The Social Security "trust fund" is a farce. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme in which the government confiscates payroll taxes from workers and pays out some to retirees. Because of demographics over the next 10 years or so, there will continue to be "surpluses" as there have been since the system began in the 1930's. But those "surpluses" don't get saved, invested, put in a lock box or secured in any way. Congress spends them (such as $75,000,000 for peanut storage) and issues an IOU from the U.S. Treasury to the Social Security system. So the trust fund is a pile of IOU's from the government to itself and when the government needs to find the cash to pay out benefits, it will need to find the cash to do so (higher taxes). If you had spent every dollar in your IRA or 401k but made sure to put in an IOU to yourself, how much of a trust fund would your retirement accounts be? It's the same thing.
So rather than continue this charade, Sen. Jim DeMint forced a vote to stop the raid on Social Security. Unfortunately, the Democrat-run Senate voted the measure down so that the government can continue to spend payroll taxes on a multitude of things besides Social Security. This should have been a no-brainer and the GOP should hammer the Democratic party on its Social Security hypocrisy, which this vote perfectly reveals.
Where was your outrage the past 6 years as spending was increased and taxes cut, passing the trust fund issues further into the future?
And let's be clear... Bush and the GOP congress never intended to put the trust fund in a "lock box." Bush attempted to pass Social Security "reform" that kept current obligations but allowed individuals to divert their contributions into private accounts, which only exacerbates the shortfall of payroll taxes vs payouts (whether or not you think private accounts are a good idea).
Posted by: winnowhead ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.gopbloggers.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 23, 2007 08:00 PM
Just to be clear, winnowheads post does nothing to change the fact that the current, democratically controlled senate voted down a measure that would have protected social security funds.
Once your in charge, you dont get to blame the other guys for the way things are. Time for the Democrats to put or shut up.
Posted by: LiberalNightmare at March 24, 2007 11:32 AM
LiberalNightmare, lets be clear that the Republicans have been blaming Clinton for everything. Even last week Gonzales was saying that Clinton did it was it was okay to fire 8 ags.
Posted by: Brian at March 24, 2007 12:28 PM
I am not going to even comment on the Democratic Party, we should already expect this from them. But where is the Republican Party? Why haven't they taken advantage of this great opportunity by taking it to the American people? These are the kind of opportunities that the Democratic Party has seized for many years and have helped create the misconceptions held by the American people towards both parties. If the Republican Party does not get their act together they are going to continue to pass up great opportunities like this and they are going to continue to watch helplessly as the Democratic Party continue to deceive the American people--at the Republican Party's expense.
Posted by: Alejandro Rojas at March 24, 2007 10:42 PM
