
(as someone with firsthand experience I can tell you that this Dept of Labor subsidizes outsourcing of US jobs and encourages the importation of foreign workers, whether on H1B or L1 visas or none at all, and allows the US workers to be 'displaced' so as to train the foreign replacements). Globalizing corporations keep any wage differntials and tax savings go offshore along with the old jobs when the time comes and/or the visas expire. Nice racket and abuse of the lower and middle class taxpayers. The wealthiest cream it and pay little or nothing. We subsidize their Social Security (see Chapter 8 "Perfectly Legal").

As long as these new immigrants are paying FICA taxes they can keep pushing off the actuarial days of rekoning indefinitely, however with healthcare the crisis is immediate and demands answers...which is why single payer is the only way to keep costs down and reasonable !

[papau]

7. I agree :-)

:-)

[greenohio]

2. Go straight to the source.

http://www.ssa.gov/qa.htm

[AnnInLa]

5. AARP, while not my favorite organization,

has some easy-to-understand articles about Social Security for the average person (me).

http://www.aarp.org/socialsecurity

I read these articles:

"Understanding Social Security"

"Keeping SS Strong"

"Financing SS"

"What Does Privatization Mean?"

[papau]

8. I agree - and I have seen no errors so far!

:-)