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Trustee's Social Security Report

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 01:02:43 PM EST
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House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) responds to the Trustee's social security report and says it confirms there is no crisis and that the President is delaying bipartisan action by pushing his private-account proposal. You can read the report here.

The Agonist has a roundup of blogger comments on the Trustee report.

Also,

Brad deLong and Brad Plummer [hat tip Burnt Orange Report.]

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    Trustee's Social Security Report | 18 comments (18 topical)
    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 01:31:57 PM EST
    a wall street pocket-stuffing program is what bush is pushing. in his own words, he doesn't understand how poor people think (and middle class is poor to him). and he's in the pocket of every monied interest you can name. but he wants us to trust that he has our best interests in mind here? kiss my freedom-loving ace!

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#2)
    by Sailor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 01:45:34 PM EST
    It's funny, all the headlines are like 'Social Security Projected to Exhaust Assets Earlier' , yeah, 1 year earler even according to these these partisan hacks.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 01:54:54 PM EST
    No crisis yes that is right, but the big boys at the top want it all for the reason of dismantling\tear down/knock down and break up; what we as works struggled for over 100 years and the people died for in the last century and how many died for the rights of you? and the ideal the FDR Made real? if you think that is crazy talk just keep up the way you are going and find out what life is like in Red China and the third world. Long Live the ideals of FDR, Fight bush the real nut, and the hated of the working guys in our little empire. and remember private-accounts can disappear over night.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 02:49:08 PM EST
    Of course Steny sees no crisis. Steny has no problem with raising your taxes to payback the "trust fund" when it is needed to continue paying benefits in 2017 and he has no problem with raising your taxes and cutting your benefits when that is necessary to keep the system going.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 04:08:37 PM EST
    On the other hand, maybe Steny Hoyer either (a) can't read or (b) is making a semantics argument based on the definition of "crisis": Summary Report "The program continues to fail our long-range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. Projected OASDI tax income will begin to fall short of outlays in 2017 and will be sufficient to finance only 74 percent of scheduled annual benefits by 2041, when the combined OASDI trust fund is projected to be exhausted." "Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase of 15 percent in the amount of payroll taxes or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent (or some combination of the two). To the extent that changes are delayed or phased in gradually, greater adjustments in scheduled benefits and revenues would be required." "Though highly challenging, the financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare are not insurmountable. But we must take action to address them in a timely manner. The sooner they are addressed the more varied and less disruptive can be their solutions." I suppose this isn't a crisis TODAY, but it will be one TOMORROW, if we don''t do something TODAY. Someone should ask Steny which his prefers for the future, steep tax increases or steep benefit cuts (or both?). Someone should also ask him whether he intends to vote in favor of massive tax hikes to refund the "trust fund" in 2017 or massive cuts in other programs to make up the difference. After all, it's not as if the money in the "trust fund" is really there waiting to be spent.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 05:11:37 PM EST
    of course, a tax increase is not the ONLY solution! but, fyi: For the entire 75-year valuation period, the combined OASDI program would again have actuarial deficits except under the low cost set of assumptions. The actuarial balance for this long-range valuation period is projected to be 0.38 percent of taxable payroll under the low cost assumptions, -1.92 percent under the intermediate assumptions, and -4.96 percent under the high cost assumptions. link: scroll down and yes, that does say that one of the three projections (the one that's proven most accurate in the recent past) actually shows NO DEFICIT in the program at all!

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 05:40:46 PM EST
    justpaul: massive increase = 1.95% hike in payroll taxes

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#8)
    by cp on Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 06:24:32 PM EST
    quick, someone call john mccain! tell him all is well, he can come back home now. well, duhhhhhhhhh! anyone with even a quarter of a brain already knew there wasn't any "crisis" in social security. just because people like justpaul are idiots, is no reason the rest of us have to be. as noted, with even minor adjustments in either/both the rate or the ceiling, ss will be just fine for the next 75, or more, years. this, of course, is not what gw wants you to know. hence, his insistence that you not look behind the green curtain.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 04:42:11 AM EST
    Hoot, Try reading it again. That's 1.95% of taxable income and a 15% payroll tax hike. Sorry if your need to toe the party line got in the way of your ability to comprehend. CP, You don't need my help to be an idiot. You've got that one down pat already. I will be interested, though, to hear your thoughts when Hillary is elected in 2008 and suddenly the crisis is real again, as it was in 1998.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 05:01:27 AM EST
    Hoot, You might also consider that the 15% tax increase is what will be needed just to keep the amount of money coming in at a sufficient level assuming that the trust fund will be there in full, which means yet another tax hike because the money has already been spent and must be replaced before it can be used.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 07:47:18 AM EST
    Once again, the simple solution is to have no cap on the payroll tax, and to add the tax to stock option gains and other benefits for corporate executives that aren't given to other employees (for example, forgiving corporate loans, personal use of corporate planes, etc.).

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 07:49:52 AM EST
    no help, Since Social Security benefits are based on the amount paid in, how does paying more in not also increase the amount that has to be paid out? This also does nothing about the "trust fund", which is being treated as if it will be there to help out without having to raise taxes or cut other programs across the board.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 09:45:37 AM EST
    Now Bush is using an ad to attack Democrats for supposedly doing nothing about sopcial security it is a very carefully crafted lie the ad says can you think of one thing DEmocrats have proposed to fix social security. Well sure no one can think of anaything because Bush as sucked the air out any discussion there are plenty of proposals other than Bush

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 09:49:59 AM EST
    What a load, Not arguing with you, but can you provide a link to or information on any of those proposals? I am very much interested, especially since private accounts seem to be pretty much a nonstarter, at least until a Democrat or two claims the idea as their own.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 12:22:55 PM EST
    justpaul, there is a set maximum benefit amount no matter how much you put in, so the maximum will not increase, so removing the cap will improve the system's cash flow. In fact, the increased tax collections could be put into a real trust fund, Nothing could hurt Social Security more than borrowing money for people to lose money in Wall Street, which is the neo-conzi motive!

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 01:25:59 PM EST
    Nohelp, The reason that a maximum is set on benefits is because there is a maximum on contributions. If you do away with one, you do away with the other or this just another tax hike. And you still have the problem of the nonexistent trust fund, which will not be refilled merely by removing the cap on taxable income. So you're still stuck with the original issue. You can't fix Social Security without some sort of serious tax hike or benefits cuts. And the report acknowledges this. Finally, I hardly think its a neo-nazi idea to let people do what they want with their own money. Quite the opposite, actually. If anyone is acting like the nazis here (and I would have preferred to leave them out of this altogether), it's the socialist crowd that wants to maintain this forced retirement planning through government fiat.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 25, 2005 at 08:10:45 AM EST
    I personally have multiple IRAs, Keoghs, Roth IRAs, 356s, etc., all of which have tax deferments and allow me personal control of my money just like the "private" accounts proposed. Why would I want another account that duplicates those? But Social Security, unlike all those defined contribution plans, is a defined benefit plan combined with an insurance element, and only the very wealthy can afford to have a private form of this kind of plan. My SS benefits are a much better deal than all of those personal plans, plus SS gives me diversity and a guaranteed income without risk. By the way, the law doesn't call for any automatic increase in the maximum benefit despite increased contributions.

    Re: Trustee's Social Security Report (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 25, 2005 at 08:45:11 AM EST
    nohelp, If your personal plans are not as good a deal as Social Security, you are invested very unwisely. Given the average rate of return in SS, you can do better investing your money in guaranteed T-bills. But that's your problem. Find a better investment advisor. As for the law and extended benefits: You're right, the law doesn't require raising the benefits if the taxable income cap is raised, but it does include the cap, and the cap is based on the maximum benefits allowable. If you simply want to argue in favor of higher taxes without higher benefits, then you are moving Social Security from an "insurance" plan to a welfare plan in which those who have worked to get ahead provide for those who have not. Mathematically it makes sense. Politically it's suicide. Good luck finding anyone to primp for it in the House or the Senate.

    Trustee's Social Security Report | 18 comments (18 topical)