jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

There's no one to negotiate an in between with so long as the GOP is prisoner to Norquist and the extreme right. Obama has signaled willingness to negotiate a major revision of programs in return for funding to finance the structural deficit which is far larger than the national debt. The Dems, as with Clinton, are motivated to make federal programs work and be financially sound...the GOP since Reagan have been committed to sabotaging funding with ultimate goal of reversing New Deal social security and other federal programs. Left extremes would expand federal programs beyond reason, right extremes eliminate federal programs beyond reason, and in the meantime the in-between needed measures are stymied. Obama is perhaps not as flexible as he needs to be, and obviously the GOP leadership is unable to be flexible. Which is more inflexible? Eirhter way, it's a lose-lose situation for America for the present moment.

stan3186

I thought you said for the peasant for a moment there. Anyway, I haven't heard anything about reversing Social Security anywhere. I have heard about making some changes so that future generations would have access to social security or some other social program for the retired. What "creditable" source can you link me to that supports that?

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

I don't keep lists of links or sources, credible or otherwise. Are you familiar with Paul Ryan's proposal for changing social security? It amounts to placing social security taxes into private savings accounts for the next generation and would thus defund existing social security payments from incoming security tax on earnings. We already have 401 savings plans (which the Ryan proposal amounts to). Soc. Sec. is a stop-gap for subsistence retirement and needed as such. Because of the over-sized baby-boomer generation of retirees, soc. sec. program is going to be difficult to maintain--basic reality that will have to be recognized and dealt with pragmatically. Yes, there is a 2 trillion dollar social security fund--already spent & thus re-use would require refunding by new tax or new deficit spending. So we've already paid for our present retiring generation and the next through their SS tax payments? not exactly...that was spent on the previous generations of retirees. The surplus was spent funding the Cold War. Just as well because otherwise the social security fund would have owned Wall Street. ha. Funding social security the next 30 years for an outsized retirement generation is a reality that libs and cons will have to work out pragmatically. By the way, at the same time that soc. sec. payments will require more funding to maintain, we will also have to do more funding for national security, which up to now has been largely financed by the social security tax surplus...a double whammy reality funding problem for Ryan and Hillary or both or whoever to work out--won't be pretty anyway anyhow...doesn't look to be worked out the next 3 years in any case. Do you think the Tea Party has a solution?

Do you think

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Well, you have to admit that he was forced into that. Remember that Repubs announced that their job was to see that he got nothing done? They said that before he was ever sworn in. I don't know why people can't remember that. So, we let Obama screw up all alone.

stan3186

I don't really know what the solution is. Whichever President that took the SS money and put in the General Fund is the one at fault here. Funny, how the tax is referred to as a "trust fund" for which they have raided, just for you information, a business can not bankrupt against ss tax owed because it is a trust fund.
But I digress, one solution could be to take everyone except retirees off the roles and stop funding things like mental illness and others from the ss money. If they were to do that, and actually place the money they steal from ss taxes into a fund that they can't touch, then maybe it would fund itself. I doubt it as they have made it a negative cash flow item presently, but, if they paid nothing but retirees from those monies, I wonder how close it would be to actually funding itself?

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

The problem is, the treasury cannot possibly buy back all the bonds from the trust fund. Even if deductions went directly to the trust find from now on, it would still be 2040 or so before all the bonds were retired.

stan3186

Just take the money they are taking from the employees paychecks and the employers are matching and put those funds into some type of Trust Account that can't be touched. That, along with removing non retirees from the roles may very well fund the benefit by itself. Don't know but what they are and have been doing isn't working is it? Don't worry about repaying the funds already stolen, they aren't going to repay those anyway.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

You got that right. Might as well start over. Hmm, that could clean up the rolls right off. Have everyone reapply. There are a lot of checks being written to dead people, they'd disappear immediately. BTW, I agree with deleting the crazy checks.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

Actually using the surplus to fund the military was pragmatic and perhaps fortunate. It could have been invested in the stock market and multiplied several times over as has been done with some retirement funds but I wouldn't want the public owning Wall Street to that extent. The logical solution is to make payments from existing incoming funding, which may mean a percentage reduction in payments. I remember my mother saying it was OK with her when during the Reagan years there were cutbacks proposed for social security. For me it woud be OK if needed for me to do with less...and some of that could be accomplished gradually by cutting back on the "cost of living adjustment" rate, which in fact may be set higher than the actual higher cost of living, especially since we elderly already have our furniture, housing, etc. and thus our cost of living isn't quite the same as young families. Also, our major expense, medical care, is subsidized (and may require adjustment?).

In any case these are funding problems that will have to be worked out pragmatically and as reasonably as possible and without much blame to anyone. It basically is a problem of numbers beyond anyone's control.

By the way, the part of the social security tax paid by employers needs to be figured into the corporate tax situation...for the competitiveness of our corporations in the world economy is affected by wage rates and tax rates as expenses of production. There are other factors, of course. Eventually competitive factors in the world economy will balance out, but in the meantime our wages and tax sources and standard of living are potentially affected. Politics and government are complicated in a nation of huge population, huge resources, huge infrastructures, huge costs, huge achievements, just plain bigness to a degree we all have difficulty understanding and coming to terms with. Nor do we have any set answers to unprecedented bignesses. Our problem circumstances have no simple absolute answers.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Social Security was raided by, and pretty much cleaned out by LBJ, in the sixties, in cahoots with a Democratic House and Senate, to pay for two wars: Vietnam, and the so-called "War on Poverty." This is when the money was placed in a General fund and spent, and has remained largely unreplaced. Bear in mind also, that the number of pay ins has been declining, and the number of pay outs increasing.

Ve'hoe

And you conveniently left out the "left wing" which has gotten us where we are today.

Ve'hoe

Don't forget to "tax" the benefits of the non working, non retired,,, too, that way "ALL" have skin in the game.

Ve'hoe

That is just blatantly Untrue!!!

Ve'hoe

Yes,,,, the govt spending on unnecessary crap like 3 yrs of unemployment, funding i*****l a***n issues, giving tanks and F16's to Egypt and the muslim brotherhood, as well as bailing out the insurance companies when Obamacare bankrupts them!!

This is the lesson,,, the govt screws up EVERYTHING they touch,,, they are not supposed to be doing all they are doing,,, the SS is bullsh-t and never should have happened,,, what the problem is, is that the govt took the SS from all those generations, and spent it elsewhere,,, then when those folks retired they don't have the funds,,

What needs to happen is all the scumbag politicians need to be rounded up, and ALL their assets confiscated to fund their theft of the SS money. That is what they mean about a tax cut "costing money" in other words, "there wasn't enough money coming in to cover the fact that we had been stealing".

The Military was NOT funded by the SS fund,,, which is also a lie of the govt to deflect from where they pissed the money away. The Debt ceiling is the level at which we can pay our bills, with no further discretionary spending, the govt (Democrats) want the debt ceiling raised so they can keep spending at the rate they enjoy,, but we could have paid our bills and our debt with current revenues , there was NO reason for the Democrats, and Obama/Reid to shut the got down. It is a lie that we would have gone delinquent in paying the national "debt" we had plenty of revenue,, what they wanted was to continue with their unchecked spending, bribery, and corruption.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

A "blatant" interpretation of the situation. ha.