Democrats Have To Come Clean On Saving Social Security

[ulTRAX]

I've long suggested elsewhere that if the Dem are to win on 2004 they have to find some issue that can get them out from break out from their traditional constituencies, find some new issue that crosses traditional party lines, where they can throw a Hail Mary pass to reach some GOP voters. Iraq might prove a potent issue should it turn into a quagmire... but there should be some reason to vote FOR the Dems not just AGAINST the GOP. I've suggested a few issues in other groups.... but on reflection I think that BIG issue is not the economy... since it might improve... or Bin Laden since he might be captured... it should be protecting Social Security. It's an issue that affects everyone.... even Dean's rebel flag waving pickup truck drivers, soccer moms and NASCAR dads.


Bush is no fiscal conservative. He just talks like he respects the taxpayers. Like Reagan, Bush has set out on a deliberate policy to dismantle government by sabotage revenues. This is NOT a platform he actually run on. It's a long-term stealth program euphemized as "tax relief".... or encouraging "economic growth". The extent of Bush's cynical deception of the American People is appalling... yet is not an issue on the public's radar. After all, Bush ran on a balanced budget where tax cuts were secondary to protecting Social Security.... http://romcache.tripod.com/Bush2000PressRelease.pdf


The Dems have never successfully countered this issue... even though every dollar of tax cuts is borrowed from our children.... and the biggest waste of money in the federal budget is interest on the debt. A full trillion dollars has been pissed away over the past 3 years that buys the American People nothing. Worst, Democrats are not even being honest about the trouble SS may be in. We get happy talk like this from Kucinich: http://www.kucinich.us/issues/socialsecurity.php "The fund is solid through the year 2042, without any changes whatsoever." What he doesn't say is this is true if the SS IOUs are repaid.


What's sad is the Dems have the historic claim to the SS issue but I don't seem them as being effective with new voters as they were with the FDR generation. I believe that this is in large part due to the Dem's own use of shell games and deceptive numbers when it comes to the budget. The Dems MUST become more credible in the area of fiscal responsibility. Clinton had the right idea.... but he and Gore never drove home just how hard it was to reverse the deficits... and after all that work.... the net surplus was only about 90 billion.... once you get away from the true on-budget numbers. What's 90 billion compared to Bush's projected 727 billion deficit for FY04.

The scary truth is Bush is deliberately creating a budgetary train wreck. The crunch is that soon the Baby Boomers will start to retire and the SS surplus that has been building up as IOUs will soon disappear. That is expected around 2016 according to Bush's SS Commission http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issuebriefs_ib159
Shall I repeat that.... the crunch is NOT 2038 or 2042.... but in 12 years. How long did it take to turn around the Reagan deficits? 20 years?

At THAT point the IOUs start to get called in because SS revenues won't cover expenses... and the shell game is exposed for what it is. The ONLY source of funds to meet SS obligations are to increase SS taxes, cut spending, raise revenue on the On-Budget side of finances.... or to borrow.

Bush has cynically created a Crunch Generation who will be stuck between the Devil and deep blue sea. They will be forced to dismantle government programs that people have fought generations to create.... or do battle with their retired parents who will want the SS benefits promised them.


There's not much time to deal with this. Bush's fiscally irresponsible policies have set us up for another decade of deficits... longer if his irresponsible tax cuts are extended. Then what happens if we ever finally get back to a true balanced budget? Even if debt is no longer accumulating though excess spending.... how much spending will have to be cut... and revenues raised just to make ANY progress on debt paydown? That IS the goal... right? Just look at how LITTLE Clinton accomplished. True he reversed the trend.... but most of what his much heralded debt paydown was actually a shell game borrowing from the SS surplus to pay down the Debt Held By Public. While he deserves credit for turning the budget situation around... he lulled the public into complacency by using dishonest numbers... when the Dems SHOULD have been out with honest ones.

The Dems need to come clean on SS. They need to stop the games.... flesh out the budget numbers as Ross Perot would so even Joe Six Pack not only understands... but is SCARED of what Bush is doing and can develop some righteous anger at the GOP. Dems have to know the numbers are on their side... and to demand of Bush at every turn to prove to the American People how his policies are fiscally responsible. When Bush tries to hoodwink us with rosy economic scenarios as he and the Dems used last time to justify tax cuts in 2000... the Dems must expose this. The Dems MUST inoculate the Public from ever being hoodwinked again by the GOP's lies.... but first they also have to become the true party of fiscal conservatism. Think they're up to it? See any evidence if it with the current crop of candidates?


http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/

http://www.concordcoalition.org/facing_facts/alert_v4_n12.html

[ulTRAX]

1. speaking of visual aids... here's a GREAT example

Millions.... billions.... trillions.... the eyes of the American People glaze over. It's all too abstract. But what of those numbers were fleshed out? Check out this page!

http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/

[ulTRAX]

2. bump

This it too important an issue to get lost here.

[Yupster]

3. It's a shell game

Just like you said.

The Democrats have no answer because there is no answer. The system is not sustainable. Large tax increases and benefit cuts will be needed, and if you expect the Demorats to admit that, you're seeing a different group of Democrats than I am.

[ulTRAX]

5. so is wall st

I'd maintain that the stock market is also a shell game... or more like a pyramid scheme... at least when prices are going up. People trade in hard cash for a piece of paper they hope some bigger fool will pay more for it down the road. Everyone feels rich looking at their monthly statements... but we all know not everyone can cash in. It's an illusion. When that delicate balance of sellers exceeds buyers.... the prices crash. But just think about how a few hundred billion a year of SS monies might artificially pump up those prices.

My comments about the Democrats and SS were about their failures to educate the public about how Bush's irresponsible tax cuts are going to put a crunch on our children when those SS IOUs have to be repaid. Long term solvency is a separate issue.

[Cheesehead]

4. Paul Krugman laid out the facts on social security on Friday

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/opinion/05KRUG.html?th


The annual report of the Social Security system's trustees reveals a system in pretty good financial shape. In fact, it would take only modest injections of money to maintain that system's current benefit levels for at least the next 75 years. Other reports, however, appear to portray a system in deep financial trouble. For example, a 2002 Treasury study, described on Tuesday in The New York Times, claims that Social Security and Medicare are $44 trillion in the red. What's the truth?

Here's a hint: while even right-wing politicians insist in public that they want to save Social Security, the ideologues shaping their views are itching for an excuse to dismantle the system. So you have to read alarming reports generated by people who work at ideologically driven institutions — a list that now, alas, includes the U.S. Treasury — with great care.

First, two words — "and Medicare" — make a huge difference. According to the Treasury study, only 16 percent of that $44 trillion shortfall comes from Social Security. Second, the supposed shortfall in both programs comes mainly from projections about the distant future; 62 percent of the combined shortfall comes after 2077.

So does the Treasury report show a looming Social Security crisis? No.

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You are right. This is an issue that must be explained to voters. We need Gore's lockbox.

[Yupster]

6. All the okay arithmetic assumes

that the social security surplus will be used to thwart the crisis.

The problem is that the social security surplus does not exist. It has already been and is continuously being spent.

Whether the money is spent with or without an IOU in a lockbox doesn't change the fact that there isn't any money there, and the government doesn't have the money to repay the IOU's without massive tax increases or increased borrowing.

I guess I could say that the $ 20,000 I used to have in the bank will help fund my retirement, but since I already spent the money on a car, saying it wouldn't be real helpful to my comfortable years of dotage.

And putting an IOU in a box might make me feel better, but since I don't have the money to repay the IOU, what's the point of it.

[ulTRAX]

7. the crux of the matter

Yupster wrote: "The problem is that the social security surplus does not exist. It has already been and is continuously being spent.

Whether the money is spent with or without an IOU in a lockbox doesn't change the fact that there isn't any money there, and the government doesn't have the money to repay the IOU's without massive tax increases or increased borrowing."

This is the stark truth the Democrats MUST bring home to the American People. Get out those Ross Perot pie charts.... make the abstract real. Yet I do not see them doing the basic education that there is no "trust fund" with money sitting in it... nor what a threat the Bush deficits are to SS.

All the grand plans from 2000, including Bush own plan, to strengthen SS have disappeared. Bush only talks about more tax cuts. His irresponsibility SHOULD make him vulnerable on this issue. But I don't see the Democrats going for the jugular.... and happy talk from the likes of Kucinich don't help.