May 09, 2005

I hope you are all listening to, watching, and reading the pure garbage that’s being put forth today. And put out without challenge by anyone. Let’s list some of these:

• Words have become weapons of mass destruction. Removing filibusters is a “nuclear option.” Let’s send filibusters to Iran and North Korea so they can talk themselves to death. At least the girls at Hooters are more sincere when their t-shirts say “weapon of mass distraction.”
• Social Security is going broke, bankrupt, bust by 2041. A supplemental retirement insurance program that produced a profit of $71 billion last year and is following the same path month by month this year is unhealthy, in trouble, and needs to be fixed so the pirates can steal even more loot.
• It’s costing us $600 billion a year until we “fix” Social Security – the same program that produced the $71 billion profit last year – an $82 billion excess the year before that – $89 billion extra in 2002 – and $98.7 billion in fiscal 2001, the first year of the Bush presidency. Nobody asks “why” we’re suddenly losing $600 billion a year somewhere and somehow, a sum that sounds more like government budget deficits or our annual balance of trade deficit. Are politicians now blaming Social Security for their financial mess?
• If we do nothing at all to improve the system, it will be bankrupt in 36 years. And this is a supplemental retirement insurance program where something has been done to increase contributions 49 of the 68 years it has been working successfully. Adjustments were even made five times in the last five years, but suddenly we are to believe these actuarial adjustments will cease. They will disappear for 36 years while everything stays exactly the same as it is today. How’s that for ridiculous? (See Table)
• President Bush says he will not raise payroll taxes when he’s raised them every year he’s been in office including this year, 2005. He did it by raising the limit or “cap” from $80,400 to $90,000 of salary taxed. So far, the cap has been raised 40 times. Now it’s suddenly a major argument whether it can be raised some more or even eliminated.
• Fifteen times three (15 x 3) is the same as (=) three times fifteen (3 x 15). A simple linear equation like this baffles mathematically challenged liability lawyers like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and, unfortunately, too many other Congress people as well. They claim an impending disaster because we have been reduced to only three-point-two (3.2) workers contributing 15.3 percent of their right to work in relation to every beneficiary. In 1950, we had 14 workers paying what they fail to mention was only 3 percent of their employment going to retirees. And we did not yet have disability or Medicare in the mix. ----------------Here’s another. If you reached the “cap” on payroll taxes on July 1, 1950 , you would have been earning $6,000 a year. If you reached the cap on July 1, 2005 , you are making $180,000 this year? Do you still wonder why Social Security is generating a surplus?
• Many claim that the Bush plan for investment accounts will cost trillions in “transition costs” even though the government manages 16 real trust funds, including the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) that Bush’s investment accounts are supposed to be patterned after. Did all 16 of these real accounts cost trillions to set up? Did any of them? The politicians must have cost analysis and records for the millions of federal employees involved in the TSP. Are these so-called transition costs nothing more than the money they intend to borrow from China if they were to lose their slush fund? Heaven forbid they should cut their crazy budget or give up on the pax Americana New World Odor Empire.
• President Bush, leader of the free world, has waved some of the back-up Parkersburg Papers in the air calling them “worthless” or “meaningless.” These are the same markers that increased the Social Security trust funds $151 billion last year, $71 billion from excessive payroll tax overcharges and $80 billion from interest that the government simply dumped in this debit black hole at no cost to them. (See Chart)
• In their usual penchant for naming things just the opposite of what they are, politicians are now calling these Golden Goose taxes a “regressive” tax. You can chalk that one up alongside “Intragovernmental Holdings.”
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has issued a challenge to Bush to explain another speech where he said “there is no trust.” He didn’t say “trust fund” but that’s the way the CBO is taking it. After all, they’ve been recording this trust fund for ages and know that it’s now 22 percent of the national debt published before the world, including foreign countries that are deeply invested in what is looking more and more like welfare.

Imagine the Lincoln-Douglas debates if the judge, some moderator, talking head, guest show host, town drunk or village idiot jumped up every five minutes with something like; “Now, I want your opinion of the latest decision by the Senate Ethics Committee.”

The one thing people can be sure of is that you cannot count on the members of our Fourth Estate or watchdogs to investigate much of anything. Incapable of responding to, opening up, or pressing a single Social Security issue, much less the crazy numbers being bandied about, they seem to think that a “probe” is something your general practitioner does during your annual check-up.

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Archives

$3.2 Billion A Day - $2.25 Million A Minute

Bushit - Pile It On

Go George Go - Keep Talking About Social Security

Pipedreams Of Social Security Reform

Open Letter To President Bush & Congress

AFL-CIO Clash Of The Titans-

Parkersburg Papers At The Bureau Of Public Debt

The Job Market Reflected In March Payroll Taxes

Changing Direction On Social Security Reform

Response To Our Open Letter

Cacophony - Don't Feed The Animals

Your Money - Gone, But Not Forgotten

Echo Chamber Goes National

Inquiry Into Trusts

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