Bush violates his oath...

usickenme

usickenme

CAGiversary!
One of Bushes main points about Social Security that there is no trust fund when actually the trust is in US Treasury Bonds.

Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out. And so, starting in 2018, what's going in -- what's coming out is greater than what's going in. It says we've got a problem. And we'd better start dealing with it now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to fix the problem
Click to expand...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050209-15.html

Basically he is saying the Bonds are no good and the US won't honor it's debt. Besides being a hypocrite (as Mr. Bush has much of his wealth in these same Treasury Bonds) he has violated his oath to uphold the Constitution. Apparently he didn't read the 14th Admendment, article 4..

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned
 
You're misinterpreting the intent of the statement.

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. You borrow from current investors to pay what previous investors are owed. That's the basis of the statement. None of SSI is invested in debt instruments; even those as secure as government bonds. It's pay as you go.

When SSI was enacted in the 30's the average life expentacy was 67. The government expected to pay for 2 years of expenses before you died. Now the life expectancy is 79. By the same measure the retirement age, if kept in line with its initial intent... would be 77.

I know everyone thinks SSI is this great wonderful program. I've paid over $40,000 into it between myself and any employer I've had since I was 16 (If you pay SSI you should get statements like this annually.) and I don't expect to see a bit of it.

Meanwhile if that same $40,000 were invested in extremely low risk debt instruments like AAA corporate bonds or government bonds averaging 3-6% annually I could stand to have a net worth of six figures from my payroll taxes alone.

If we don't go from 12% on payroll taxes to 8% with the remaining 4% going to private investment on my behalf I truly hope SSI goes bankrupt, becomes insolvent and withers and dies. The American people have been lied to for 70 years about how SSI doesn't really work.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']You're misinterpreting the intent of the statement.

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. You borrow from current investors to pay what previous investors are owed. That's the basis of the statement. None of SSI is invested in debt instruments; even those as secure as government bonds. It's pay as you go.

When SSI was enacted in the 30's the average life expentacy was 67. The government expected to pay for 2 years of expenses before you died. Now the life expectancy is 79. By the same measure the retirement age, if kept in line with its initial intent... would be 77.

I know everyone thinks SSI is this great wonderful program. I've paid over $40,000 into it between myself and any employer I've had since I was 16 (If you pay SSI you should get statements like this annually.) and I don't expect to see a bit of it.

Meanwhile if that same $40,000 were invested in extremely low risk debt instruments like AAA corporate bonds or government bonds averaging 3-6% annually I could stand to have a net worth of six figures from my payroll taxes alone.

If we don't go from 12% on payroll taxes to 8% with the remaining 4% going to private investment on my behalf I truly hope SSI goes bankrupt, becomes insolvent and withers and dies. The American people have been lied to for 70 years about how SSI doesn't really work.[/quote]

Yes it's not meant as a lie, but rather scaremongering. The purpose of SS was always to provide a safety net for the general public who are too stupid to save for retirement which allows them some independence and reduces the burden on their families. But such a plan is always of little benefit to those who have the means and ability to invest and invest intelligently.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. You borrow from current investors to pay what previous investors are owed. That's the basis of the statement. None of SSI is invested in debt instruments; even those as secure as government bonds. It's pay as you go.[/quote]

A semi-true statement designed to mislead (rather like Bush's statement posted by the OP.)

It is true that current retirees are paid out of the money coming in, because back when the program was instituted, the payouts began at the same time as the money started to be collected. Otherwise, there would have been a 40 year gap between the start of the program and when anyone would start to collect benefits, which wouldn't exactly have fulfilled the point of the program. Through most of its history, though, SS has taken in a good deal more money than its paid out, and current holds over 1.5 trillion dollars in US bonds, enough for about 3 years of payouts, even if they stopped collecting income today.

I truly hope SSI goes bankrupt, becomes insolvent and withers and dies.
Click to expand...
Don't worry, with Bush making the decisions, it will.
 
[quote name='Drocket']
I truly hope SSI goes bankrupt, becomes insolvent and withers and dies.
Click to expand...
Don't worry, with Bush making the decisions, it will.[/quote]

Listen, almost all of the politicians deserve blame on Soc Sec. I actually think Bush is on to something with his changes to Soc Sec (yes I said that). Sure, they could be better but at least he's one guy who's taking action rather then sitting around and letting the next guy handle it.

I just hate to see the Dems running around screaming about saving Soc Sec. What an easy BS position to take. Why don't those politicians get some balls and introduce some real reforms instead of just trying to make the problem go away for another 5-10 years.

Better yet, boost charity for the elderly in poverty, pay out a reduced lump sum to anyone who has ever dumped money into the soc sec black hole, and let me keep my money.
 
Social Security doesn't need a massive overhaul - it needs a few minor tweaks. Bumping up the retirement age for SS by 5 years would stabilze SS indefinitely (it would get the program past the baby boomer retirement crunch that's the current (well, future) problem, and there's nothing on the horizon past that that would threaten the program.) Get rid of the drug program that Bush implemented just a couple of years ago - again, the problem is fixed. Put income limits on SS so that the top 10% no longer can collect benefits - fixed.

Bush isn't even fixing SS. He himself admits that his program does NOTHING to fix the problem (link.) So his program works out to the US going 2 TRILLION dollars more in debt in order to gamble on the stock market. And if and when the stock market crashes - well, I guess we're all going to be up shit creek without a paddle.
 
[quote name='Drocket']Bush isn't even fixing SS. He himself admits that his program does NOTHING to fix the problem (link.) So his program works out to the US going 2 TRILLION dollars more in debt in order to gamble on the stock market. And if and when the stock market crashes - well, I guess we're all going to be up shit creek without a paddle.[/quote]

I don't know that it does nothing. If the money is in the stock market, then the government can't reach in and replace it with a lame IOU, right?

Although the cool move would be to end this program once and for all.
 
[quote name='camoor']
I don't know that it does nothing. If the money is in the stock market, then the government can't reach in and replace it with a lame IOU, right?

Although the cool move would be to end this program once and for all.[/quote]

A Treasury Bond is not some lame IOU (even if it is a special non-marketable bond for gov't trust). What you are asserting (over and over and over) is that the gov't isn't responsilble for it's debts which is crazy.

Failure to honor Treasury bonds would result in a U.S. government default, and that likely would trigger an international financial crisis. As the New York Times editorialized on January 10, “If the trust fund’s Treasury securities are worthless, someone better tell investors throughout the world, who currently hold $4.3 trillion in Treasury debt that carries the exact same government obligation to pay as the trust fund securities.”

But looking at it your way, those green pieces of paper you have in your wallet are just lame IOU's too.

If you don't like a program fine, but don't lie about it.
 
[quote name='camoor']I don't know that it does nothing. If the money is in the stock market, then the government can't reach in and replace it with a lame IOU, right?[/quote]
To expand a bit on what usickenme said, if treasury bonds do turn out to be 'lame IOU's, we're in trouble on a scale that's hard to even comprehend. That would mean that the US government was defaulting on its loan, and the 'full faith and credit' of the US government suddenly became worthless. That would be the EXACT same 'full faith and credit' that causes the money you spend every day to have value - if the US defaults on its load, US currency immediately becomes null and void, nothing more than scraps of paper with funny pictures on them. Every US bank would immediately default on all accounts (both loans and deposits) they hold. The stock market would, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist, and corporations would have nothing to use to pay their employees.

This is the sort of disaster that would make the Great Depression seem like a fun vacation. Its also the exact disaster that we're currently headed for because of deficits that are spiralling out of control. The US dollar isn't doing so well in international markets for this exact reason, and Japan's government recently all-but-begged Bush to get his shit together because otherwise, the huge amount of bonds Japan owns is going to become worthless (and quite possibly drag them down with us.) Bush's solution: lets go another 2 trillion dollars in debt for a plan that doesn't actually solve any problems.
 
[quote name='Drocket'][quote name='camoor']I don't know that it does nothing. If the money is in the stock market, then the government can't reach in and replace it with a lame IOU, right?[/quote]
To expand a bit on what usickenme said, if treasury bonds do turn out to be 'lame IOU's, we're in trouble on a scale that's hard to even comprehend. That would mean that the US government was defaulting on its loan, and the 'full faith and credit' of the US government suddenly became worthless. That would be the EXACT same 'full faith and credit' that causes the money you spend every day to have value - if the US defaults on its load, US currency immediately becomes null and void, nothing more than scraps of paper with funny pictures on them. Every US bank would immediately default on all accounts (both loans and deposits) they hold. The stock market would, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist, and corporations would have nothing to use to pay their employees.

This is the sort of disaster that would make the Great Depression seem like a fun vacation. Its also the exact disaster that we're currently headed for because of deficits that are spiralling out of control. The US dollar isn't doing so well in international markets for this exact reason, and Japan's government recently all-but-begged Bush to get his shit together because otherwise, the huge amount of bonds Japan owns is going to become worthless (and quite possibly drag them down with us.) Bush's solution: lets go another 2 trillion dollars in debt for a plan that doesn't actually solve any problems.[/quote]

However the government wouldn't be able to grab that money in the stock market and replace it with a Treasury Bond, right?

All I see is a government that's thinking of more unique ways to spend itself into a hole it can't climb out of. At least Bush's plan puts some of the soc sec money out of the grasp of pork-barrel politicians.

What I'm really trying to say is that I don't like Bush's plan. But the dems plan, which is really no plan at all, is worse.
 
[quote name='usickenme']If you don't like a program fine, but don't lie about it.[/quote]

I wasn't lying. I was pretty sure it was Fort Knox that backs up the value of the greenback. I trust gold over the promises of a politician trying to generate jobs in his city by building a federally-funded, bloated, mismanaged mass transit system.
 
[quote name='camoor']However the government wouldn't be able to grab that money in the stock market and replace it with a Treasury Bond, right?[/quote]
You don't quite understand: there wouldn't be any money in the stock market. There wouldn't be any stock market. There wouldn't be any money. It would be over. Done. Kaput.

All I see is a government that's thinking of more unique ways to spend itself into a hole it can't climb out of.
Click to expand...
Like issuing another 2 trillion dollars in treasury bonds to finance a gamble on the stock market? That is, in essence, what Bush's plan is.

What I'm really trying to say is that I don't like Bush's plan. But the dems plan, which is really no plan at all, is worse.
Click to expand...
Making minor tweaks to one of the goverment's most efficient programs in order to avoid a possible problem 40 years down the road is worse than taking government to the brink of bankrupty in order to gamble on the stock market, something which may not work out even assuming that the extra debt doesn't cause the entire system to collapse in the first place?
 
[quote name='camoor']I wasn't lying. I was pretty sure it was Fort Knox that backs up the value of the greenback.[/quote]
It doesn't. The US is long off the gold standard, and doesn't have enough gold to back up even a fraction of the currency. The only reason that US currency has value is the exact same reason that treasury bonds have value. If one goes, they both go.
 
40 years down the road? I'd think more like 20 or so. The first waves of boomers are going to start hitting Social Security in about 6 years.
 
Social security is currently running in the positive (taking in more money than it gives out, holding the extra for later on down the road in the form of US treasury bonds), as it has for most of its history. It'll continue running in the positive until about 2018. At that point, it'll need to start drawing upon the reserves that its been building up, but considering that its holding over 1.5 trillion dollars in US treasure bonds, and should have well over 2 trillion by the time it needs to start drawing upon them, there shouldn't be a problem until the mid-2040's, which is when SS will run out of bonds to cash in if nothing is done.

So there's 2 points of possible failure: 2018, at which time the US either will have to make good on its debts or go bankrupt (in the later case, the failure of SS is going to be the least of our problems), or ~2040, when SS runs out of bonds. Assuming the US doesn't default on its loan (something made much more likely by Bush's plan to bet 2 trillion on the stock market and the continuing out-of-control spending), the 2040 scenario isn't that terribly hard to fix. Bush's description of it as a 'crisis' is a vast overstatement of the problem. It we sit on our asses for the next 40 years, yes, it'll eventually be a crisis, but even minor tweaks to the program at this point (such as the ones I mentioned above) would put the program on solid ground indefinitely (past the current baby-boomer problem, until the point at which there's another baby-boom in the future and THAT generation wants to retire. That would probably be about 60-70 years minimum of guaranteed solvency, most likely longer.)
 
Ehh social security isnt really a problem right now, its more of a red herring. Anyway the government just uses it as a way to pay for stuff. It all started with LBJ using it to hide the real costs of the Vietnam War. For all we know Bush is doing the same thing with Iraq and that is why he knows the system could fall apart.
 
Just to add to what Drocket is saying (and I am sure he knows this)..those numbers his is using in his analysis are based on the Congressional Budget Office forcast that uses a very, very conservative 1.8% growth rate.

If you use more realistic numbers (the kind Bush uses when touting his plan - yes he is using 2 sets of numbers), Social Security is solvent for a great while longer.
 
From what I read, it's not putting the money in private accounts that's the giant change that will help SS.

It's cutting way back on the benefits that are paid out, while not lowering SS taxes. That is the part of Bush's plan that he doesn't talk about.


SS has a supposed surplus of trillions, but it's not really there - it's basically IOUs since the Treasury department has taken all the money. So when SS needs the money, it won't be there and the system will crumble...
 
[quote name='Backlash']From what I read, it's not putting the money in private accounts that's the giant change that will help SS.

It's cutting way back on the benefits that are paid out, while not lowering SS taxes. That is the part of Bush's plan that he doesn't talk about.[/quote]
Yep, again, Bush has already pretty much admitted that his 'plan' to save SS will do nothing of the sort, only cause another 2 trillion dollars in debt so that maybe, possibly, if the stock market does really, really well, a couple people may someday get a few extra bucks. Assuming, of course, that the extra 2 trillion in debt doesn't cause the entire US goverment to collapse before then.

SS has a supposed surplus of trillions, but it's not really there - it's basically IOUs since the Treasury department has taken all the money. So when SS needs the money, it won't be there and the system will crumble...
Click to expand...
If the money isn't there when SS needs it, the failure of SS is going to be the least of our problems. See previous posts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top