It was to be expected, I suppose. At some point, GWB had to cast doubt on the very legitimacy of the idea that the government’s general fund should repay the money it has borrowed over time from the Social Security Trust Fund - the money that had been advanced so that it would be there for us Baby Boomers in our retirement.
Social Security has no problem here. Unless the government reneges on paying its obligations.
The Fourteenth Amendment has something specific to say about that sort of suggestion:
Dunno if this edict applies just to government officials in the course of their duties (which would make sense) or to everybody, anytime (which wouldn’t, IMHO), but either way, it applies to George W. Bush as he exercises his Constitutional duty of giving the State of the Union speech. And by saying the repayment of the money that the Social Security Trust Fund has loaned the government is Social Security’s problem, not the government’s, is questioning that debt, big time.
Now that’s in the Constitution. So’s his oath of office, in Article 2:
Can’t preserve, protect, and defend something at the same time as you’re violating it, now can you?
I’d say this is at least as good a reason to impeach Bush as lying about a blowjob was for impeaching Clinton. If lying under oath must be punished by impeachment, no matter how trivial the lie, then at least as drastic a response must await a President for breaking the oath outright.
Great research there. Interesting angle. Definitely something for the Dems to bring up before the SC, should this repeal of SS ever become law. Not that the current SC would ever find Bush’s domestic centerpiece unconstitutional.
Actually, according to the bit you just linked, SS does have a problem in 2042, after all of the debt is repaid. That is a (rightly) contested statement, in that it makes assumptions about economic progress that may be wrong, but it isn’t a lie. That is, SS has a problem (the year I get payments! Lucky me) regardless of whether the government reneges. Again, according to the statements you quoted.
Yes, the federal government owes the SS admin a lot of money. I don’t see where Bush is stating “hey, guys, we aren’t going to pay you; go ahead and burn those bonds”. No violation of the 14th in that case.
What an incredible stretch you just made. Are you seriously claiming that, just by saying the Social Security system will go bankrupt, Bush has violated the constitution and his oath of office? That’s crazy talk.
By the way, here’s a passage from Clinton’s last State of the Union speech:
Sorry, I was unclear. Where does he say that repayment of the SSTF is Social Security’s problem? He says exactly the opposite; that the Federal government “will have to”; will have no choice, under, amoung other things, the conditions of the 14th. Where does he say that the federal government won’t?
Wait. Bush is being slammed (pitted) for mentioning SS insolvency? I’ll raise my opinion of the OP when he can show me SS wasn’t once used as an election talking point for Dums since, oh, let’s be generous and say '92.
A big selling point for the DNC for more than a decade has been scaring the shit out of seniors that the GOP wants to take away all thier money. :rolleyes:
Simply pathetic. I suppose the people who decided to pretend that “social security taxes” and “income taxes” were different things are to blame.
Claiming that Social Security is solvent because the US government has borrowed that money and has promised to repay it is ludicrous. It would be like pretending that your household is saving money if you borrow from your savings account and spend it all from your checking account, and write yourself an IOU to repay yourself later. The only way to repay the money is to pay for it out of household income. That means less household income for all other household expenses. You haven’t saved the money, you’ve spent it.
Likewise, the social security “trust fund” will have to be “repayed” by other government revenues. Sure, we won’t have to increase “social security taxes”. We’ll just have to increase other taxes to pay the “social security trust fund” back. That means a larger and larger percentage of government revenues goes into paying for social security.
The real solution is to scrap the stupid regressive social security tax and simply pay for old age and disability pensions out of general revenue. I know, I know, this will never happen, since everyone has the bizarre idea that they are getting back money that they paid in over the years. But as more and more people reach retirement age, fewer and fewer workers are going to be paying into the system. Social security taxes don’t go into a bank account or “trust fund”, they are used to pay for current social security payments, and the surplus goes to the general fund, through the fiction of the trust fund. You can’t owe money to yourself.
The OP seems to believe that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents anyone from suggesting that the public debt will become unamangeable.
This is not a construction employed by any court, ever. Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment was held to prevent Congress from defaulting on gold bonds (Perry v. US) and affirmed that the principle applied to all bonds.
The payments Social Security makes to retirees are NOT “debt” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This reminds me, isn’t the money borrowed secured with T-Bills? The same collateral put up to sovereign nations when borrowing? That would seem good enough for me.
One other thought. I’m really tired of hearing about “raiding the trust fund” and needing a “lock box”. This country has far more money than many of the Dopers care to acknowledge. Well, the “left of center” Dopers. Same is true with public education. (Major rant coming soon to a terminal near you!)
The only people I will ever give consideration to in regards to hurting SS by borrowing against it are those whom have never used a revolving credit account, financed a vehicle, signed a business-equity loan to reinvest, or taken out a mortgage.
It’s borrowing against future income. Same thing all around. And the taxman always has income.
I’d rather my payments go toward my own Roth IRA.
And I’d like to be able to invest my own money without getting taxed out the nose, too.
The government’s not smart enough to figure out this problem and the Boomers are going to bust the system. There’s too damn many of them and they didn’t replace themselves via reproduction – and on the whole I don’t think they particularly care what happens to the following generations. They just want theirs, no matter how high taxes would have to go.
They may not be debt within the meaning of the 14th amendment, but someone in government thinks they’re debt.
Once cited, by a right-wing source (years ago, I don’t remember who) as “the most truthful government web page ever”, the Debt to the Penny.
No differentiation, you’ll notice, is made here.
If you dig a little, you find the page that keeps track of the various holders of the debt and the amounts they hold.
All defined as debt, though.
Not that any SC would ever find so. As usual, what’s right and what’s legal will diverge.
As for the debt becoming unmanageable, for the record, Social Security is not the cause of that problem, by a long shot. It’s been the solution, in that it has covered up the size of the debt run up on general revenue taxes, for many years, and will continue to be so for many years more. Not that Bush or any Republican would ever tell you that.
Since you have all the answers, tell me this. Why aren’t the Dems screaming this “truth” from the rooftops?
Take the blinders off. For most of us we align with a political party that has its own flaws. I don’t remember Clinton giving us this revelation in 8 years.
Well, that’s an argument you don’t hear every day.
My sincerest apologies, Abby; I’m 50 and I never got round to reproducing, and I’m afraid I feel it’s really too late now if were to provide a child with a responsible upbringing. Sorry to have been so selfish. Tomorrow morning instead of going to work I’ll just shoot myself. Hope that makes you feel better and increases your SS pension a jot.*
Seriously, though, I’m not necessarily against the option (and not a sole option) of an equity-based system for building retirement income, but I’m also somewhat leery of the broad range of dates for SS bankruptcy being thrown around, and equally leery of some guy who’s just run up the largest deficit in US history preaching to us about fiscal responsibility.
[size=0]*nah, actually I’ll just get up and go to work as usual.[
duffer, Clinton was rather right-wing, as Dems go. Is, actually. Supported the Iraq War, for instance.
Not that you’d know that from the vitriol spewed at him when he was in office. But one of his first acts was to pass NAFTA. That was a legacy handed to him by Bush I, and he put all his energy behind it. That’s not the act of a leftist.
And yes, the Dems do remind people that Social Security is in surplus whenever they can, and all of us are quite aware that that surplus is funding, just for one for instance, Bush’s Excellent Adventure in Iraq.
The problem isn’t Social Security; the problem is that this President spends money on his stupidities like a drunk sailor. A stupid drunk sailor. This Dem, for one, knows where the money went and is disgusted at the spectacle of righties getting all up in arms about the only government program that’s in surplus whilst doing precisely nothing about the President’s war-mongering. Indeed, they egg the idiot on.
So no, I have no sympathy for the idea that Social Security needs to be reformed. It’s a morally bankrupt position taken by people who have deliberately, and with malice aforethought, bankrupted the government to fund their imperialist fantasies.
This would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic. Yes, the 14th amendment was designed to silence discussion about debt… :rolleyes:
There is a legitimate debate to be had about Social Security. And we’ve had several threads about that recently. So let’s have the debate and not stir up nonsensical propositions that the constitution forbids discussion of the issue.
But I paid my Social Security tax for 38 years of working life in expectation that the other end of Social Security, the payouts, would be there when I retired.
Yeah, the government can stop by RT’s place, and mine, and yours, for some cash. A little thing called the Sixteenth Amendment, remember? We pay taxes, not so that Dick Cheney can line his cronies’ pockets with cost-plus contracts, but so that the government can meet its legal obligations and do those things specified in Article I.
Play your little word games all you want to, but you just offered to take away any hope of a reasonable financial future for me and my wife – and you can take that idea, draw it in big crayon on an Ann Coulter book, and stuff it you know where!
I can tolerate a government that lies to me, and people who defend it, and even people who treat anyone raising the question of its lying as being disloyal – but when it decides to start stealing from me, is where I draw the line.
And I might point out, too, that the much maligned William Jefferson Clinton, in between sexual peccadilloes, managed to get the budget into a surplus, which your “fiscal conservative” hero managed to throw away.
First of all, that’s just an ordinary, garden-variety lie. Social Security won’t “go bankrupt” in 2042, even if the Trustees’ projection is on the money. In 2042, the system would still have an income stream and would be legally entitled to reduce benefits to match that income stream. To about 73% of what was promised, which would be more than we would get under Bush’s plan. That ain’t bankruptcy.
While in the paragraph I cited, Bush talks about what happens after 2042, the part I’m pointing out is where he talks about what happens in the years between 2018 and 2042, when the Trust Fund will be piled high with reserves in the form of U.S. government instruments.
Yeah, the government will ‘somehow’ have to pay back the money it’s borrowed from the Trust Fund’ - that certainly says those bonds, in GWB’s estimation, are backed by something less than the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, right?
Looks like the shoe of the 14th Amendment fits perfectly. He’s calling into question the validity of those instruments.
So where in that passage does Clinton suggest the government’s not going to repay what it’s borrowed?
I believe I dealt with the ‘anyone’ issue quite explicitly in the OP.
That sounds like exactly the sort of cite that buttresses my argument. Can the government call into question its willingness to make good on a particular class of bond? Apparently not.
No, but the Treasury instruments held by the Social Security Trust Fund most certainly ARE. As long as the Treasury honors that debt, there’s no Social Security problem before 2042. To suggest that Social Security has a funding problem before then, based on the Trustees’ intermediate projection, is to suggest that the Treasury would fail to honor that debt.
Bush was making that suggestion in his official capacity as President of the United States, in the course of carrying out his Constitutionally-mandated duty, not as some ‘anyone’ off the street, and not in an informal remark that didn’t have the weight of his office behind it.