What I don’t get is, if we’re so darned determined to pay it back, then what, exactly, is the crisis?
Hmph. Stop making sense.
I thank everyone arguing to the effect that “Social Security won’t be cut back or eliminated because we’ll just raise *general * taxes instead to cover the shortfall.” It’s been highly amusing. Money is money and taxation is taxation, people.
Well, not really.
The SS system’s regressive, flat tax has been used to finance the gov’s general revenues, which is financed by a progressive income tax.
In a few years, this will have to reverse. To a Republican, this is an indisputable definition of a crisis. Of course.
As usual, you’re aptly named! 
There are two parts to the crisis. One is, we need to come up with some way to pay it back. As has been explained, all there is in the “trust fund” is IOUs.
The other part of the crisis is that Bush is talking about changing some of the system such that the feds might not have the same control over the same amount of money. And this is a solution that does not involve only raising taxes.
Democrats don’t like solutions that don’t involve raising taxes. And they especially don’t like solutions that come from Republican Presidents.
And people making their own decisions, controlling their own money? We can’t have any of that, obviously.
Democrats are trying (IMO) to forestall debate. They don’t want the Bush ideas to got thru, because, well, they came from Bush, and because if it works, they are going to look even more stupid than they do now.
Unfortunately, many of them are acting so stupid now that it is hard to see why they should have any input into the discussion at all. If they are going to start screaming “Impeach him!” every time a politician starts a discussion of “where the hell are we going to come up with a trillion and a half to pay back all the IOUs?”, then fuck 'em. We (the Republicans) will have to deal with it without them.
Regards,
Shodan
And all Republicans are hateful bigots with agendas of mind control. Right! :rolleyes: If there’s a generalization that does fit Democrats relative to this, it’s that no social problem should be left to fester simply because it might increase a tax bill by a small amount. It has to do with compassion – remember? Doing unto others as you would be done unto? Ever hear about the guy who said that? Or is he not relevant to the world of politics?
Obviously you are committed to that. The Federal Marriage Amendment shows what you think of, e.g., gobear or jayjay being able to make their own decisions and leaving their own money to their spouses.
Hey, we’ve got a long way to go before we can emulate the Great Prevaricator. And bluntly, we’re not trying to!
Hey, if the President of the United States actually did violate his oath of office, it strikes me that that is a darn sight more impeachable than getting a blowjob and lying about it – and you Republicans lowered the bar on impeachments. The precedent is set now. (You might note that most people don’t feel that RTFirefly’s allegation that he did violate his oath of office, relative to Amendment XIV, is valid. But it’s an interesting point – after all, he is committed to ensuring that the public debt be paid, by his oath of office. And the fiscal prestidigitation that has been explained at length in this thread seems to indicate that several Presidents have felt that this was a case of a campaign promise that could be forgotten afterwards, not a binding commitment sworn to before God. (Of course, Mr. Bush’s record on dealing honestly with the public, as evinced by the Iraq War rationales, would certainly make clear how good his word is.
But have your little fun. Sooner or later the good citizens of this country will realize that the Republicans have been taking them for a ride, in order to line the pockets of their plutocratic cronies. And at that point, their highest elected official will be a county commissioner in Windswept County, Kansas.
Sadly, Shodan is correct that Dems have no input. For the next two years, it’s strictly a Republican show.
Yep, we’ve been replaced by people represented, on this board, by such enlightened individuals as Scylla, who truly believes Kerry is a traitor, and manhattan, who slings around the charge “pro-terrorist”, which is the same as calling someone a mass-murderer. (Both of these offenses are punishable by death. So much for not wishing anyone on this board dead, in the case of manhattan.) No one on the right on this board, unless I missed something, has disowned either of these two, when neither deserves to be part of any community of decent people, anywhere. Much in the way that while LBJ was forced, by the Left, to abdicate for Vietnam, despite being one of the most liberal Presidents ever on domestic issues, Bush was re-elected for Iraq, because he is one of the most right-wing Presidents we’ve ever had on domestic issues.
I think it’s safe to say that The Right has no detectable standard of decency, other than strict agreement with all their principles, such as they are.
You still have a little froth around your mouth there, pantom.
Cutting farms subsidies any time soon Mr Moto?
Bingo. If Bush stands foursquare behind repayment of the Trust Fund loans to the general fund, then there is no Social Security crisis before 2042 (if then; recall that only a few years ago, this date was 2029, and it might well recede considerably further before we get there).
OTOH, there’s a general fund problem beginning in 2008 - how to deal with the reality that after that date, the general fund will be able to borrow progressively less from the Trust Fund. In mentioning the huge numbers that will have to be repaid to the Trust Fund, has Bush suggested any strategies in dealing with this? No; he’s proposing to change Social Security. How will that help, other than by reducing or eliminating the amounts that have to be repaid?
I’d dearly love to. Any ideas on how it can be done?
The money is going to be borrowed to pay for this.
Why not use it to bail out SS?
In the words of Uncle Duke, “why am I talking to this lizard?”
- I accused Bush of violating the Fourteenth Amendment specifically with respect to the Social Security trust fund.
- The 14th Amendment clause in question refers to the US public debt.
- According to you, this means I was accusing Bush of being ready to welsh on the whole kit and caboodle, rather than just the part I specified.
- Because I’ve pointed out that my claim was that in (1), you call me a liar.
- That’s the most ridiculous pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard.
There are laws against murder. They apply no matter who you murder. But just because you kill one person, doesn’t mean you killed everyone. The indictment will specify that you violated the law protecting everyone against murder, by murdering one particular person. Same deal here. I say Bush violated the Constitutional clause protecting the entire public debt of the U.S., presumably in whole and in part, from having its validity questioned by those in charge of it, by casting doubt on whether the Trust Fund will be paid back. That’s the specific violation of the general law.
Duh. And ‘duh’ again. Sheesh.
What am I doing, talking to this lizard?
You’re right: claiming there is no trust fund, everything in it has been spent, and all that, really means there’s $1.5 trillion in assets in the Trust Fund, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
And black is white, up is down, and watch that first step; it’s a doozy.
WTF are you talking about?? We’re talking about the President In The Bubble here. He never has to deal with the likes of me.
Well, at least you’re maintaining consistency with your usual standards.
First of all, that two trillion’s just for the first decade. It’s another $2.5T for the second decade, and it goes up from there before it goes down.
But this borrowing doesn’t present a problem, while borrowing to repay the loans from the Trust Fund does, because…oh, that’s right, because we had an election, and that was Bush’s last Accountability Moment.
Speaking of which, hasn’t he seemed just like Zaphod Beblebrox coming out of the Total Perspective Vortex ever since?
…that has to be paid out of the general fund, rather than some magical pixie dust pile of money that we can dip into when the time comes.
Backing those assets is going to hurt, THAT is what he’s trying to say. The debt is not going to pay itself back, we still have to dig into the pockets of the taxpayer to pay it. He is not saying that the assets are not going to be backed by the gov’t.
You don’t think the average American hears “trust fund” and thinks that these future payments are already paid for? What’s the big deal, we’ve been saving up a big trust fund for this… Sure, a big trust fund of securities backed by YOUR future tax dollar.
You want to twist his words to mean that he intends to default on these loans, knock yourself out. He’ll be out of office for almost a decade before they start redeeming them, he must have some loooooong arms to affect a president 3 elections after he leaves. Not to mention that he has actually clearly stated that the loans will not be defaulted on, your twisted interpretation is more valid than direct statements on that point. Nobody other than some internet cranks (who apparently would dispute Bush’s claim that the sky is blue) thinks that he actually intends to default on these loans.
If there is someone out there who thinks these loans will be defaulted on, someone respected in the economic community, I’d like to see it. That would draw my attention.
Right. You are starting off, in other words, with a lie.
No, you fucking moron. The Fourteenth Amendment prevents public officials from questioning the national debt in whole or in part. Your attempt at a distinction is meaningless and irrelevent, even to your own point.
Also wrong.
Your claim that Bush is questioning any portion of the national debt, including the debt consisting of IOUs in Social Security, is the lie. Point number 1, in other words, is the lie.
Yes, it is. So stop posting it.
Regards,
Shodan
Bush and the Republicans are the ones who are trying to address the problems of Social Security. The Democrats are the ones who want to leave it to fester, you fucking idiot.
They can leave their money to whoever they want now, you fucking idiot.
So nobody (apart from idiots like RTF) think he violated his oath of office. But you think he should be impeached anyway.
You’re right, that is an interesting point. If by “interesting” you mean “stupid and corrupt”.
As for the rest, blah blah blah. Clinton did it, Reagan did it, Carter did it, Bush Sr. and Ford all did it. But Bush is the bad guy because he wants to fix it.
And you are the people who are going to sweep to victory on a cloud of glory.
Suuuuuure you are.
Regards,
Shodan
Others have alluded to it, but to be clear – the $1.5 trillion that everyone in the universe agrees will be paid back isn’t the real problem. The real problem, the one which at some point (and people can have reasonable differences about when that point is) is the other $10 or so trillion that’s promised to future recipients but which the surplus, invested in inter-government treasury securities, will not cover. The '83 Social Security commission was always supposed to be a temporary fix, to tide us over until the baby boomers started retiring. It worked. But ‘temporary’ is soon going to be over.
I keep hoping to open a legitimate GD thread about this, because there’s a lot that’s not easy to understand which is important to the debate, but first lying sacks like RT have to be dispatched with.