I need help understanding why Social Security

[malaise]

and Medicare are viewed as 'entitlements'. Don't workers pay deductions so that they can collect down the line? Why are the greedy corporate robber barons allowed to define the discussion.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. If you understand that the leading edge of the Boomers

begin collecting in 2011, it's not at all difficult to understand. Technically, the deductions are used to support current retirees, but you're correct, it's not an entitlement, it's insurance.

[bettyellen]

2. and taxes were raised on the boomers so they could prepay for their "bubble"

[rfranklin]

7. Wrong, current contributions are not used to support current retirees...

They Social Security Trust Fund has a surplus of trillions which have been collected from workers over the past thirty years since Reagan increased the FICA. If you accept the idea that current contributions are funding current payments, you accept the right wing meme that the Treasury Bonds that the Trust Fund holds are worthless IOUs. It's a way of completing the theft of those increased contributions that started 30 years ago to fund the baby boomers' retirement. They paid the money. Now the kleptocracy doesn't want to pay it out because they have not been paying enough taxes to cover government spending.

[Le Taz Hot]

13. I confess I know nothing of Treasury Bonds, etc.

however, I got my information from the Social Security Administration website. I'd link to it but it's in .PDF format and every time I try to open up a .PDF document my poor, old, outdated computer freezes up on me, so, instead, I'm providing this link:

http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Social_Security

I don't disagree with the rest of your post, just the part where you claim that "current contributions are not used to support current retirees."

On edit: OK, I re-read my post and I can see how it was misinterpreted as justifying cutting benefits. What I was trying to say (ineptly, apparently -- it happens ;-)) was that, now that the leading edge of the Boomers (of which I'm right in the middle) are retiring, it's not surprising that abominations like the cat food commission is sending out trial balloons for cutting benefits.

[Mimosa]

14. Exactly right.

The plutocracy is talking depriving workers of the insurance we paid.

'Sacrifice' they're calling it, for some greater good.

[elocs]

15. Wouldn't China be surprised if it was suggested their Treasury Bonds were really worthless IOUs?

If a nation will not honor the Treasury Bond that are held in trust for their own citizens, why would they do it for foreign countries?

[dkf]

17. Would they have accepted non negotiable bonds that pay interest with more bonds?

[dkf]

16. Social security is a pass through system.

It uses current receipts from workers to pay those who have retired. This year we stopped having a surplus.

The surplus was invested in non negotiable bonds that are worthless to anyone other than the Government. It is redeemed at face value, where most other bonds would trade at premiums or discounts depending on how the rate on the bond compares to normal rates.

[rfranklin]

30. Wrong again! Please read up before you repeat rightwing talking points!

The Trust Fund Balances and Long-Term Estimates

Starting in 1983, Social Security taxes were increased with the stated goal of running annual surpluses – revenues in excess of annual costs – for decades into the future. This was in response to the fact that the Baby Boom generation, which was just then fully entering the labor force, was so large that it would have been possible to cut Social Security taxes or increase Social Security benefits dramatically and still run annual balanced budgets for years to come.

When the Boomers began to retire, however, it would then have become necessary to increase taxes and cut benefits. Given the difficulty of taking away benefits once given, the plan adopted in 1983 maintained taxes and benefits on smooth trajectories. This plan was adopted, moreover, in the full knowledge that it would result in huge surpluses in the Social Security program for thirty or forty years, followed by deficits for several decades thereafter.

We are still in the first phase of that plan, with an excess of tax revenues over benefits in 2009 of about $19 billion dollars, and with annual surpluses set to continue until 2016. When benefits begin to exceed revenues, the difference will be made up from the general funds of the U.S. Treasury. The accounting mechanisms that keep track of this are the oft-maligned Trust Funds (with separate funds for Social Security, Medicare, and some smaller programs), which in the case of Social Security will have a balance of over $2.5 trillion by the end of this year. Over the next few decades, that balance will be drawn down, perhaps to zero. But only perhaps.

-more-

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20090521_buchanan.html

[ProgressiveEconomist]

21. Exactly WRONG and highly misleading. See one of a very few classic articles with

valid information on the SS Trust Fund at http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-28-trust-fund_x.htm .

Where do you think the expression "pay as you go" came from? Alan Greenspan, as head of Reagan's "SS Reform Commission", supposedly converted SS from a pure pay-as-you-go system to an actualrially funded system in 1983. But he craftily saw to it that there was no SS Sovereign Wealth Fund that could spend the money only on payments to retirees and disabled workers. And he made sure that Trust Fund bonds sold to the Trustees by Treasury were not publicly tradable, so SS Trustees can get cash for them only from Treasury.

Except for brief periods during economic downturns, the annual FICA cash flow always has been positive. It will turn negative for decades soon. And Congress can cut benefits and raise retirement ages at will to see to it that Trust Fund bonds NEVER are paid off. Since the FICA deposits and accumulated interest already have been spent, primarily on income "tax cuts" for the wealthiest, the only way Treasury could pay off the Trust Fund bonds would be through new borrowing, higher taxes, or budget cuts

Google ( +"social security" +"pay as you go" ) at
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%2B%22social+security%22+%2B%22pay+as+you+go%22&btnG=Google+Search . And see stopbush's ACCURATE Social Security GD thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9536891 .

[Crazy Dave]

3. It's paid for and it's a lie that it adds to the deficit

As one DU'er posted in a different thread, the deficit would actually be even higher if the politicians didn't steal from social security for the wars and their other pet projects.

The members of congress and the senate get a government, tax payer paid pension even if they only serve one term. That's a fucking entitlement!

[malaise]

6. Ding ding we have a winner

It is the looting of people's deductions that's the problem and of course the parasitic benefits for the members of congress that they want to deny others.
Why aren't liberals screaming this from over pulpit.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

24. It's paid for and it doesn't add to the deficit. But voters will have to FORCE Congress

to pay off on the Trust Fund bonds. Congress always would rather cut benefits and raise retirement ages than raise taxes or borrow new money to pay off Trust Fund bonds.

Paradoxically, such dishonest behavior actually makes the Trust Fund look stronger!

It's a through-the looking-glass, Alice-inWonderland, upside down world of Alan Greenspan's creation. IMO 99.9 percent of the "Reagan Democrats" who remember The Gypper fondly as a "tax cutter" still don't realize that he was a master pension thief, and that he set up a system that has effectively stolen $2.5 TRILLION from them so far.

[DrDan]

4. that is one aspect

there are other others, for example, children who are disabled may be eligible for SSI.

or children who's parents are disabled may qualify.

[atreides1]

5. Why

Because we the people do not have representation in the halls of congress. Most of those who are elected represent the corporations that fill their pockets, and while there are some who try to represent the people of this country, they are outmunbered by those who will prostitute themselves.

And I'm beginning to think that this president allowed himself to be scammed by his advisors, believing that they would only provide him with sound advice.

[HereSince1628]

8. You do understand that it's a word used to demonize social insurance?

Why should a program that was created to give dignity to old age be demonized? Because the payments into the program represent a huge pile of money and that money is carped about as if it is totally unavailable to the profiteers (ignoring the raiding done on the funds by government).

Since the nation won't move to handing that pile of money directly over to Wall St via privatization, the profiteers want to destroy the programs and force that money into their greedy hands.

[malaise]

9. So why aren't we screaming about this

on bumper stickers, on radio and TV and everywhere else.
Don't tread on my deductions - stay away from Social Security

[HereSince1628]

11. We grow accustomed to epithets, like Democrat Party

And most people don't have a problem with it called an entitlement, because they feel entitled to get what they contributed to and were promised.

I believe that most Americans are drinking coffee this morning thinking that SS is still the "third rail of American politics." They have no idea the damage that can be done by an administration totally committed to compromise with an uncompromising adversary.

The outrage will come, but it will be too late.

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. "The outrage will come, but it will be too late." As always.

x(

[timtom]

10. It's all a cheap trick

to disguise and mislead from the fact that our money, supposed to have been inviolable, has been funneled into the general fund, and is no longer there.

This has been going on for several administrations, I'm told, though I haven't researched it myself.

[NNN0LHI]

12. My late father used to call SS and Medicare welfare programs

Until he went on it. Then that all changed.

Don

[elocs]

18. "Why are the greedy corporate robber barons allowed to define the discussion."

Democrats allow the right to not only define them (Democrats), but to define terms and give them new meanings, and finally to define and frame the debate. The result is that Democrats are put on the defensive and that makes them appear weak to many Americans.

[KharmaTrain]

19. Just Talk To A Greedy Employer...

We're in a time when employees are expendable and so are any expenses that an employer feels isn't making him/her money. They see SSI and Health Insurance as expenses...not in any context of being fair to their workers.

Then there's the decades long propaganda from the rushpublicans about how screwed up the system is. Many people in their 20s and 30s are certain SSI will not be around when its their turn and see the money they're contributing now as money taken from their pocket to pay someone else. As usual, poor messaging.

:hi:

[elleng]

22. It became a handy term for those who wouldn't take time to come up with another.

and then became pejorative for those who wanted to dis such, without thinking of course because they themselves would likely become beneficiaries. Part of 'their' famous propaganda, full of misstatements and lies.

[PeaceNikki]

23. An entitlement is "a right granted by law or contract

(especially a right to benefits)". It has nothing to do with who is funding the program. Social Security is, in fact, an entitlement.

To quote the great EstimatedProphet:

Of course it's an entitlement. BUT THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ENTITLEMENTS

Idiot teabillies think that SS is a tax. They think this because they are stupid. People pay into SS, and it is no different than a 401K - with 1 exception: it's safer. However, it's far from an entitlement the way they think of an entitlement, as money that gets taken from them and given to those dirty neegras and messicans. But, as I said before, they think that because they are stupid.

[malaise]

25. But is your 401K ever described as an entitlement?

Is life insurance or car insurance? Those are contracts as well. Why does M$Greedia and the RETHUGS and their goons only call those linked to the social safety net 'entitlements'.

[PeaceNikki]

26. Um, your 401(k) is not "a right granted by law or contract", so no.

Social Security is, by definition, an entitlement. You don't like it because you bought into the bullshit. Words mean things.

[malaise]

27. I know that is so re your 401K but

your car insurance and your life insurance policies are contracts so are they 'entitlements'.

[PeaceNikki]

28. sigh

really?

[annabanana]

29. The word "entitlement" has been politically twisted by 30 yrs

of RW messaging. If you are entitled to something, you have a right to it. It is YOURS.

Only here and now does the word mean something undeserved.