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Bush favors high levels of mercury
Social Security under attack
SS UNDOING BY BUSH, AARP Warns
SOCIAL SECURITY: Bush's Plan to Fund Wall Street
Hydrogen Economy, Don't Hold Your Breath

Social Security under attack

Business wants to raise the value of their stocks buy having money that would go to Social Security go instead into the stock markets.  Both President Clinton and Bush support this plan, and both have appointed a commission that made such recommendation.  What is true in 01 is true today because it is based upon the neoliberal agenda—jk. 

 

At http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/aug2001/ss-a11.shtml

Bush panel recommends diverting Social Security funds into stock market

 

By Shannon Jones
11 August 2001

The Social Security commission appointed by President George W. Bush has unanimously adopted a staff report calling for the diversion of Social Security funds into the stock market. The plan for individual retirement accounts being advanced by the White House is but a thinly veiled attempt to sharply cut back or eliminate guaranteed federally supported pensions for retired and disabled people.

On July 19 the commission issued an interim report that claimed Social Security was “broken” and warned of an impending financial crisis unless Congress adopts its proposals. It pointed to the year 2016 as a “critical juncture” when current projections indicate that Social Security benefit payments will begin to exceed revenues because of the retirement of large numbers of those born in the postwar “baby boom.”

The so-called Commission to Strengthen Social Security is comprised entirely of supporters of privatization. It is co-chaired by Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons and former Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan. Bush created the panel to lay the groundwork for a legislative assault on the retirement program. Big business is determined to claw back hundreds of billions of dollars currently used to subsidize retirees and disabled people and pour them into the stock markets.

The report of the Social Security commission contains many deceptions and outright lies. The claim that the diversion of a portion of Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts will strengthen the system is false. In fact the opposite is the case. While such accounts guarantee a windfall for Wall Street banks and brokerage houses, they will increase, not decrease, the insecurity of those depending on Social Security. Further, the proposal to divert one-sixth of Social Security taxes to private accounts would push forward to 2007 the date at which revenues could no longer cover benefit payments.  The reason is that benefits are paid for by contribution; reduce contributions and benefits are reduced—jk.

In testimony before the House Budget Committee on July 27, Henry Aaron, an economist with the Brookings Institute, warned that the proposed changes could result in a disastrous decline in benefits, especially for poorer sections of the working class. “Under the Bush plan,” he said, “cuts in combined Social Security and individual account benefits for married, low earners who receive lower than average returns on their individual accounts could approach 50 percent.”

By claiming that a crisis is imminent the Bush administration seeks to whip up a panic atmosphere where cuts packaged as reform can be pushed through before millions of workers realize what is happening. By means of statistical tricks the commission’s report seeks to build the case that Social Security discriminates against poor people, women and minorities, the very groups who have the most to lose if the system is dismantled.  The claim of crisis is based on not counting the T-bills which SS holds as assets.  Bush called it worthless paper in a speech—jk.

The report goes so far as to suggest that the US government might default on its obligations to the Social Security trust fund, which is held in the form of US Treasury bonds, rather than raise taxes or cut back spending in other areas. It is estimated that money accumulated in the Social Security trust fund is sufficient to sustain payment of benefits at current levels until 2038. To keep the system solvent after that point only relatively modest changes would be required.

The report asserts, however, that the securities held by the trust fund are only paper claims and have no real value. Said Stanford University economist John Cogan, a commission member and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, “That’s right, it’s gone—yes, yes, yes.”

Imagine for a minute the howls if the government raised the specter of a default on its obligations to redeem government securities held by the banking and corporate sector! But the prospect of the government reneging on its obligations to tens of millions of working people whose lives would be ruined by a default raises few eyebrows in the big business press.

If a danger exists to the solvency of the Social Security fund, it is largely due to the fact that the government has dipped into the multitrillion-dollar surplus to pay for its massive military budget and other expenditures and subsidize huge tax breaks for the wealthy.

Any threat to Social Security will be exacerbated by the tax cut signed into law by Bush two months ago, which amounts to $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years and $4.1 trillion over the following 20 years. During the debate on the tax cut the Bush administration and the Republicans dismissed concerns that a large tax giveaway to the rich would undermine the solvency of Social Security.

This underscores the point that a major purpose of the tax cut was to starve the federal treasury, forcing an early assault on Social Security, Medicare and all remaining social programs. The fact that the Democrats acquiesced to the massive tax cut makes them accomplices of the plans to gut Social Security.

In fact, important sections of the Democratic Party, which has until now generally opposed, at least in public, substantial changes to Social Security, have come out in support of diverting a portion of the system’s funds into the stock market. Speaking at a news conference July 24, Representative Ellen Tauscher of California called for investing 10 to 13 percent of the Social Security surplus in stocks. She was joined by Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who advocated placing Social Security money in mutual funds.

In a July 29 editorial in the Washington Post, Jeffrey Liebman, a former assistant to Bill Clinton on economic policy, while claiming to oppose cuts to the system, made a major concession to the Bush plan. He called individual accounts the only realistic means of strengthening Social Security “in the current political climate.”

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle suggested that Democrats could support a pilot project that would allow some investment by the government in the market.

One conservative Democrat, Representative Charles Stenhom of Texas, has co-sponsored a bill with Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona calling for individual accounts, cuts in benefits, reduced cost-of-living adjustments and an accelerated increase in the retirement age to 67. Benefits would be reduced further in line with any increase in average life expectancy. The plan is widely seen as a stalking horse for specific cuts the Bush-appointed Social Security commission is likely to propose.

 

 

The Social Security commission appointed by President George W. Bush has unanimously adopted a staff report calling for the diversion of Social Security funds into the stock market. The plan for individual retirement accounts being advanced by the White House is but a thinly veiled attempt to sharply cut back or eliminate guaranteed federally supported pensions for retired and disabled people.

On July 19 the commission issued an interim report that claimed Social Security was “broken” and warned of an impending financial crisis unless Congress adopts its proposals. It pointed to the year 2016 as a “critical juncture” when current projections indicate that Social Security benefit payments will begin to exceed revenues because of the retirement of large numbers of those born in the postwar “baby boom.”

The so-called Commission to Strengthen Social Security is comprised entirely of supporters of privatization. It is co-chaired by Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons and former Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan. Bush created the panel to lay the groundwork for a legislative assault on the retirement program. Big business is determined to claw back hundreds of billions of dollars currently used to subsidize retirees and disabled people and pour them into the stock markets.

The report of the Social Security commission contains many deceptions and outright lies. The claim that the diversion of a portion of Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts will strengthen the system is false. In fact the opposite is the case. While such accounts guarantee a windfall for Wall Street banks and brokerage houses, they will increase, not decrease, the insecurity of those depending on Social Security. Further, the proposal to divert one-sixth of Social Security taxes to private accounts would push forward to 2007 the date at which revenues could no longer cover benefit payments.  The reason is that benefits are paid for by contribution; reduce contributions and benefits are reduced—jk.

In testimony before the House Budget Committee on July 27, Henry Aaron, an economist with the Brookings Institute, warned that the proposed changes could result in a disastrous decline in benefits, especially for poorer sections of the working class. “Under the Bush plan,” he said, “cuts in combined Social Security and individual account benefits for married, low earners who receive lower than average returns on their individual accounts could approach 50 percent.”

By claiming that a crisis is imminent the Bush administration seeks to whip up a panic atmosphere where cuts packaged as reform can be pushed through before millions of workers realize what is happening. By means of statistical tricks the commission’s report seeks to build the case that Social Security discriminates against poor people, women and minorities, the very groups who have the most to lose if the system is dismantled.  The claim of crisis is based on not counting the T-bills which SS holds as assets.  Bush called it worthless paper in a speech—jk.

The report goes so far as to suggest that the US government might default on its obligations to the Social Security trust fund, which is held in the form of US Treasury bonds, rather than raise taxes or cut back spending in other areas. It is estimated that money accumulated in the Social Security trust fund is sufficient to sustain payment of benefits at current levels until 2038. To keep the system solvent after that point only relatively modest changes would be required.

The report asserts, however, that the securities held by the trust fund are only paper claims and have no real value. Said Stanford University economist John Cogan, a commission member and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, “That’s right, it’s gone—yes, yes, yes.”

Imagine for a minute the howls if the government raised the specter of a default on its obligations to redeem government securities held by the banking and corporate sector! But the prospect of the government reneging on its obligations to tens of millions of working people whose lives would be ruined by a default raises few eyebrows in the big business press.

If a danger exists to the solvency of the Social Security fund, it is largely due to the fact that the government has dipped into the multitrillion-dollar surplus to pay for its massive military budget and other expenditures and subsidize huge tax breaks for the wealthy.

Any threat to Social Security will be exacerbated by the tax cut signed into law by Bush two months ago, which amounts to $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years and $4.1 trillion over the following 20 years. During the debate on the tax cut the Bush administration and the Republicans dismissed concerns that a large tax giveaway to the rich would undermine the solvency of Social Security.

This underscores the point that a major purpose of the tax cut was to starve the federal treasury, forcing an early assault on Social Security, Medicare and all remaining social programs. The fact that the Democrats acquiesced to the massive tax cut makes them accomplices of the plans to gut Social Security.

In fact, important sections of the Democratic Party, which has until now generally opposed, at least in public, substantial changes to Social Security, have come out in support of diverting a portion of the system’s funds into the stock market. Speaking at a news conference July 24, Representative Ellen Tauscher of California called for investing 10 to 13 percent of the Social Security surplus in stocks. She was joined by Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who advocated placing Social Security money in mutual funds.

In a July 29 editorial in the Washington Post, Jeffrey Liebman, a former assistant to Bill Clinton on economic policy, while claiming to oppose cuts to the system, made a major concession to the Bush plan. He called individual accounts the only realistic means of strengthening Social Security “in the current political climate.”

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle suggested that Democrats could support a pilot project that would allow some investment by the government in the market.

One conservative Democrat, Representative Charles Stenhom of Texas, has co-sponsored a bill with Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona calling for individual accounts, cuts in benefits, reduced cost-of-living adjustments and an accelerated increase in the retirement age to 67. Benefits would be reduced further in line with any increase in average life expectancy. The plan is widely seen as a stalking horse for specific cuts the Bush-appointed Social Security commission is likely to propose.

 

One of the benefits for business to raise the age of social security is to further flood the job market, which will result in further reduction of income for all but the top 2%--jk.

 

The social security shortfall myth which places it upon baby-boomers is the spin to hide the neoliberals’s sabatoge.  Not satisfied with having raided social security to cover their tax cuts to the top 1%, they now want to bankrupt social security by drastically reducing its income, thereby making SS unable to meet its current obligations.  Workers instead of contributing to social security so as to permit SS to make payment to elderly, their funds would go into brokerage house accounts.  Takes for the bottom 90% have risen in various ways; for example, contributions to the 401k starting in Jan. of 06, are now treated as income and taxed under the Roth amendment. 

Part of an article from Huffington post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/obamas-new-ad-could-help_b_70325.html by Dave Johnsonm 10/30/07:

 

For decades the right has been trying to kill Social Security. They have spread the lie that it is a "ponzi scheme" that depends on workers paying in today to pay for current benefits. Barack Obama is running a new ad that reinforces that lie.

Here is the fact: For decades Social Security has been collecting MUCH MORE $$ than it has been paying out. This money is saved in a "trust fund." This trust fund is large enough to cover any "shortfall" that occurs when the baby boomers retire.

But starting with Reagan, and especially under Bush, this trust fund was used to pay for the Republican tax cuts for the rich. (This is what Gore was talking about when he said this money should go in a "lockbox.")

Now that the baby boomers are starting to retire Social Security will need to tap into this trust fund to pay their retirement. It's their money but the money is not there -- taken by the Republicans to pay for their tax cuts.

So what is fair? Cutting old people's benefits to cover they money that was taken by the Republicans to give to the rich? Taking more from working people's paychecks to ocver what the Republicans took? Or taxing the rich to cover the money that was given to the rich? Which is fair?

And, most of all, how is this Social Security's problem? How is it Social Security's problem that the conservatives owe Social Security all that money?

 

The long look--JK

 

It was said of the Christians that they caused the fall of the Roman Empire because, on a whole, they weren’t good administrators or generals.  Moreover they bared those who were.  The record of religious zealots in recent history running countries in recent history is strong evidence that this assessment of Roman history is most reasonable.  With social security—as with other government programs—the neocons prove NOT that they can’t run public programs, BUT THAT THEY CAN SABOTAGE THEM!  In fact they are sabotaging our society and economic foundation because they have a set of belief concerning corporate globalization.—similarly religious zealots have a set of beliefs about society and economics and garnering favor from their gods.  The neoliberals starting under the Gripper (Reagan) have raided the treasury and Social Security of trillions of dollars (new federal debts).  They have made the U.S. the greatest debtor nation with a debt measured as percentage of GDP that is higher (over 7%) those of the nations which have in the last two decades defaulted on debt payments. 

 

Part of their belief structure includes doing away with social programs for the masses, another part is to deregulate capitalism.  They seek to return us to the age of the robber barons. 

To Bush page on ADULT cartoon site
presidental-seal-death.jpg
To Bush page on ADULT cartoon site

 

 

The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angell, MD.  Absolutely the best book on profits and drugs for it reveals—without being technical and tedious--more about the workings of the profit system and its relationship to government than all others—and it’s available on audio CD. (1-20)

 

          The skeptic is one who judges all things according to the evidence.  Many things are widely affirmed by the common herd in a degree well beyond what the evidence supports.  The humanistic skeptic applies a second measure, that of  harm resulting from such beliefs.  Issues of economics and politics, of religion, quackery, and of psychology and personal behavior top our list.   Education and scientific psychology are gateways to the following the dictates of reason.

 

 

CARTOONS

Over 30 assorted cartoons

6 Bush cartoons

Links to best on web of bush cartoons, jokes and animation

Danish cartoons that offend Moslems

More Danish Moslems

Moslems cartoons on Jews

More Moslems cartoons plus photos

Page of links including political cartoons

Cartoon gallery, latest ones

Another California Skeptic’s collection—huge, biting, for adults

Her collection of Bush Cartoons

 

SATIRE HUMOR

One act play on Bush’s tax cut—Al Franken

Brotherhood of religions—the Nation

Letters from Earth, Mark Twain at his best

5 humorous blasts at religion—Mark Twain

Eros & Zeus—Lucian

Zeus & the modern thinking Greeks—Lucian

The damned human race—Mark Twain

Zeus the pedophile—Lucian

Doc Laura, Old Testament morality

 

 

OFF SITE CARTOONS

PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY

A FUN COLLECTION

DAN COLLINS OF HUSTLER MAGAZINE

EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF UNDERGROUND COMICS

A FUN COLLECTION

POLITICAL & SOCIAL GEMS—Mark Froce

SEXUALLY ORIENTED COLLECTION

A FUN COLLECTION

EXCELLENT MUSICAL CARTOONS—JibJab

A FUN COLLECTION

LUNACY TOONS—outrageous, quality sounds

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