"Steve Robeson K4YZ" wrote


I am only 15 1/2 years away from being able to draw it
if I so choose, yet depending on who prognostications you
believe, it won't be there for me to draw
upon.


The public has heard two decades worth of spin about the coming "demise" of SS.
They've heard the system is going "bankrupt" ("broke;" "belly-up"). They've
heard SS "won't be there" for them. They've heard a bunch of free-money nonsense
from the endlessly dissembling Shrub. As the Shrub tries to persuade America to
convert Social Security into a giant 401(k), it might be instructive to examine
some FACTS.

In FACT, first, SS isn't going broke because of lack of revenue. It is actually
generating funds in SURPLUS of todays benefit payout (as it is designed to
do). But rather than let those funds grow in the SS trust fund, the federal
government is "taking a loan" of those surplus dollars (intended for future
benfits) out of the trust fund at the rate of about $100,000,000 (that's
$400-billion over the past 4 years of the Shrubs "tax cuts for the rich"
administration).

In FACT, second, even if the government continues to "take a loan" of all the
surplus from SS it is projected to continue to meet it's obligations without a
problem until 2028 (24 years from now). At that point it is (was?) planned that
the several decades of surplus in the trust fund would be used to supplement the
shortfall for approximately 52 more years (until 2080).

Of course here's the catch --- the government would then have to start paying
back the loan to the trust fund. That's the dirty little secret that the
Shrub doesn't want you to know, so his talk of "reform" is really a smoke screen
to avoid facing that "payback" by weaning future retirees off SS and into the
stock market. Wahhlah! No tax increase to pay back the money we stole from the
SS trust fund! What a plan!

So far he's floated about 6 different versions of this "smoke and mirrors" in
front of congress, but they haven't yet been fooled. Yet in this mornings news
conference he continued to his song and dance about "SS Reform". In the same
news conference he cried big crocodile tears about how warm and caring a guy
Secretary "Machine Signature" Rumsfeld is.

Yup, Rummy is an old softie, and SS reform is good for America. Telling
tall-tales like that, no wonder he has to smirk a lot!

dit dit,

de Hans, K0HB