CNN's Chernoff falsely claimed Social Security will "be out of money in 2041"
SUMMARY: CNN senior correspondent Allan Chernoff falsely asserted on The Situation Room that Social Security "will go bust, be out of money, in 2041." In fact, according to a 2007 federal report, "[p]resent tax rates would be sufficient to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2041 and 70 percent of scheduled benefits in 2081."
On the January 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, senior correspondent Allan Chernoff reported: "Voters know that Social Security is a financial time bomb that needs fixing. The latest government calculation is that the system will go bust, be out of money, in 2041." In fact, contrary to Chernoff's assertion that "government calculation[s]" show "that the system will ... be out of money" in 2041, the most recent Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trustees Report (released on April 23, 2007) stated: "Present tax rates would be sufficient to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2041 and 70 percent of scheduled benefits in 2081."
Additionally, while discussing the Republican presidential candidates who proposed private accounts purportedly to address expected Social Security shortfalls, Chernoff failed to note that even the Bush administration has acknowledged that its proposal for private Social Security accounts -- on its own -- would do nothing to address Social Security solvency.
Chernoff also misleadingly contrasted Republican presidential candidates' positions on Social Security with those of the Democratic presidential candidates, saying: "Rather than permitting private accounts, Democrats are proposing more taxes." But contrary to Chernoff's suggestion, the Democratic candidates have not rejected the notion of private accounts as a supplement to -- rather than as a replacement for part of -- Social Security payments. Indeed, the leading Democratic candidates each have proposals to provide incentives for private savings:
- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) has proposed "a matching refundable tax credit -- dollar-for-dollar -- for the first $1,000 of savings done by every married couple making up to $60,000," as part of her American Retirement Accounts plan.
- Sen. Barack Obama (IL) has said he intends to "expand the existing Savers Credit to match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn under $75,000, and he will make the tax credit refundable."
- Former Sen. John Edwards (NC) has proposed Universal Retirement Accounts, in which "[w]orker contributions will be matched up to dollar for dollar on the first $500 by a new Get Ahead tax credit."
Similar to Chernoff's claim that "[v]oters know that Social Security is a financial time bomb that needs fixing," Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer asserted, "Everyone seems to agree that the Social Security system is in deep trouble." Introducing the segment, Blitzer further stated that Chernoff "has been talking to voters out there" about the issue. However, Chernoff's report quoted only one voter -- a man indentified as dentist Todd Maggiore, who said of Social Security, "Do I believe it's going to be there for my generation? Absolutely not," and said of Bush's privatization plan, "I thought that was a great idea." According to Chernoff, Maggiore is "leaning towards [Republican presidential candidate Rudy] Giuliani."
According to PollingReport, the most recent poll on President Bush's handling of Social Security (Associated Press-Ipsos, January 3-5, 2006) showed that 60 percent of respondents "disapprov[ed]" of the way Bush was handling the issue. In the 12 AP-Ipsos polls from February 2005 to January 2006, Bush's approval rating on Social Security was always below 40 percent.
From the January 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
BLITZER: Everyone seems to agree that the Social Security system is in deep trouble.
MAGGIORE [video clip]: Do I believe it's going to be there for my generation? Absolutely not. I'm just paying more in that I'm not going to get.
BLITZER: So, which presidential candidate is poised to capitalize on the concerns about Social Security?
[...]
BLITZER: There's at least one issue that all the candidates seem to agree on somewhat. That would be Social Security. Everyone acknowledges that, long term, it's in trouble. But they differ on what needs to be done.
Our senior correspondent, Allan Chernoff, has been talking to voters out there. Allan, what are people saying about Social Security as an issue -- a critical issue -- in this race?
CHERNOFF: That's right, Wolf.
Voters know that Social Security is a financial time bomb that needs fixing. The latest government calculation is that the system will go bust, be out of money, in 2041. So voters who are paying in want something done.
[begin video clip]
CHERNOFF: Talk about Social Security with 39-year-old dentist Todd Maggiore, and it's clear he feels he's the one getting a drilling.
MAGGIORE: How long has it been since your last cleaning?
Do I believe it's going to be there for my generation? Absolutely not. I'm just paying more in that I'm not going to get.
CHERNOFF: That's why Maggiore favors private Social Security accounts that workers could manage on their own. President Bush proposed letting Americans have the option to privatize part of their Social Security. It would mean Washington would have to pay out fewer benefits, but the plan failed to gain support in Congress.
MAGGIORE: I thought that was a great idea.
CHERNOFF: Mike Huckabee agrees.
MIKE HUCKABEE (Republican presidential candidate): The president had the right idea, but he used the wrong word.
CHERNOFF: "Personalization," not "privatization," is Huckabee's preferred term. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani say they'd consider personal savings accounts.
GIULIANI: The first thing we have to do is get a consensus behind private accounts, if we're going to change it.
CHERNOFF: But John McCain says personal accounts should only be a supplement to Social Security, which he claims he'll fix without raising taxes.
Rather than permitting private accounts, Democrats are proposing more taxes. Barack Obama and John Edwards say they want wages above the current cap of $102,000 to be subject to Social Security taxes.
OBAMA: Lift the cap on the payroll tax for potentially exempting folks in the middle, middle-class folks, but making sure that the wealthy are paying more of their fair share.
CHERNOFF: Edwards says he'd increase Social Security taxes for those earning above $200,000.
EDWARDS: Beyond that, I would raise the cap. I'd lift the cap.
CHERNOFF: Hillary Clinton offers less detail, simply saying she'd form a bipartisan commission to study options.
CLINTON: My plan for Social Security is fiscal responsibility first, then to deal with any long-term challenges.
CHERNOFF: Maggiore doubts any candidate can fix Social Security. He's leaning towards Giuliani, mainly because he believes the former mayor would be strong on national defense.
MAGGIORE: I'm not real confident that this is an issue that's going to be resolved real soon.
[end video clip]
CHERNOFF: President Bush tried but failed to change Social Security. There's no reason to believe that the next president will have an easier time of it. Wolf.
BLITZER: Allan Chernoff, thanks very much.
CHERNOFF: President Bush tried but failed to change Social Security. There's no reason to believe that the next president will have an easier time of it. Wolf.
President Bush did not try hard enough.
I wasn't sure what you meant by Bush not trying hard enough...what did you mean by that?
Bush did not care about it, just like he does not care about most things except warmongering. If he were serious about SS, he would have started in January of 2001 and had a panel to advise him and make these changes to ensure it is solid and government ran the way it was visioned to be. These cons refuse to acknowlege we need the backing of the US Government for important programs to ensure everyone gets benefits.
President Bush is no economic genius. Yesterday morning he gave a brief speech on the subject of economic downturn, evidenced by the latestNYSE gyrations, where he ( Bush ) wasted no time blaming those that bought houses with little down payment as the reason for the down turn. Way to go Mr President, pass the buck.
Then there was that pleasant little moment when Bush poo-poo'ed the full faith and credit of the United States.
Posing beside a file cabinet at the Office of Public Debt Accounting in Parkersburg, W.Va., and holding a U.S. Treasury bond as a prop, Bush intoned, “A lot of people in America think there is a [Social Security] trust … But that’s not the way it works. There is no trust ‘fund’ — just IOUs that I saw firsthand … The retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet.”
. . .
Max Sawicky, a researcher at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute who has written extensively on Social Security, told the World, “By law, those pieces of paper that Bush describes as worthless IOUs must be redeemed. If Bush thinks Treasury bonds are worthless, then he is committing fraud because he has added many billions to the federal bond debt. And he is proposing to add another trillion.”
I'd be surprised that anyone at CNN (any one of the hacks and minions on-camera) could see even three hours into the future, never mind thirty-three years...
...and should these hacks for the Republican National Committee do this, and make Social Security a political issue between now and November, by way of claiming "deep trouble" (wolf) and "bust out of money" (the other hack) for the program, requiring the "solution" of privatizing the Social Security Trust Fund...
And should it harm the Democratic candidate in any way, by struggling to defend the program and the Trust Fund, against suggestions of "private accounts" and other schemes to get that money into the looting hands private individuals...
Then it will be the Democratic Party's fault.
Because they have seen this threat to the Social Security Trust Fund on the horizon for some time now. And they've had ample time to articulate for the American People, not only the prudence of keeping this money out of the hands of the likes of Gordon Gekko, but of articulating to those same Americans the stability of the Fund, and the benefits of the program.
But a lot of influential people in the Democratic Party have been too busy to bother discussing Social Security in public, in a manner that would allay the irrational fears that a lot of Americans have about the solvency of the Trust Fund (fears that become the substance of cries for privatization)... too busy raising funds of their own, to bother with the National Policy issue of the People's Trust Fund, and to articulate it publicly...
...too busy raising funds and accepting campaign contributions, from financial interests on Wall Street, and other schemers like Gordon Gekko.
Remember that? When Bush said that the entire Social Security trust fund was just "in a file cabinet somewhere" and that he looked inside it and all it was was pieces of paper??
And what was his plan to pull Social Security out of it's bankruptcy?
The answer is the same for both questions. T-Bills! Once considered the safest investment on the planet, T-Bills have been invested in by many countries and is one of the reasons our economy stays so flexible.
Yeah, those IOU's are anything but worthless.
Read your own post, desertjim. You say that the treasury notes are held by the Chinese and others. Do you think that they'll ever want the interest and principal due on those notes? Where does that come from? Right now payroll taxes can cover it, but in about a decade that will no longer be true.
But actually the SS trust funds are "invested" in a special type of bond specifically issued to the SSA. Not that it matters any because it's all just an accounting shell game anyway.
>>Not that it matters any because it's all just an accounting shell game anyway
It is not a shell game. As the article notes:
"In fact, according to a 2007 federal report, "'[p]resent tax rates would be sufficient to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2041 and 70 percent of scheduled benefits in 2081.'"
Even through the year 2081, 70% of benefits will still be paid. What other program can claim the same? And I'll note that these predictions use pessismistic figures, assuming the economy will grow slower than it has in the past. And with just a modest tax increase, 100% benefits will be able to be paid.
If you can only pay 75% of your mortgage, you’re broke. And that’s assuming that there is actually money in the trust fund, which there isn’t.
>>If you can only pay 75% of your mortgage, you’re broke. And that’s assuming that there is actually money in the trust fund, which there isn’t.
Most people think of broke as having no money, not as having 75% of their money. Further, as I write below, the trust fund argument is bogus. Last, a modest increase in taxes, or the economy growing at a slightly greater rate, will fix the problem.
When CNN and others talk about the program being broke, do you think that they are conveying that under *pessimistic* projections, people will get 75% of their benefits? When people hear broke, they think no money.
That is a bad analogy, and you know it. When CNN says broke, it is conveying the wrong information. I would bet 90% of people would interpret broke as meaning no money at all.
And as I point out below, the empty account is a bogus argument. Why exactly is the account empty if it has the money stored in bonds?
One more time, funnyman – the “money” in the trust fund is special-issue bonds, which are really just IOUs. The actual money has been spent like any other tax revenue.
Now, it’s been fun but I gotta go. UPS just delivered my Christmas present – a brand new Amazon Kindle!
One more time, Brutus: you are wrong. Your condescending tone won't hide that. Yes, "the trust fund is special-issue bonds, which are really just IOUs," but these special interest bonds, backed by law, are every must as valuable as gold as I point out elsewhere on this thread. You apparently didn't read the article I linked to.
Do you really think the government is going to renage on its bonds? And you further contradict the facts by the article, which states that SS will be able to pay the funds until 2041, not 2017 as you stated in another post. In other words, if the trust fund were really broke, as you claim, then the funds would run out in 2017.
The CBO seems to disagree with you.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=5530&type=0&sequence=2
If the trust fund is really empty, then why does the CBO project it won't run out until 2055?
"just IOUs"
You have a really low opinion of the "full faith and credit of the United States of America, don't you?" You're free to move elsewhere being that's the case.
Apples and oranges, dummy. You know it, we all know it. Quit acting like you know how it works when, in fact, you obviously don't.
Here again, we have another con with all the wrong answers acting like he has all the right ones. Sheesh....
Okay funnyman, try paying 75% of your mortgage using checks drawn on an empty account and let me know how it goes.
First, the account is not "empty."
Second, if I were able to peer into the future seventy years and see that a) I'm still alive and b) I'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage 100%, there would be a number of remedies I could pursue to correct the problem. I could earn more money. Pay down the debt more now. Adjust my spending. Acquire another mortgage. Refinance. Renegotiate terms.
Regressives seem to think that the only solution is to abandon the mortgage. Most people see that for the stupidity it is.
"If you can only pay 75% of your mortgage, you’re broke"(BM)
And if you can pay 75% 0f your mortgage after 30+ years,you're in pretty good shape if you had a 30 year mortgage.
>>Not that it matters any because it's all just an accounting shell game anyway.
Yes, it is a shell game--played on those on the right. If you want to say the bonds have no value for social security, then let us say that the *whole* government is broke! Our whole government is run on debt right now. Does that mean we won't have enough money next year to fund the military? After all, is there a piggy bank somewhere with money that will pay for tanks next year, or does the US government just rely on its credit?
As Krugman points out:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010305F.shtml
"But those who insist that we face a Social Security crisis want to have it both ways. Having invoked the concept of a unified budget to reject the existence of a trust fund, they refuse to accept the implications of that unified budget going forward. Instead, having changed the rules to make the trust fund meaningless, they want to change the rules back around 15 years from now: today, when the payroll tax takes in more revenue than SS benefits, they say that's meaningless, but when - in 2018 or later - benefits start to exceed the payroll tax, why, that's a crisis. Huh?"
Maybe you’re starting to understand, funnyman. All of the money – payroll taxes, income taxes, and everything else all goes into the same pot to be spent by the politicians. There is NO money in any trust fund. Every year payroll taxes cover social security benefits, plus a smaller and smaller amount that is spent on other things. In about 2017 that “smaller and smaller amount” becomes zero. Thereafter, the payroll tax deficit becomes larger and larger and has to be funded by other sources or a cut in benefits.
First of all, don't forget that it was Al Gore in 2000 that pushed the idea of the SS lockbox and was laughed at by the repubs and the media.
Secondly, why is it ok for us to hand out or lose money left and right in an occupation of a foreign country, give tax breaks to oil companies and billionaires, etc. using deficit spending, but the idea of a deficit to help old people eat and go to the doctor is unthinkable to republicans?
>>There is NO money in any trust fund.
Yes there is. See the Krugman article.
>>Every year payroll taxes cover social security benefits, plus a smaller and smaller amount that is spent on other things. In about 2017 that “smaller and smaller amount” becomes zero. Thereafter, the payroll tax deficit becomes larger and larger and has to be funded by other sources or a cut in benefits.
No. As the article points out, the funds don't get cut until 2042. Please read more carefully. In 2017, the program has to dip into the trust funds, exactly as it was designed. The trust fund being empty is simply propaganda.
The CBO reports that SS is currently in surplus. Under cautious estimates, it is projected to fall short around the year 2052.
There are ways to ease the burden on this essential program, but of course you authoritarian corporatists will reject any common sense ideas that do not include handing our future solely to the profit over people private interests.
Universal healthcare would ameliorate the strain by freeing individuals from there reliance on SS and clean, renewable energy would break the chains that bind us to the high cost of fuel and heat.
But most of all companies need to be held accountable to their employees. Companies need to get back to community values and support the communities that support business. In other words, workers need to have access to the same benefits granted CEO's because the people at lowest level of a company are just as important as those at the top. If the CEO has retirement stock options, workers should too. If worker pensions are cut back for a company in distress, CEO pensions should be scaled back too.
Clean, simple and fair ways to protect social security.
What do you think?
Snoopy,
Want to bet that if he is able to use the Social Security money that he will then use the reduced funding as a reason to privatize?
You could be right about one thing, roundhouse – “Universal healthcare would ameliorate the strain”.
The only thing that could save SS in its current form is for the baby boomers to start dying way ahead of schedule. Hmm…which would start happening quickly if we implement hillarycare right away… Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad after all.
>>The only thing that could save SS in its current form is for the baby boomers to start dying way ahead of schedule.
As the article notes, 75% of benefits will be able to be paid out through 2042--and 70% through 2080. Most people don't know that. Most people think there will be no benefits at all.
But as I've said, the idea that social security is in trouble is largely propaganda:
http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/01/unraveling_the_.html
Which of course, was what was agreed to when the Social Security Program was created some 70 years ago. That cap was set to EXPIRE, but the richest amongst us didn't want to pay their fair share, of course. So, they scuttled it and started in on this nonsense that SS "is BROKE" to cloud the issue.
70+ years of not paying their fair share just wasn't enough, apparently. Fund the icky working man? NEVAH!
Eliminating the earnings cap would fix the oncoming problem and create a surplus. This was the PLAN, this was the deal that was made. You get 70 years of not paying like the rest of us poor slobs. But nooooooo, that's not acceptable to the bushes of the world.
The rich, pay their fair share?? Oh, the HORRORS!! Dummies like Brutus continue to suck up the koolaide and actually prefer to remain ignorant. Must be easier that way or something.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20050217
ROUNDHOUSE:
The dirty little secret is that the CEOs really FAVOR the "socialism" of Social Security, because it absolves them of any responsibility to provide pensions for their employees.
Corporations favor every "FREE RIDE" they can get, and Republicans stand ready to heap those free rides on their favorite contributors. The biggest free ride of all, of course, would be to PRIVATIZE Social Security. It would be an unimaginable boon to Wall Street, until, of course, retirement funds went the way of today's mortgages.
Rest assured, though, that the fortunes reaped by the CEOs over the years will be safe and protected ... only the "little people" will suffer. And suffer. And suffer.
BRUTUS:
You make a lousy point. By your "logic" here, people with checking accounts should take a dollar for their checkbooks, too, because all that's "in there" is blank forms.
Of course, write a check, and it will be exchanged for goods or services, and there's no problem.
God help us endure rightwingers who think they have a "clever point".
Tex,
If you write a check against an account with no money in it, like the SS trust fund, you’ll probably be arrested. Only the federal government can get away with that.Do you equally condemn President Numbnuts for putting the entire Iraq War Mistake on the National Credit Card?
>>If you write a check against an account with no money in it, like the SS trust fund, you’ll probably be arrested. Only the federal government can get away with that.
You know, this is such a bogus argument it needs to be addressed again.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010305F.shtml
As Krugman notes, the government raised taxes on social security in the 80s. Unlike other programs, such as the military, SS has its own dedicated tax. The idea in the 80s was to raise taxes on SS so that the program took in more money than it handed out. The program did just this.
So what did it do with the surplus? It can't store them in gold or land; our economy doesn't work that way. So it stores them in bonds. You buy a bond from the government, and the government promises to pay you back. Given that the US has never defaulted on bonds, that the US had the most powerful economy in the world, these bonds were worth quite a bit. I bet if Brutus had a million dollars in bonds, he wouldn't burn them and call them worthless.
In other words, the surplus is stored the only way it can be, with bonds. (Interestingly, the people who wanted to privatize social security wanted to use government bonds as the means of assuring you would have money in the future.) How else was the government supposed to store that surplus? It can't store it in money, because money is as much as an abstraction as a bond. And as I said, you can't store it in land or gold, because the economy is too big.
So Tex is correct in drawing an analogy with a check. A check is also an abstraction. It is a promise that the bank will pay the money you write down. Our economy works on these promises. After all, if all these members of the bank have 50 million in that bank, and they all try to withdraw it at the same time, the bank couldn't pay it. Does that mean that the bank is just a meaningless IOU?
Thanks!
I hope I got everything correct. I am not an economist, but I tried to piece together everything I have read about SS and bonds. So in other words, though I think I got it right, don't quote me as if I'm an expert!
ok, so by the "rrr" at the end of Never in Pointofview's post, I figured he was being facetious, but taking your statements at their bald face value.
Now I don't know what to think.
I dont know calling me and idiot and saying those who read my posts get dumber seemed pretty serious to me.
Can I say EXACTLY in all caps here? Money is every much an IOU as bonds. When right-wingers talk of the trust fund just consisting of IOSs, they mind as well say that our *whole* economy is similarly based.
(As a pop-culture explanation think of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," when the citizens make a run on the bank. As George explains, the banks doesn't have all the money the towns people want.)
[Global Warming? Plenty of time! And who listens to so-called 'experts'? They've got an agenda!]
There will be too few workers for the retirees! The burden will be huge! Oh! Oh! Oh!
[Immigration? Can't let those millions of eager workers into the country, boosting the SS rolls! They're greasers, after all!]
1)This projection is built on the worst possible assumptions. 1% more on the productivity growth and S is fine.
2) We could, like, decide to raise taxes in 33 years, if necessary.
3)There's this artificial cap that denies the SS system the benefits of the increasing prosperity of the rich and super-rich. Take the cap off, or raise it as necessary, and SS is fine.
Speaking of trailer parks, I actually lived in one when Jimmy Carter was tossed out of office and Reagan started cutting taxes. The subsequent booming economy made it so easy to get a job and make money that I could have bought the whole park a few years later.
Was your good fortune due to Reagan's tax cuts, or his subsequent tax increase? On whom do you blame the recession in the late 80s? Oh, I know...it was Carter's fault...right?
No I think it is because people “living in trailer parks” are Americans regardless of how much money they have… and they still want or are still trying for the “American Dream” (nothing wrong with making it rich or wealth). You should give people more credit.. Just because you see them as poor does not mean they do not understand the importance of taxes.
CLASS WARFARE!!!
This is the same old crap we've been hearing for 40 years - it's like predicting your savings account 30+ years from now.
The amount of money available depends entirely on how much each administration raids the funds and how much an increase or decrease in funding the government allots through the years.
It’s so easy for these fat cats to try to tell Americans that it is their responsibility to set aside savings for their future retirement when most of them were “set for life” from the day they were born. Most Americans have been promising themselves that they will start “saving for a rainy day” since the day they cashed their first paycheck – but how many are really able to meet their goals? Privatization of Social Security would put money in corporate coffers but do little to guarantee a universal retirement fund and safety net for ALL Americans.
We should hang on to The Social Security program with as much fervor as Charlton Heston hangs on to his gun - "from my cold, dead hands.".
Medicare is a much bigger issue but is not mentioned much...we need a major push from "we the people" to get universal coverage. Medicare could also be made into a paid for program if we stop throwing insane numbers of our wealth into the military.
where do they get these guys?
this year it goes bankrupt in 2041. a couple of years ago, it was 2038. a couple of years before that, it was 2035.
each year, the year social security "goes bankrupt" advances about a year. check your 1998 social security letter, the "bankrupt" date is about 35 years out.
I have an idea. let's take a bunch of billion out of social security, give it to big investment companies, then let people buy into a risky retirement fund.
social security isn't a vacation fund. it's a means for people to meet basic needs.
I have an idea. let's take a bunch of billion out of social security, give it to big investment companies, then let people buy into a risky retirement fund.
Which investment company do you work for?
As we've seen in the past two weeks, markets can tank in a short while. How many billions or even trillions of capital vanished in the last ten days? If you want SS to go from a plan that can be maintained and monitored while paying out benefits indefinitely, the last thing you want to do is put it in something as volatile as the markets.
Bittermarv,
I think unhipcat was being sarcastic when he said we should privatize SS. (Not that this matters now that this thread is dead...)
How do we know, boys and girls, that the first phase of "complete and final" denationalisation of State Social Security, as conservatives prefer, is to require such employable only because of workfare or other targeted employment-assistance schemes to enroll only in private retirement-savings funds?
(Not to mention invoking the "moral hazard" patsy in case fund returns aren't adequate enough, itself a canard to excuse the likelihood of projection to shift blame to the targeted vulnerable.)
No, it's because they're lazy and God doesn't love them. If they weren't lazy and God did love them, they'd be rich like us. Q.E.D.
Right?
Compassionate Conservatism on display.
Social Security has a long range problem, Medicare has a more immediate need of repair, unfunded liabilities such as Public Servant Retirement Plans are going to be a problem over the next couple of decades. All entitlements need to be reviewed for long term viability.
And it makes me so glad that my Children will receive 75% of what I will be receiving when they retire. But I get mine, so what the hell should I care about the next generations.
www.socialsecurity.gov/finance/2007/RSI_Social_Insurance.pdf
Key Ctrl "F" and type in 2041 to find where it states how funds would be exhausted. I don’t know about you….but, I would say that Allan Chernoff supposed false assertion was not all that false. There is truth to what he states. Even thought the system would still cover a percentage of the population ( I think MM reported 70 percent or so..) who in there right mind would pay in a system that might not cover you if you fall on hard times. If the system can not support 100 percent of its population than it is bust. In business cash flow is important to note. I don’t think I can trust MM on issues like this. On a side note: People should not rely on Social Security Insurance. It is simply insurance if you fall on hard times or if you don’t invest your money wisely or do not have the means to take care of yourself. It should not be thought of as a right…… just protection like Car or Homeowners insurance which you only cash in if something bad happens.
The same fear mongers who are trying to convince you, and other younger taxpayers, to not trust the government (and the future solvency of Social Security) are the same ones who convinced my father to buy into a Pension Fund – only to lose it all 2 years before retirement.
There is no conscience in corporate greed – they will instill whatever fear they deem necessary to convince you to buy into their scam. Sorry, but I’d rather trust the government and a program that has been working for over 50 years than to trust my money in a private pension or retirement fund. There is more power in the demands of ALL the working taxpayers of the nation than from various factions of disgruntled workers who might have been “taken” by promises of various “privatized” corporations or financial institutions.
Things will work out – don’t buy into their scare tactics!
Exactly.
If ONE thing is certain in this world, it's that Corporations will NOT do right by you. They do not care one whit about you, or your life. They care about PROFIT. That's ALL they care about. Witness Enron. It's ONLY and ALWAYS about $$$$$. That's what drives business, period. Especially big business.
Don't buy into the Corporate fear-mongering that Privatization is the answer to everything. It ain't, and never was. It puts all the money in the hands of a very few, and screws the rest of us.
That *should* sound familiar.
Thankfully more people believe the sun revolves around the earth than believe major corporations are trustworthy.
Lord this is sad. Screwed on both sides of the ladder.
I don't make a lot of money, I raised two children by myself, there was not ANY money left over to go in savings. Course my ex-husband without any children to raise made it fine - HE won't need SS if it goes away.
There is no investment, very little savings, nothing put away for a rainy day. If I get sick, which I try desperatly not to, I could be in serious trouble.
That little bit in my checking account will not keep me going for 6 months let alone several years. I am not frivolous with my money. I work 5 days a week and in the summer I have a second job too. I keep up my life insurance so my kids can have something when I am gone.
One side will say I made bad decisions and that is why I have no money. The other side will say I am not smart and deserve to be poor.
SS is important to me, and to many others like me. It just makes me want to cry to see the callousness that people think and say when they are talking about ME and others like ME!
Yeah I could have not raised my kids, could have given them up, but I didn't, I could have gone to college and gotten an education without those kids, but I didn't.
Some of you and for sure MOST of the people in government will never understand what SS means to people like me.
And....that is just too sad for words.