In another thread, Seascapes suggested that Republicans wanted “to do away with social security”. She then used a word that no right thinking democrat should ever say except when talking really really bad about republicans… She used the P word! Really PRIVITIZE.
In the first place Seascapes was wrong. Republicans don’t want to “do away” with SS. In the second place she was right. At least in part… but it isn’t nearly as nefarious as she makes it out… So let’s look at Social Security, what it is, where it is going, and who the bad guys are!
First of all, Social Security is a retirement safety net that was supposed to keep old folks from starving to death. Workers pay into a system and at the age of 65ish they receive a benefit from the government.
However, all SS insures is that those who are left to rely on it, is poverty in retirement.
Social Security as it is currently constructed, takes money from an individual in the form of taxes and that money goes into the general fund and is spent by the government on whatever it wants. The original plan (that was just never followed) was for the money that was being collected to be used for days when more was going out. That never happened as politicians quickly found they could use that money up front and just issue Treasury IOU’s in their place.
Out here in the real world where non-democrats and mathematicians who hate politics live, this is called a Ponzy scheme… even Rich people go to jail for creating Ponzy Schemes. Somehow all 535 members of congress have avoided the jail time. The mathematicians who hate politics are pretty mad about that fact.
I digress….
Take a look at this link. It is the U. S. Debt clock. In the bottom left hand corner you will find the current Unfunded Social Security Liability. The source is the Federal Reserve.
You should all look at this page every day. It will make you sick but ‘sick’ in this case is good medicine.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/#
Social Security has an unfunded liability in excess of 14 Trillion Dollars (that is TRILLION with a T). Take a look at the top left hand corner. That number is the current U. S. National Debt. The current National Debt is 700 BILLION dollars smaller than the unfunded liability we have created for Social Security… don’t even look at the Medicare number… it will make you wet your britches.
So the democrats say Social Security is just fine. What we really need to do is take some more money away from rich people and that will solve everything.
But let’s look at what Social Security is for an average feller out there in average America land.
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