Those "pieces of paper" as you call them were Greenspan's and Reagan's solution as to how the SS system would be nearly permanently solvent. Which it is.
As long as you can trust the government to meet its obligations. Bush faces four economic problems - the general fund deficit, the Medicare/Medicaid gap, the trade gap, and the current housing/stock/debt bubble. He has made the first three worse and ignored the last and now wants to destroy a system that works to avoid paying for obligations promised and make his biggest problem - the general fund budget deficit, worse.. At the time of the SS fix many people warned it was simply a lower-income tax increase to avoid raising taxes on the rich and we couldn't count on a future GOP government to meet the obligations. How true. Gary Denton http://elemming2.blogspot.com oddd - yesterday I went back to number one on google for liberal news but back down again today. On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 06:04:14 -0500, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 08:43:46PM -0600, Robert Seeberger wrote: > > > In the ABC/Washington Post poll, there is a slight majority (53 > > percent) in favor of "a plan in which people who chose to could invest > > some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market." But > > when a followup is asked ("What if setting up a stock-market option > > for Social Security means the government has to borrow as much as two > > trillion dollars to set it up, with that money to be paid back over > > time through cost savings from the current system?"), that 53 percent > > is cut in half, so only 24 percent of the public winds up favoring > > private accounts if that kind of borrowing is necessary to set them > > up. > > The problem with these kind of sound bite polls is demonstrated > alarmingly above -- depending on how you phrase the question, the answer > can vary all over the map. > > If they asked a 3rd question, should the government borrow a trillion > dollars to pay future social security benefits you might get one answer, > then if they asked should the government pay back the SS trust fund, you > would get a different answer. These sorts of polls are meaningless. > > Apparently, people think that the SS trust fund is just like their > bank savings account, and there is a trillion dollars sitting in there > waiting to be withdrawn. (Unfortunately, not. The trust fund is just > pieces of paper that says that the government owes itself -- to "pay > itself back" the government will need to raise taxes, cut spending, and > borrow even more) -- > Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
