Social Security

From The Center Strikes Back. A good summary I think. DQ

Some points about Social Security:

1. It is a program in two parts: a tax and a welfare benefit program. There is just about no relation between the two, except the benefit program has served to make people willing to pay the tax.

2. Historically the tax has been way higher than the cost of the benefit program. The government has always dumped the extra money into the general fund like any other tax revenue, and spent it on anything and everything. Basically, Social Security has been serving as a disguised income tax to fund all sorts of government spending.

3. The 'Social Security Trust Fund' has always consisted 100% of non-marketable government bonds, which the Treasury creates in exchange for the FICA cash as it spends it. This works pretty much like a family spending every dollar they take in, but thinking they have lots of savings because they write themselves an IOU every payday.(This means, by the way, that ANY politician who accuses the 'the other party' of 'raiding' the social security trust fund is blowing smoke (or to be more blunt, lying). The trust fund, by law, has been 100% 'raided' from the very beginning.)

4. At some point(one accepted projection says 2017), the benefits paid under social security will exceed FICA tax revenue. Then, instead of being a government cash cow, the program will be a net expense. As boomers retire, it has the potential to become a huge expense. This will require huge revenues. If the revenue isn't there, the benefits won't be either. Perhaps benefits will be cut, or perhaps there will be large inflation without benefit adjustment to make the benefits affordable to the government.

5. The only way retirees in the future can be supported in the same way as retirees up to now is for the economy to grow at a fast rate, so government revenues can grow too. This, you may have noticed, is not happening at present.

Slogans

Just saw a post over on P&CA in which a person quoted the following bit of doggeral, just by way of waving the flag and making herself feel good I guess....

The peoples flag is deepest red like the blood of our martyrs dead

I suddenly greatly desire to have a slogan on the back of my car. Can anyone suggest a good place to get a bumper sticker made up that says "Slogans are stupid!"