The Democrats’ new slogan for Social Security reform (Not) appears to be “Fix it, Don’t Nix it.” As George Will comments today,
The spectacle of adults chanting such childishness is embarrassing, especially because their chant mimics their recent slogan about the government’s system of racial preferences, “Mend it, don’t end it,” which meant: Change nothing.
Indeed.
” Change nothing. ”
I think the 20% shortfall due in 2042 — if it ever comes — will be fixed by then as a greater portion of the voting population is expecting social security. They’ll vote to strenghten it.
There’s plenty we can do to strengthen social security. Right now the most popular is to remove the cap income for SS taxes, to make a flat tax to save SS.
Yeah, we could do that…or we could just get rid of it.
What a lovely pyramid scheme.
Further note: what I’ve read says it gets a shortfall starting in 2018.
Surprise! Actus thinks the solution to this problem is more taxes Every problem is a nail and Actus has the tax hammer ready to solve it. Why bother to think about or look into any other solution? As a bonus, the tax will transfer money from those having a higher income to those having a lower one, or none at all. What
If we remove the cap on income then we are no longer even trying to pretend that social security has anything to do with a pension plan. It simply becomes a transfer of wealth from the more affluent to the less affluent.
“Further note: what I’ve read says it gets a shortfall starting in 2018.”
Under the bush plan that date is moved forward to 2012. But that short fall is just when money stops going into the trust fund. The trust fund isn’t depleted untill 2042. At least under one model. Of course, thats the purpose of the trust fund: it wasn’t meant to grow forever. Greenspan and Reagan set it up so that it would have that inflexion point and would build up and be depleted as the demographic shock of the boomers passed through the system.
“If we remove the cap on income then we are no longer even trying to pretend that social security has anything to do with a pension plan”
Why not? its basically an insurannce scheme. its meant to be a system where the currently working take care of the currently retired. With the exception of the trust fund pre-funding to take care of the demographic time bomb.
Back to the nexus issue of John’s blog — the Bush admin. has argued that blacks benefit least from Soc. Sec. because they are demographically more likely to die earlier, hence they should be more in favor as a group of reform. I have to say I think this is a deplorable argument by the administration, and a cynical (if not useless) attempt to win support, even though I’m sympathetic to the administraton’s view that there is a need for reform (its such a complicated issue I’m not prepared to side with a particular solution yet).
By the way, the “shortfall” (as measured annually) begins in 2018, but since the program is currently running large surpluses, the shortfall won’t eat up the surpluses (as measured over the life of the program) until roughly 2040. Of course, since the current account surpluses are all “fungible” and finance our current general budget deficit, the “account surplus” may have little real meaning in 2018 when the program needs to draw money from the general fund to cover expenses. So the question of when the crisis will hit is open to interpretation.
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