The Rule of Holes
Generally, I only talk about planetary issues, like climate change, and peak oil, and human culture, but the current debate in the geographic state of the United States over the so called reforming of Social Security is a clear violation of the rule of holes. It is therefore worthy of some comment under the human culture anomaly section.
The rule of holes, in case you don't know, is this:
If you are in a hole,
Stop digging.
In this case, that means stop draining cash out of it.
Look at the budget. Click on section 2 and go to page 34.
Now look at column one for the year 2004.
That is individual income tax receipts.
Individual income tax receipts have gone from just over a trillion in 2000
to just over 3/4 of a trillion in 2004.
When Clinton came in to office in 92,
It was 1/2 a trillion.
According to the White House's own numbers,
they won't get back to Clinton's revenues until their 7th year.
But so far, the revenues are still going the wrong way.
Take a look at that column and go way back.
This kind of regression in tax revenue is almost unprecedented.
The next column is corporate taxes,
and you can see that corporations don't help very much.
After all, they make the profits, why should they have to pay the taxes?
The next column is total payroll taxes which is about 3/4 trillion too.
Now, go to page 76 and see how much money Social Security spends.
That number is about a 1/2 trillion.
So, each year, the Congress takes part of our social security
and they use that money to pay for other things,
like bombs, and medicare, and tax cuts.
If a small businessman does that, he goes to jail.
So, if you include the money they are taking from our retirement,
last year's deficit was really a 3/4 trillion deficit.
Not the 1/2 trillion that was a record anyway.
If you wanted to save Social Security,
the first thing you would do is stop draining cash from it.
When the Congress took our retirement "Off Budget"
They stole it.
"Stopping this theft" is what the guy who got the most votes 4 years ago
said we should do with this program.
Everyone made fun of his lock box.
It's not so funny now.
It's like having Willlie Sutton tell you that the bank is going bankrupt
each time he robs it.
I guess if anyone would know,
He would.
I'm not going to link to any stories about this issue.
They are all way too shaped.
Read the budget for yourself.
Find the holes in the story.
And the truth of the lies.
.
posted by oZ @ 12:12 AM
8 Comments:
Thanks for the link Oz. I'll comb through it. I'd like to see the "unpublished" budget that the Gov. has in it's hands as well someday.
This is the best analysis and explanation I've seen to date of the the most outrageous deconstruction effort ever mounted against our lauded Social Security system by this Bush administration.
Thanks, Oz
FM
If the social security reserves were banked, they would total somewhere around 4 trillion dollars. the interest on that alone would pay for half the program now, leaving a 1/2 trillion dollar surplus.
each year.
congress just couldn't resist it.
I can't make any sense of the "on budget" "off budget" nonsense.
Another important point - what Congress is doing - and what Bush wants to do even more of - is end the Social Security system. They fundamentally believe that government has no role or responsibility in providing these benefits. I don't disagree, but it IS a debatable proposition. What galls me is that they won't own up to their agenda, and that on the way out, they want a few trillions of windfall for their friends on Wall Street. I guess I wouldn't mind that so much if huge money to Wall Street did me any good. But here's more bad. We already have a really risky dollar and countries like China (!) are expressing concern that if we don't strengthen it, they may pull out. Stay with me here. If Bush does his privatization bit, the transition costs at least a trillion - and that has to be borrowed from --- you guessed it! And the increased debt weakens the dollar further. And the returns from investing that dollar in our weakened economy mean that privatized funds won't deliver on their hype - and Social Security dies.
Do I have it right?
Oops - I meant to say I don't AGREE.
OZ and "polit thoughts" both "have it right" and express their thoughts well. CHF
thanks all, for your comments.
especially KD, FM, PT and CF.
social security went off budget several years back. it was the only way to borrow the money without showing it on the books.
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