He does want to end the crisis. You may quibble with the how, and that is a debate that would be beneficial to all of us.

No, I'm afraid not.

Something needs to be done to properly fund social security. The fundamentals, however, should remain in place.

That's not reform? (or the alternative, cutting the growth of future benefits?)

And this, my commie friend, is why you will remain the minority party in the near future.

I think of reform as meaning changing the basic rules of the system, not merely the funding mechanism.

Bush's goal is to rework the entire benefit structure, and thus to revise the goal and purposes of social security.

I suspect you will hear many voices in the red states agreeing with me, you rich coastal snob.

I am undoubtedly coastal, and perhaps rich in a relative sense, but snob? How am I a snob?

Ty - Your Mailbox is Full
 

FYI

[Not anymore. -- T.S.]

You're rich and coastal, ergo....

I'll confess, I thought calling someone who supports social security a commie went out in the 30s, but you never know.

If the crisis is that we're going to be short some money in 2052, how does borrowing trillions of dollars now help end the crisis?

Hint: It doesn't, and the White House's apparent recognition of that fact was the very point of the three paragraphs you posted yesterday from the LA Times.

eta:

The paragraphs immediately before the ones you quoted make this even more clear:

• A Bush aide, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, was more explicit, saying that the individual accounts would do nothing to solve the system's long-term financial problems.
  
  That candid analysis, although widely shared by economists, distressed some Republicans.
  
  "Oh, my God," one GOP political strategist said when he learned of the shift in rhetoric. "The White House has made a lot of Republicans walk the plank on this. Now it sounds as if they are sawing off the board."

LA Times, via Drum

That's the other shoe, which we've heard little about. What bothers me is that up until now, I don't think we've heard much of anything from the Administration other than the assertion that private accounts would solve this problem for us. If I understand it correctly, Bush has tossed out some older Dem proposals on that issue, leaving it to Congress to try to solve the hard part while he hits the hustings to evangelize private accounts.

Agreed.

If this is the case, then Bush should stop his speech in Arkansas today to come out and say, "you know what? This entitlement is too expensive, will run out of money someday, and government shouldn't give it to you anyway. Instead, you should have [cue music]."

If you wanted to fix the system, you'd strike a bipartisan deal to increase the payroll tax some, increase the cap on income subject to the tax some, and curb future benefits some. You'd get enough votes from both parties to give everyone cover. To get there, you'd have to go with incremental change, and compromise.

Needless to say, that's not what this White House is interested in.

Cheer up. If you're right, Hillary will have the chance to solve the problem in 4 years.

The next President is going to have much more immediate problems to worry about, such as Medicare and the massive Bush deficits.

Tomorrow's Problem Today
 

No takers from anyone on this? Am I the only one who thinks we need to figure this out?

Motherfucking asshole
 

The toy version

http://img.getactivehub.com/gv2/cust...withDimes6.jpg

I think bad things would happen should this ever come into my possession.

the only fact proven in this is that you don't understand basic math.

Well, I can't really argue with that.

It's not the support, its thinking that the solution to every problem is more funding . .

He wants to fix the crisis and he wants personal accounts. I gave a possible answer to how personal accounts can be used to answer the solvency question, but had no takers on that one.

Motherfucking asshole
 

What does the hammer signify??

mmmm, meth

Motherfucking asshole
 

I somehow thought you were the kind of girl who would like a coin-operated boy.

Please explain.

I think that if reform is going to happen, you are going to see something along these lines. Some in the adminstration have already been testing the argument that a rise in the cap is not really an increased tax, which is of course, horseshit, but may be necessary.

Does a rise in the cap alone solve the problem? I thought benefits were tied to how much you put in, up to the capped level. So if you raise the cap, don't you raise the liabilities as well? Or is there not a 1:1 ratio--i.e., stick it to the rich some more?

I'm not sure if anyone has proposed this, but it seems like the math should work - even though math is hard.

X% of your SS tax goes into a private account, 100%-X% goes into the current system. When you hit the retirement age, you're benefits from the current system are reduced by the amount that your X% would have earned in the system (or even a greater percentage), but did not because it's in the private account. Assuming the private account appeciates at a higher rate than it would have under the current system, you get the benefit of the difference or the benefit of a part of the difference.

Not sure what the transition costs would be.

No, I think you also need to increase the retirement age and cut benefits to have a shot. I'm not sure on the ration, but I was under the impression that it was not 1:1.

Read, Clubby, Read
 

I simply think that income and expense should at some point match, and that social security should represent an entitlement program that pays enough to recipients to be a basic safety net.

And Bush is challenging virtually every word in the above sentance.

Impressive rhetoric, coming from someone who wants the government to borrow 2 or 3 or 4 trillion dollars.

Read, Clubby, Read
 

I think that Bush agrees with you that the SS safety net is morally required and should pay enough to accomplish that.

X times the number of people participating times teh amount at issue. That's basically what bush is proposing, but the problem is that all current benefits are being funded by current taxes, with some taxes going into the trust fund. If you put those extra funds into "private" accounts you're depleting the trust fund even faster. The cost of reducing liabilities in the future is decrease revenue presently.

That's not what I want at all. What I want is a greater return on my money than I'm currently getting.

Fucking liberal media hatchet job.

First they quote a Bush aide, then a GOP strategist. Might as well get your news from Michael Moore.

Let's just set aside the various issues relating to the performance of private accounts vs. the current system, and the desirability or lack thereof of the insurance function that we now have, and focus on transition costs. Money that comes in now is not invested. It's used to pay for current retirees. So doing what you propose will entail borrowing a big chunk of money. If this improves the system's finances as of 2052, this happens only at the cost of hurting our finances now. If you think the shortfall that we face in 50 years is a "crisis," it makes absolutely no sense to talk about borrow money to shift to private accounts. The conversation should be, instead, about tweaking the system in the ways discussed in other posts.

Your proposal is like my wife saying to me, we should buy a Mercedes, but I'm not sure about the costs. Well, sure. If money were no object, why not?

Read, Clubby, Read
 

I don't think he does. Or at least, based on his policy agenda I have no reason to believe he does.

Private accounts, managed privately, are not a safety net. Indeed, until he also proposes a low-cost annuity that may be purchased by anyone with a private account when they reach retirement, it will certainly not be a safety net, because it makes no provision for the fact that some people will live longer than others

Maybe "related," but not "tied." The more you make, the worse you do with Social Security. So, yes, there's income redistribution going on. This, of course, is why the hard-core GOPers hate it.

I thought the article linked below, which is really from the WSJ but was reprinted by something else which is helpful because I don't subscribe to WSJ online, was interesting, particularly the stuff about the level of the tax in other countries and the way that Bush has to some extent, at some times, been trying to fold the private account thing into an overall tax-preferred savings agenda. He has had a bunch of proposals for different accounts, or for multi-purpose accounts, that would allow pre-retirement withdrawals for stuff like buying houses and stuff -- the Singapore example speaks to that.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...909EST0050.DTL

But they aren't commies? What's the distinction?