This should be an ALBATROSS for the GOP : GOP advocates a SELECTIVE DEFAULT on bonds held by SS...

[Faryn Balyncd]

...Trust Fund.

The reality is that Treasury Bonds held by ANY bondholder, whether that bondholder is a mutual fund, an American bank, a private pension fund, the Federal Reserve, a foreign government, or an individual American citizen.....are ALL backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

Yet the GOP is advocating what is effectively a SELECTIVE DEFAULT on bonds held by the the Social Security Trust Fund, whose claims, based upon funds the Trust Fund LOANED to the general fund (allowing the income tax rates to the wealthy to be CUT in the face of simultaneous wars and corporate welfare) are (according to the GOP, inferior to the claims of Chinese creditors.

This anti-senior position of the GOP is another iteration of their FALSE MEME that the Social Security Fund are "only paper" because "we've already spent the money." The fact is, that is the case withe ALL BONDS, they ALL represent loans to the general revenue fund which allowed financing of the deficits of multiple wars and corporate welfare while simultaneously slashing income tax rates of the uber-rich. The GOP has been persistently propagating the myth that the bonds held by the SS Trust Fund are not real..... The GOP would like us to believe that these $2.2 trillion in surpluses were accumulated by the SS Trust Fund with regressive payroll taxes precisely for the purpose of paying for general revenues so that the rich could avoid paying their share.

The reality is that the SS Trust Fund has sufficient accumulated surplus to pay ALL BENEFICIARIES IN FULL without any changes whatsoever, until 2037.

The bonds held by the SS Trust Fund are backed by the full faith & credit of the United States.

The un-American, anti-citizen position of the GOP should be broadcast 24/7 to all voters.

The corporate media need to be FORCED to cover this, because if the reality of the GOP position is communicated to American citizens for what it is, the truth will be an ALBATROSS that will sink the GOP in 2012, and for years to come.




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=315056&mesg_id=315056




:kick:





:kick:

[yurbud]

1. no matter how much the Democrats screw up, the GOP will try to top them

[Skink]

2. I think I'll selectively skip the rent this month.

[dkf]

3. 2037 is not so far away.

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. You are correct...but the GOP is intentionally misrepresenting the facts:

The GOP is saying the Trust Fund has "only paper", and ignoring that the loans made by the Trust Fund are just as valid as the loans made to the Treasury by all bondholders.

They are upset because they do not want the Trust Funds bonds to ever be honored. They don't want to honor beneficiaries rights because that would require the general revenue fund to pay for wars, etc from income taxes, rather that from loans from the SS Trust Fund.

So they misrepresent the fact that, with no change at all, benefits van be paid in full until 2037, when the oldest baby boomer will be 92, and that simply raising the amount exempted from FICA taxes (regular income currently over $106,000/year) could solve the entire problem after 2037.

Instead, the GOP propagates the false meme that the SS Trust Fund is "broke", when in fact it is the only program that has operated in the black for decades, so much so that it is a major lender to the general fund, which has allowed the general fund to run deficits for decades, while slashing income tax rates for the benefit of the top 1%.

That is why the GOP is so desperate as to misrepresent the facts.

[dkf]

8. Benefits will be fully paid if they raise income or other federal taxes to repay the social security

System.

The question is what is the impact to the economy of increasing those extra taxes and if the population will support it. After this latest outcry over reinstating the Clinton rates I wonder how realistic that is.

The public is going to have to make decisions on what they want to pay for in return for receiving services as we stop being able to survive by borrowing.

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. You are correct...

...And we do need to make such decisions. But the GOP wants to honor the $12 trillion in bonds to other foreign and domestic bondholders who loaned money to the Treasury (so that taxes could be cut for the uber-rich), but considers paying back the $2.2 trillion loaned to the general revenue fund of the Treasury by the SS Trust Fund OPTIONAL -- or, as the GOP propagandists say "nothing but paper IOU's", as if they are not a legitimate and binding obligation.

What the GOP propagandists say is a dangerous and false meme. All $14 trillion of the bonds are equally binding and equally backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

Yes, the public needs to make decisions on what we want to obligate ourselves for in the future, and what services we want....but the $2.2 trillion owed to the Social Security Trust Fund is not an optional obligation....It is just as binding as the other $12 trillion in bonds owed to other foreign and domestic lenders.

The GOP is desperate, because they have financed the deficits of simultaneous wars and corporate welfare with money borrowed from the surpluses of payroll taxes (to which the great bulk of the income of the uber-rich is EXEMPT) so that simultaneously income tax rates could be cut to artificially and unsustainably low levels for the same uber-rich.

The GOP does not want to give up their addiction to raiding payroll taxes, so they want to NEVER pay it back...

And stage one of their plan is the Big Lie: their meme that the bonds held by the SS Trust Fund do not represent legitimate obligations.





:kick:

[dotymed]

21. Yes, "the public" needs to make those decisions.

They need to decide if the tax breaks for the elite are appropriate and have been beneficial to average Americans. Unfortunately, the public does not get to make those decisions. Our bought and paid for politicians, who work for the wealthy, do.
If our country would return to the tax policies of, even, pre-Reagan, there would not be much to worry about in the funding for SS. IMO, the "cap" for people who "earn" obscene amounts of money should be forgotten and a system of real progressive taxation instated. FDR, when he created SS, to help average Americans knew this.
Also, allowing individuals who earn millions of dollars annually to collect SS benefits should be re-examined. I realize that they have paid into this system, but to allow them to get their "paltry" SS checks while the masses are suffering, IMO, is not in the spirit of SS.
I have known millionaires, that when they receive their SS checks, laugh and laugh. They do not need the money, but the majority desperately do, in order to survive.
When America had a top income tax of 90%, the wealthy were still wealthy and most of them bragged about the contributions that their tax dollars made to America.
The paradigm has now shifted to pure greed. America means little to most of them. Now it is about how much money they can make from slave wages and little taxes.
America needs to follow the examples of Egypt, Tunis and the Latin American countries and re-take their government.

[WinkyDink]

16. Well, frankly, it is more than a quarter-century away. Was WWII "not so far" from 1971, then?

[sulphurdunn]

22. Not that some corections

aren't needed, but 2037 is a lifetime away.

[NewJeffCT]

4. Democrats never fail to miss an opportunity

to miss an opportunity.

Every Democrat should be going on the air saying that the GOP wants to pay China and Saudi Arabia before they pay Grandma.

This is the gift horse. It's almost too easy. - the campaign ads write themselves.

So, that means it won't happen.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. The GOP wants to pass this precisely so they can prevent to honoring of SS Trust Fund bonds without

....simultaneously failing to honor other bond-holders.

That is, the GOP proposes to RETROACTIVELY and unilaterally make the bonds held by the SS Trust Fund subordinant to those held by other bondholders.

If anyone was to try to retroactively do such a thing regarding their own debts, it is clear that it could not be legally sustained.

What the GOP is attempting to do is not only a betrayal of American citizens, but is lawless.

[Poboy]

10. You are correct, and we are about to be screwed over again.

[Enthusiast]

18. They will remain silent. nt

[stillwaiting]

20. There's only ONE reason why it won't (and never does) happen.

Only one.

You're right. It is WAY too easy to run against Republicans.

At least it should be.

We're being rolled by the elite.

[damntexdem]

5. The corporate media should report it out of self interest.

Because if the U.S. starts defaulting on its bonds, international finance may start totally falling apart. This GOP idiocy is brinksmanship with international finance. A "selective default" may not be seen by international (and domestic) investors as "selective," rather as a first default, with many more to follow.

[Poboy]

9. recommend

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. THis should lead all nightly news...

but of course it will not

[Poboy]

13. .

[Poboy]

14. .

[Vinca]

15. The GOP wants to steal money contributed to the SS fund by workers

their entire lives. They want to starve Grandma. That's our talking point.

[Enthusiast]

17. Good cop -bad cop.

Don't be sucked in by this.

What is their real plan? What is the plan they have agreed to behind closed doors?

I think it goes something like this: They will ramp up the urgency of cutting the deficit. I'm watching this unfold right this very moment on C-Span's Washington Journal. After they have thoroughly convinced the American people that social security is absolutely unsustainable and the lock box is full of useless I.O.U.s then white hat Obama rides to the rescue of by freezing social security payments and phasing in a gradual privatization, thereby saving social security to the huge relief of all (many) Americans. This serves several purposes but one purpose is to place the blame of ruining social security squarely on the shoulders of the Democratic Party. Just like NAFTA and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Mission accomplished.

[bonzotex]

19. k/r ..n/t

[sulphurdunn]

23. The Democratic Party

can preempt the Republican lies about SS and force the MSM to cover it anytime it wants. It doesn't want.

[Enthusiast]

25. My point.

It doesn't want. We are on our own.

[Skidmore]

24. Ummm...maybe a different metaphor.

An albatross was good luck unless it was killed.