Fix Social Security.....? Really....?

[suston96]

....another economist "adviser" that urges the easy way to fix the deficit. Instead of creating jobs, "fix" Social Security.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/opinion/05munnell.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Social%20Security%20Op%20Ed&st=cse

To Cut the Deficit, Look to Social Security
By ALICIA H. MUNNELL
Chestnut Hill, Mass.

WHILE Washington wrangles over how much can be cut from a sliver of the federal budget — the 12 percent that makes up non-defense discretionary spending — responsible politicians from both sides of the aisle know that the real issue is entitlement programs like Social Security.

Solving Social Security’s problems would not only reduce the long-term deficit, but also improve the future security of retirees.

That view might surprise analysts who point out that Social Security has not contributed to the deficit in the past, because it’s been financed by payroll taxes, and technically cannot in the future because, by law, it cannot spend money it doesn’t have.

But in reality, scheduled Social Security benefits and current payroll taxes are included in long-term deficit projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office. These projections matter: policymakers, investors and the bond markets use them to gauge the nation’s fiscal health. Since a shortfall in Social Security is embedded in these projections, eliminating that shortfall would substantially improve the long-term budget outlook and the nation’s creditworthiness.

Restoring balance to Social Security would also make Americans feel more secure about their retirement. Surveys have repeatedly shown that many Americans do not believe that Social Security will be there for them. While such an assessment is wrong — even without any changes, Social Security payroll taxes could pay 100 percent of benefits for the next 25 years, and 75 percent to 80 percent of benefits for decades thereafter — anxiety about the program’s future leads people to grab benefits as soon as they can. The problem is that benefits claimed at the early retirement age, 62, are 25 percent smaller than at the full retirement age (currently 66) and are likely to be inadequate when retirees have exhausted their other sources of income later in life. Eliminating the Social Security shortfall will, therefore, reduce the misplaced fear that causes Americans to claim benefits early.

The key question is how much of Social Security’s financing gap should be closed by cutting benefits versus raising taxes. Some of both will be needed, but slashing benefits is dangerous because retirements are already at risk.

*****

A balanced plan of benefit cuts and tax increases can more than solve the Social Security problem for 75 years. While the Domenici-Rivlin plan is far from perfect — for example, the change in the cost-of-living adjustment would hurt the oldest of the old — it can serve as a starting point. Restoring balance to Social Security would make Americans feel more secure, increase national confidence in our finances and set a precedent for bipartisan action. This is not a political game. Someone has to go first and put a proposal on the table.

Alicia H. Munnell, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, is the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Unless job creation keeps up with population growth, the problems will switch from economists to street gangs. If jobs growth keeps up with population growth there will be surpluses for years to come.. Proof?

22 million jobs created during Clinton Gore did exactly that. That administration ended with 3 budget surpluses and projected 12 trillion in surpluses over 10 years. All thanks to that job growth.

The author of this article was an economic adviser under Clinton. Pity she doesn't remember what happened back then.

[Hannah Bell]

1. she's a paid liar.

[Enthusiast]

4. Exactly........nt

[DJ13]

2. We need to face it, the elites want the SS trust as their piggybank

They have no intentions of honoring the $2.2T in underlying bonds in the trust.

To them, those bonds represent the continuation of the free ride the wealthy and corporations have been getting since 1980, and thats more important than starving the elderly or supporting the disabled.

[Enthusiast]

5. Yup.

That is why signing off on extending the Bush tax cuts was such an egregious sin.

[Avalux]

3. Social Security is NOT an entitlement program.

I've been paying into it just like everyone who's ever had a job. I want to know what the government's been doing with all the money in the SS trust fund, and why they're trying to brainwash us into believing there needs to be cuts to what was put in place as insurance for our retirements.

I don't believe any of the so-called 'facts' we're told about SS.

[999998th word]

6. Not only is it NOT an ENTITLEMENT program it is NOT BROKE.

I WORKED for 30 yrs -now ssdi. Look at military spending-tax breaks for the upper 2%..etc.All of the regulations that have been put in place to protect us from greedy corporations is being systematically removed.
They want to privatize everything they cant eliminate altogether.They will succeed too if they can continue to keep us all fighting among ourselves,buy legislators,write their own bills ,Ending medicaid
privatizing medicare will solve the other 'problem',low income people who don't 'produce' the elderly who live too long will be eliminated.Several years ago when the term 'Human Resources' replaced the term
'personnel' I was creeped out .
We shouldnt just 'request ' them to think this over+please consider the impact....appeal to their better nature ..etc.They dont have one.We must DEMAND this be TAKEN OFF THE TABLE. It NEVER should have on
it in the first place.

[Avalux]

10. People don't understand...

if everything is privatized, who will come in when disaster hits? Who will pick up the garbage twice a week, or put out your house fire? If you can afford it you'll be fine, but for most people, the conveniences we take for granted will be gone.

My outrage of the moment - PA governor's decision to sell off PA game lands (where I roamed whenever I wanted as a kid) to natural gas drilling companies. Like I told my mother, the idiots in PA elected him, now they're paying for it. Makes me so angry.

[walldude]

7. Why don't they just call it what it is.. they don't want to fix it

it's not broken. What they want to do is STEAL MORE OF MY GODDAMN MONEY.

ENTITLEMENT? Are they fucking kidding? If SS is an entitlement then why is there this little entry on my paycheck that says SS deduction?

[Shandris]

8. SS is only calculated into the debt as a manner of...

...OFFSETTING a portion of the publicly-held debt, if I read the wiki right. So a $200 billion SS surplus, added with the $600 billion debt (fictitious numbers for example only) is listed as a $400 billion debt.

How does that make Social Security in ANY need of reform?

[Cleita]

9. Social Security has nothing to do with the budget or

the deficit. Military spending has everything to do with it. Cut the military budget in half. Start with cutting loose the contractors like Xe and Wackenhut, who are making fortunes on the backs of taxpayers. Cut the military industrial complex loose and stop buying military hardware we don't need. There, the deficit is fixed. Now raise taxes on off shore corporations and billionaires, both homegrown and foreign, who do business in this country. Bet we get a budget surplus with that last step.