NYT Krugman: Played for a Sucker

[livvy]

November 16, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Played for a Sucker
PAUL KRUGMAN

Lately, Barack Obama has been saying that major action is needed to avert what he keeps calling a “crisis” in Social Security — most recently in an interview with The National Journal. Progressives who fought hard and successfully against the Bush administration’s attempt to panic America into privatizing the New Deal’s crown jewel are outraged, and rightly so.

But Mr. Obama’s Social Security mistake was, in fact, exactly what you’d expect from a candidate who promises to transcend partisanship in an age when that’s neither possible nor desirable.

To understand the nature of Mr. Obama’s mistake, you need to know something about the special role of Social Security in American political discourse.

Inside the Beltway, doomsaying about Social Security — declaring that the program as we know it can’t survive the onslaught of retiring baby boomers — is regarded as a sort of badge of seriousness, a way of showing how statesmanlike and tough-minded you are.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/opinion/16krugman.html?th&emc=th

[fasttense]

1. Good article, but I would take it a step further.

There is a problem with Social Security and that is benefits are way too, staggeringly low. Raygun, and every president since, has played with the inflation numbers, routinely under reporting the true rate of inflation, and hiding the repercussions of the disappearing value of the dollar, Social Security payments have not kept up with Social Security Taxes. Currently the Baby Boomers have paid in way more to Social Security then what they will ever get out of it.

http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=343

If Social Security payments were adjusted for real inflation, they would at a minimum be 45% higher. And if you added in the recent devaluation of the dollar, due to the Fed's fondness for protecting corporations, it is clear that what Americans pay in taxes to Social Security is far more than the amount they get back for retirement. But the answer isn't privatization, where huge profits for corporations, CEOs and an additional layers of administration would have to be paid out from those taxes. The answer is making billionaires and millionaires pay their fair share to keep widows from starving in the streets. Then report the real inflation and adjust Social Security payments accordingly.

Social Security benefits need to increase by a minimum of 45%.

[Submariner]

2. The republican mind that wants to gut SS

thinks this way; "How little a check can we give a recipient that will cover rent, food, and meds not already covered by medicare?"

The repugs figure that just enough to keep you off the visible streets (not homeless) is enough to satisfy their ignorant bases' social conscious.