Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Friday, September 30, 2005

Social Security Outrage

I received my annual social security statement this week. It included this footnote to my expected benefits, "These benefits may change because by 2041, revenue will only be sufficient to cover 74% of the benefits under current law." That is, of course, Total Bush B.S.

The truth is that under *some* studies, if the tax rate of social security is not increased, and if social security is funded only from a separate tax, rather than the general fund, there will be a shortfall in expected revenue. But look at predictions from 1995 and see how accurate they were for 2005 before predicting 40 years into the future. In fact, the whole thing teeters on what expected increases are in the annual COLAs. The Social Security Administration should not be promoting political propaganda like this.

Obviously, Congress can do many things, e.g., raising the tax, extending it to all income (rather than only the first $90,000 earned) or just make up the shortfall from the general fund until the boomer generation is no longer on the books and demographic stability returns.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And IF demographics (especially the relative distribution of ages) remain the same. Of course by 2041, the 70 million "Boomer Echo"/"Tidal Wave II" kids will be in their peak earning years and the Boomers will have long since begun to die off to replaced by the far less numerous Gen X'ers! 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Dr. Strangelove said...

Yes, it's disgusting that the Social Security Office is pumping out propaganda like that. A more truthful caveat would be this...

"Note: these benefits may change because Congress can do whatever it damn well pleases."

Anonymous said...

Actually, I suspect it isn't the folks at the Social Security Adminstration that want the footnote. I suspect it is some Bush operative somewhere (like the secretary of health and human services) who put that there. 

// posted by USWest

Anonymous said...

Actually the caveat should read:

"You should be smart enough by now not to trust anything the government promises you, ever, but particularly this administration."
 

// posted by LTG

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