Why in the world would you assume that? The most recent Trustee Report had an overall 75 year projection of -1.70% of taxable payroll. That’s the best prediction for Social Security since 1993. Even at the worst case scenario, with no changes made, you’re still going to get SS back. Are you planning on retiring in more than 75 years from today?
This whole SS-is-bankrupt storyis just another example of misleading and outright false information coming from conservatives (particularly George W. Bush). How can a civilized debate be held when one side consistently lies? (Note: I’m not suggesting that Sarafeenah is lying here, just that she has apparently bought into the lies of the right.)
I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. I shouldn’t have said that I’m assuming that I won’t, I should have said that I’m operating under the assumption that I won’t. That is, I’m making my own investments that will (hopefully) make SS unnecessary for me, so that if something should happen (and you never know, it might), I won’t be relying on it.
Well, ok, I guess I can buy that argument, but how does that principle apply to something like universal health care? We can lower the cost for all, it’s there when you need it, you pay into it and use it as needed… seems the same as socsec to me.
I am supposedly a Boomer (not really) and so I consider socsec a non-starter for me. I was born in 1962, so by my retirement age (unless that ends up being my death date), the coffer will be empty for sure. I have never relied solely on socsec for my retirement, but even the old 401k ain’t growing like it used to.
No worries. I’ve got my refrigerator box and my underpass all picked out. I am only partly joking.
Why? The CBO currently projects that the SS Trust Fund will be solvent through 2049. In 1995, the projected insolvency date was 2031: SS trust fund insolvency is five years further away today than it was in 1995. If that trend keeps up, we’ll never get there. But even if the trust fund runs out of money in 2049, payroll taxes will still finance a benefit from then on that, adjusted for inflation, will be greater than what retirees are getting now.
So don’t believe the Chicken Littles. This is one sky that ain’t falling.
It’s got nothing to do with the data, it has to do with my philosophy of life. I don’t invest all my money in one place, and I don’t rely on anyone to take care of me but myself.
Yeah but, the system of today paying for yesterday is one that depends on things outside of government control. Sure, it’s kind of worked, but the fact that anyone is talking about it like Bush does means that the system in and of itself needs, as the immigration and tax laws/codes do, a major overhaul. They may stay solvent, but what happens when because of (using a current example) Fannie and Freddie, the country needs a bump in the pocketbook? There’s no guarantee that they won’t dip into SS to get what they need.
I would imagine it’s because he was the president of all the people and not just Republicans, and given that the system was already in place and clearly wasn’t going anywhere, additional funding was needed to keep it solvent.
It appears I have about three different answers to my question of why Republicans would fear a succesful universal health care program.
[bFrank** suggests money. A successful healthcare program would damage or destroy the health insurance industry, halting the flow of money from the Insurance coffers to Republican pockets.
For this to be a motive it would need to be a significant amount of money we are talking about. According to this cite, it’s not:
$514,033 from 1999 to present. 37% of this went to Republicans 18% to Democrats. The democrats would have something to fear under this theory, though the Republicans would fear it twice as much.
The average contribution is about $592 with $815 average to Republicans and $606 to Democrats. An alternate view as to the Rebpublicans having twice as much to fear might be simply that it’s cheaper to buy off a Democrat.
At any rate, unless Frank is postulating some other source of funds than what I’ve assumed here, my thinking is that these moneys do not constitute a significant motive. I’ll await further clarification.
The second is that Republicans simply enjoy evil. Der Tris is the author of this one. I note with admiration that it was dealt with suffiiciently.
RTF puts forth the theory that a succesful program would make Republicans look bad since they didn’t offer it. He cites a link to a timeline from a program called “The System” which suggests that Bill Kristol wrote a memo to this effect suggesting Republicans needed to kill it before its success could eat into their base.
Due diligence suggests that reading this memo for ourselves is preferential to accepting a synopsis from a third party. Mistakes, and biases may alter the facts. In this case that seems to be doubly advisable as the cite appears to demonstrate a bias, at least to me, in the way it simply gushes over Clinton.
" September 22, 1993 - Bill Clinton, delivers his health care speech to a joint session of Congress. Despite an initial snafu with the wrong text being loaded onto the TelePrompTer, the speech is a smash. The President’s delivery is superb, powerful, and compelling. Response is overwhelmingly favorable."
Maybe that’s just me. Anyway, there can be no harm in reading the memo for ourselves.
I was not able to match dates precisely with the timeline. This fits several of the particulars, and may be it. Anyway this is what I found for the “memo.”
"A simple, green-eyeshade criticism of the president’s health care plan–on the grounds that it’s numbers don’t add up (they don’t), or that it costs too much (it does), or that it will kill jobs and disrupt the economy (it will)–is fine as far as it goes, but it is not enough. Such opposition can only win concessions on the way to a “least bad” compromise.
But passage of the Clinton health care plan in any form would be disastrous. It would guarantee an unprecedented federal intrusion into the American economy. Its success would signal the rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy at the very moment that such policy is being perceived as a failure in other areas. And, not least, it would destroy the present breadth and quality of the American health care system, the world’s finest."
Here Kristol’s arguments seem to be other than as described in the timeline. Perhaps though this is not the memo referred to in the timeline but something sanitized for distribution after the fact. I put a good faith effort into finding something else, but this is what I came up that fits closest.
If someone can find a different earlier memo, that supports the Timeline’s assertions that would lend support to the thesis RTF has espoused. Without such support it appears contradicted by what Kristol wrote in what I’ve cited.
Ohh. I forgot to mention… The republicans need not have “killed” Clintons health care plan for fear that it might work. They could simply have pretended that it was their idea all along, in the best tradittion of politicians everywhere.
Thank you for making my point. But even if it were true, I’m not the one he thinks he’s a comedian. So the thing you think you are, the thing you’ve longed to be, the thing you try to be, you are not.
I have, many times - but, since the problem at hand is your refusal to fucking “read and understand” posts (the fault you see only in others), the futility of the attempt is depressingly obvious.
You have no more fucking clue about what the subject even *is *than does Frank or his groupie Carol.
The insurance companies would lose (or lessen, depending on what system we finally adopt) their income, the lobbyists would lose (or lessen) their income. Their contributions to political parties didn’t even cross my mind.
