Seriously. I understand that there’ll be a SURPLUS of monies going to Social Security for the next dozen years. What should we do with it? From what I can see, the guv’mint will just do what it’s ALWAYS done, which is RAID it for other programs.
It’s projected to be something like 2 TRILLION bucks, by the way.
The-Anti-Paul-Krugman Kahuna
SURPLUS of monies going to Social Security for the next dozen years
I think you mean SURPLUS of monies coming from social security (more accurately: payroll/FICA taxes).
Whatever. In any case, more money is going to be collected than will be paid out in benefits for the next 12 or so years. 2 trillion dollars worth. If we had the self-discipline, and banked it all (at 1-2%), or even invested it in t-bills (at 3%), I don’t think we’d have to worry about straightening out the coming crisis.
T.
I say we use that 2 Trillion dollars to augment the salaries of Naval Officers. We could probably narrow it down to Lieutenants. Maybe even SWO LTs who are stationed in Little Creek. Oh, and I could use a couple boxes of pens and one of those big desk blotter/calendars too. 
Quit whinin’, you Skimmer Get your ass over to DRMO and see if there are any good, used desks and surplus supplies. Don’t you know that that money is going to be Congress’s personal pork barrel distribution project? Jeez…
“Name-A-Highway-After-Me, Robert Byrd” Kahuna
Perhaps it would be useful for you to read the actual SSA annual report. If you did, you would know those excess funds (the “Trust Fund”) actually are invested in special series Treasuries. It is this fund which is projected to be depleted by 2042, at least under current actuarial assumptions.
This is what all of the controversy lately has been about.
I hope this post is being sarcastic. But I have no idea.
My point was that regardless of where we THINK the money is going to go, unless you have the famous Al Gore Lockbox, it’s not gonna end up there. Thus, the impetus behind solving this issue before all of us are old enough to want to collect SS.
Isn’t there a poll that says that something like 70% of Gen Xers think that they’ve got a better chance of seeing a UFO than they have of collecting anything from Social Security?
T.
"Isn’t there a poll that says that something like 70% of Gen Xers think that they’ve got a better chance of seeing a UFO than they have of collecting anything from Social Security? "
I think there’s a poll that says 70% of Gen Xers are high on Meth or physically grafted to their X-Boxes. Don’t know about the UFO thing though.
I really have no idea what you are talking about. By statute, the funds go into the trust fund and are invested at the special Treasury rate. It’s not a mystery, it’s not an enigma, it’s not a riddle, it’s simple fact. I don’t know exactly what issue you are trying to solve, or whether you are simply inventing an issue so that you can solve it.
70% of gen-Xers couldn’t identify the US on a world fucking map, so I’m not sure that you should be using that as an authority on the nature of SS. Or as Bill O’Reilly would say, 70% are at home, stoned, watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show.
I’m not trying to solve anything other than why you’re so intractably grumpy all the time. Do you exercise enough? The issue, as I said, is that SS is raided, or is used to balance the government’s books, against the law, all the time.
Let me ask you a question: Do you believe that social security will remain solvent? Do you think that a 2:1 worker/retiree ratio is sustainable? I’m not advocating a Republican or a Democratic position on that. I just want to know what you think, outside of the knee-jerk reaction you seem to have every time you think that someone is propounding a so-called “conservative” point of view.
Tony
Me, grumpy, nah…and no I don’t exercise enough - I’m still hung over from finishing my CFA studying.
Q: Do I think that SS will remain solvent?
A: Under current conditions, I think it will remain solvent for a bit longer than people are suggesting. Whether it will remain in the black indefinitely is a different question, and I don’t know. Under current assumptions, there are some strangely unrealistic conditions necessary for us to hit that 2017 bogey, namely the notion that average life expectancy is going to hit 86 by the end of the model, and that immigration is going to drop from 1.2mm to 900k. Those are sort of big deals, actuarially speaking. In the event they are wrong, and they’ve been wrong for the past 10 years, we’re going to have more time, perhaps a bunch more time. Given that we are still (at least for now) still attracting talent worldwide, and hope to maintain conditions that encourage this, I think that projection is a bit unrealistic.
In the very long term, I don’t know. My issue here is that even in the pretty long term, which means pretty much by the time anybody who’s reading this will be dead, even if the trust fund depletes, there will still be cash flow to pay the vast majority of benefits, suggesting that this isn’t a cliff - there will be time to rejigger and recalibrate the system to adjust for that reality. And there a number of small adjustments that make a big fiscal difference to the program, so demolishing the program is a bit extreme. It’s so far off that I don’t really understand why such a big deal is being made about it now, given our other more pressing issues.
I’m not a knee-jerk liberal. I have just found that especially in this current Administration, there seems to be such a brutal deliberate ignorance of facts, statistics, and empirical experience that it’s really frustrating to watch. I consider it a basic question of competence. It’s sort of summed up by the statement made by one of the White House staffers saying that the problem with the press is that they are living in the “reality-based” world, which is a pretty strange thing to say, don’t you think? But it’s pretty clear that the Republican machine at this point is trying to seize an opportunity to disassemble a system they’ve never liked (welfare for the elderly) and replace it with something less effective/expensive. The Democratic response has been simple - we have a plan, and it’s called Social Security. So far, it seems that the Dems are winning this particular fight, at least for now.
Granted, ideologically, I disagree with the Administration on a number of matters, but those aren’t things I generally comment on here. There are certainly things reasonable people can disagree about - abortion, welfare, foreign aid, whatever. But I draw the line at the empirical and scientific - evolution, economics, statistics, global warming, etc. I know these things have been controversial, but it’s also pretty clear they are controversial because the Administration and their shills have deliberately been introducing doubt that has very little academic/scientific/intellectual rigor behind it. Basically, they have engaged in a strategy of papering issues with enough opposing opinions from people of questionable credentials that people don’t know what to believe. I have a problem when people start introducing politics into science for personal gain - I sort of wonder why they believe in science at all. In more ordered intellectual times, this would simply not be possible. But we don’t live in those times.
I hope that was helpful - I like to think that I base my views on empirical fact, no starting off anything I write with “Well I believe…” unlike some others. I couldn’t give a crap, and I suspect others feel similarly, about how anybody feels. I want to know what the facts are, what are the implications are, and what the unvarnished truth is. Unfortunately, both sides have a lot at stake to try and spin that truth to the people.
Well, maybe that was a little grumpy…
As you know, Big Kahuna, I believe in tradition. So, instead of saving the money in personal retirement accounts, I think it is important our politicians continue to spend the money on other programs while they still can.
These numbers are off the top of my head, I may be wrong.
Social Security took in $750B last year (Total federal budget was ~$2.3T).
Social Security paid out $450B. Of the remaining surplus, $150B was used to supress the deficit.
This money went to fund the war and pay for taxes cuts.
If you don’t believe me, go to cbo.gov. Or don’t, continue your willfull ignorance. I don’t care.
It should be noted that the practice of spending SS surplus originated with President Johnson, ended under President Clinton, reinitiated under President Bush.
Again, if you don’t believe me, go to cbo.gov. Until you do this, be quiet or risk talking out your bum.
It should also be noted that FICA is capped at ~$90k. It is a regressive tax and for 80% of Americans it is the largest tax. President Bush’s tax cuts overwhelmingly benefitted the rich, while the social security taxes he raided, on a percentage basis, regressively burden the middle class.
(Aside, 20% of Americans think they are in the top 1%.)
Additional aside, there were $16B of earmarks/pork in the last omnibus, with Alaska recieving $2,200 per resident. Mmmm.
It is clear the government has too much money.
It is clear if the government wants to save social security, they could start by stop spending the surplus.
You are correct regarding the Al Gore lock box. This is what he was referring to.
Maybe surprisingly (to you) I agree with everything you just wrote. I don’t think that either side is playing fair with the dough. It’s just too tempting a piece of pie (or the WHOLE pie, for that matter) for Congress to exercise anything even close to self-discipline when it comes to a possible 2 trillion dollars available for the SS account for the government to let it sit and do what it’s supposed to do, which is grow incrementally through rollovers.
Sighhhhhh…
I-Can’t-Collect-SS-Until-I’m-67 Kahuna