Deficit Commission Co-Chair Erskine Bowles Falsely Claims Social Security ‘Runs Out Of Money In 2037′
Last week, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, released a report outlining their recommendations for reducing the federal budget deficit. One of their most contentious proposals is to gradually raise the retirement age to 69, a move the co-chairs claim is meant to maintain the system’s solvency.
This morning, Simpson and Bowles appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss their proposals. At one point, Simpson explained his view that balancing the budget would require going “to where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.” Host Joe Scarborough then complained that while AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka attacked the proposals for cutting Social Security, Scarborough said he doesn’t think the co-chairs went far enough (co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed). Bowles then defended their proposal, saying, “What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law”:
SIMPSON: You’ve gotta go where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Not balancing the books on the backs of poor old staggering seniors to make the damn thing solvent for 75 years.
SCARBOROUGH: We were stunned, Erskine, by some of the things that were said after the commission report came out, saying, “Seniors are going to be thrown out on the street!” I looked at the numbers to be really honest with you, and I didn’t think you moved fast enough on Social Security and Medicare. We calculated that I guess, it was Trumka, who I like very much, Trumka said that this throws old people out. My two year old son Jack will get Social Security at 69. People in their 20′s and 30′s will be just fine.
BRZEZINSKI: In fact, I think you could’ve gone further.
SIMPSON: I know Rich very well. He’s a good egg. He has to say for what he has to say for his membership. But he knows I’m right.
BOWLES: What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law.
Watch it:
Social Security is currently projected to be fully solvent until the year 2037. After that, it is expected to be able to pay out 75 percent of benefits until 2084, which basically equals full benefits, once inflation is accounted for. There is no threat of the program running out of money any time soon — certainly not in 2037. That does not mean that there aren’t positive and progressive changes that could possibly be made to the system.
However, the hike in retirement age that the MSNBC co-hosts and deficit commission co-chairmen are praising would be a very punitive way to ensure further solvency. As a Government Accountability Office report recently obtained by the AP found, “Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work.”
Scaborough may not be entirely wrong to shrug off the possibility of his son Jack retiring at 69, if his son ends up being in the same socioeconomic class as him. Almost all of the gains in life expectancy over the past few decades have been among upper income earners. If current trends continue, middle and lower class Americans will see very little gain in life expectancy by the time the co-chairs plan to hike the retirement age. And “nearly half of workers over the age of 58 work at jobs that are either physically demanding or involve difficult work conditions,” meaning that if those trends continue, blue-collar workers will be hurt particularly hard by raising the retirement age.
Unfortunately, most Americans are not highly-paid TV hosts like Brzezinski and Scarborough.
In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:
Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.
The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.
Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.
It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.
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Deficit Commission Co-Chair Erskine Bowles Falsely Claims Social Security ‘Runs Out Of Money In 2037′
Last week, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, released a report outlining their recommendations for reducing the federal budget deficit. One of their most contentious proposals is to gradually raise the retirement age to 69, a move the co-chairs claim is meant to maintain the system’s solvency.
This morning, Simpson and Bowles appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss their proposals. At one point, Simpson explained his view that balancing the budget would require going “to where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.” Host Joe Scarborough then complained that while AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka attacked the proposals for cutting Social Security, Scarborough said he doesn’t think the co-chairs went far enough (co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed). Bowles then defended their proposal, saying, “What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law”:
SIMPSON: You’ve gotta go where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Not balancing the books on the backs of poor old staggering seniors to make the damn thing solvent for 75 years.
SCARBOROUGH: We were stunned, Erskine, by some of the things that were said after the commission report came out, saying, “Seniors are going to be thrown out on the street!” I looked at the numbers to be really honest with you, and I didn’t think you moved fast enough on Social Security and Medicare. We calculated that I guess, it was Trumka, who I like very much, Trumka said that this throws old people out. My two year old son Jack will get Social Security at 69. People in their 20′s and 30′s will be just fine.
BRZEZINSKI: In fact, I think you could’ve gone further.
SIMPSON: I know Rich very well. He’s a good egg. He has to say for what he has to say for his membership. But he knows I’m right.
BOWLES: What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law.
Watch it:
Social Security is currently projected to be fully solvent until the year 2037. After that, it is expected to be able to pay out 75 percent of benefits until 2084, which basically equals full benefits, once inflation is accounted for. There is no threat of the program running out of money any time soon — certainly not in 2037. That does not mean that there aren’t positive and progressive changes that could possibly be made to the system.
However, the hike in retirement age that the MSNBC co-hosts and deficit commission co-chairmen are praising would be a very punitive way to ensure further solvency. As a Government Accountability Office report recently obtained by the AP found, “Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work.”
Scaborough may not be entirely wrong to shrug off the possibility of his son Jack retiring at 69, if his son ends up being in the same socioeconomic class as him. Almost all of the gains in life expectancy over the past few decades have been among upper income earners. If current trends continue, middle and lower class Americans will see very little gain in life expectancy by the time the co-chairs plan to hike the retirement age. And “nearly half of workers over the age of 58 work at jobs that are either physically demanding or involve difficult work conditions,” meaning that if those trends continue, blue-collar workers will be hurt particularly hard by raising the retirement age.
Unfortunately, most Americans are not highly-paid TV hosts like Brzezinski and Scarborough.
In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:
Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.
The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.
Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.
It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.
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Deficit Commission Co-Chair Erskine Bowles Falsely Claims Social Security ‘Runs Out Of Money In 2037′
Last week, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, released a report outlining their recommendations for reducing the federal budget deficit. One of their most contentious proposals is to gradually raise the retirement age to 69, a move the co-chairs claim is meant to maintain the system’s solvency.
This morning, Simpson and Bowles appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss their proposals. At one point, Simpson explained his view that balancing the budget would require going “to where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.” Host Joe Scarborough then complained that while AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka attacked the proposals for cutting Social Security, Scarborough said he doesn’t think the co-chairs went far enough (co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed). Bowles then defended their proposal, saying, “What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law”:
SIMPSON: You’ve gotta go where the meat is. And the meat is health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Not balancing the books on the backs of poor old staggering seniors to make the damn thing solvent for 75 years.
SCARBOROUGH: We were stunned, Erskine, by some of the things that were said after the commission report came out, saying, “Seniors are going to be thrown out on the street!” I looked at the numbers to be really honest with you, and I didn’t think you moved fast enough on Social Security and Medicare. We calculated that I guess, it was Trumka, who I like very much, Trumka said that this throws old people out. My two year old son Jack will get Social Security at 69. People in their 20′s and 30′s will be just fine.
BRZEZINSKI: In fact, I think you could’ve gone further.
SIMPSON: I know Rich very well. He’s a good egg. He has to say for what he has to say for his membership. But he knows I’m right.
BOWLES: What we’ve done is make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. As you all know, Social Security runs out of money in 2037. We’re not making it up. That’s the law.
Watch it:
Social Security is currently projected to be fully solvent until the year 2037. After that, it is expected to be able to pay out 75 percent of benefits until 2084, which basically equals full benefits, once inflation is accounted for. There is no threat of the program running out of money any time soon — certainly not in 2037. That does not mean that there aren’t positive and progressive changes that could possibly be made to the system.
However, the hike in retirement age that the MSNBC co-hosts and deficit commission co-chairmen are praising would be a very punitive way to ensure further solvency. As a Government Accountability Office report recently obtained by the AP found, “Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work.”
Scaborough may not be entirely wrong to shrug off the possibility of his son Jack retiring at 69, if his son ends up being in the same socioeconomic class as him. Almost all of the gains in life expectancy over the past few decades have been among upper income earners. If current trends continue, middle and lower class Americans will see very little gain in life expectancy by the time the co-chairs plan to hike the retirement age. And “nearly half of workers over the age of 58 work at jobs that are either physically demanding or involve difficult work conditions,” meaning that if those trends continue, blue-collar workers will be hurt particularly hard by raising the retirement age.
Unfortunately, most Americans are not highly-paid TV hosts like Brzezinski and Scarborough.
In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:
Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.
The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.
Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.
It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.
bench craft company rip off
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Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
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bench craft company rip off
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
bench craft company rip off
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> & Views About China Stocks (Dec. 6 <b>...</b>
Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: With expectations about inflation and monetary policy becoming clearer, investors are taking cues from overseas ...
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