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Some Thoughts on Social Security |
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I listened to President Bush’s news conference Thursday
night.[1] I
read the transcripts[2] Friday.
I also listened to George Stephanopolos question[3] 1. What crises? What emergency? What is the problem? 2. Did Greenspan, Reagan, Bush 41[6] and Bush 43. create a shell game with Social Security money? Do Republicans really think of us as shills? 3. Whatever happened to the culture of life? 4. Aren’t there more serious problems – both international and domestic to worry about? My first question, to parody that old Wendy’s commercial, is Where’s the beef?[7] There is broad general agreement that the social security trust fund is financially sound until 2041.[8] Social Security is currently running a yearly $100,000,000,000.00[9] surplus. The 2041 crisis is based on pessimistic economic projections.[10] Using slightly more optimistic growth rates the Congressional Budget Office projects there will not be problems until 2052.[11] I wonder if there would even be a problem if we used the optimistic figures[12] President Bush uses to project the economic benefits of his own policies.[13] The crisis in social security is bullshit.[14] To paraphrase my second question what kind of bullshit are we talking about? The answer is simple, the purest[15] form – that of a con artist.[16] You can tell a con artist by his actions.[17] The Reagan[18] era commission on social security proposed dramatic tax increases[19] in social security. The tax increase took three forms: 1. A tax on social security benefits;[20] 2. An increase in social security taxes;[21] and 3. An increase in the retirement age to receive full benefits.[22] Despite the surpluses from social security taxes, the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations built up huge deficits.[23] The con[24] was simple – raise taxes[25] on the poor and middle class to pay for future benefits while cutting taxes even more on the rich[26] to help the economy.[27] Add to this a huge increase[28] in government spending[29] and we have the Reagan – Bush fantasy of good government. To put this in perspective, think of a shell game where the con artist, Reagan,[30] is so good[31] that he eats the pea in front of you while convincing you that you can find the pea under a shell. Part of Bush’s[40] campaign against Gore was to reduce taxes. The argument Bush used was a con.[41] Gore ran on the basis of reducing taxes also, but less than Bush.[42] The impact of the Bush tax cutting was immediate and disastrous. The economy went from healthy to systemic anemia, in part helped by Federal Reserve lowering interest rates to a point where there was no place further to reduce them.[43] The deficit went nuclear and mushroomed.[44] The problem Bush faces is how to keep the tax rates low for the rich for the foreseeable future. The con is to convince people that (1) social security is in serious trouble and needs to be fixed; (2) there is no social security surplus to pay benefits from; and (3) above all we must not raise taxes on the wealthy to fix social security or the budget deficit.[45] Basically Bush swallowed the pea with the tax cuts he gave. Now we all watched him swallow the pea so we should know there is no pea under the shell. Bush just keeps moving the shells around rapidly to keep us from remembering he swallowed the pea. Part of the shell game is and always has been to introduce
slogans that mean the opposite of what they say. A classic example of this is
“culture of life.” Another is “No child left behind.” Still another is “Weapons
of Mass Destruction.” In the hands of Bush these slogans are simply empty shells
in the con game. Terry Shiavo had no life. The problem with our education
system is worse today than before Bush took office. There were no weapons of
mass destruction in Interestingly enough the entire social security argument
itself is nothing but a shell. Bush is using the argument to keep our eyes off
the more serious immediate problems facing the country. Those problems are (1)
the occupation[49] of [1] The conference was on Thursday April 28, 2005. [2] New York Times; Transcript of President Bush's Press Conference; April 28, 2005. [3] Question doesn’t really describe the interaction between George Stephanopolos and Nancy Pelosi. Other terms that might be fairly applied are harass and badger. [4] Nancy Pelosi is the Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives. [6] Just keeping father and son separate. [7] In the mid 80s Clara Peller achieved national fame for her Wendy’s commercials when she asked Where’s the beef? [8] The 2005 Trustees Report provides the 2041 date that is widely accepted. Even President Bush quoted the date in his press conference. [9] Just count the zeros. James Tierney in the op-ed article Place Your Bets writes “. . . for the next few years the baby boomers' taxes will provide an annual surplus for Social Security of about $100 billion . . .” [10] Because of the pessimism of the projections as the projections are reevaluated over time the date of the crisis is pushed out. Paul Krugman writes that “10 years ago it [the date of the crisis] was 2029” in the op-ed article Confusions about Social Security. [11] Paul Tristam writes of the Manipulative Math on Social Security. [12] One sign of criminal activity is keeping two sets of books. Bush keeps one set books for programs he wants to kill and another different set of books for programs he want to succeed. [13] Paul Krugman points out that “If the economy grows as fast over the next 50 years as it did over the past half-century, Social Security will do just fine.” in The Final Insult. [14] The philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt recently wrote the book On Bullshit. [15] As Loudon Wainwright III put it in Album III in the track Dead Skunk "stinkin to high heaven" [16] More properly a collection of con artists – all post Carter republican presidents. [17] A con game is basically a game of misdirection. Keep the shill distracted while fleecing the shill of his money is what a con game is about. Reagan and both Bushes play the game of misdirection like professional conmen. Reagan and Bush 43 had the game down as few can manage. Both play the role of genial bumpkins while picking your pockets to perfection. [18] A synonym for con-artist is great communicator. [19] I remember a friend telling me about how the real plan by Grover Norquist was to end social security. My friend was/is a conservative. I didn’t believe him 20 years ago. [20] SS benefits were not taxed prior to Reagan getting involved. Also these taxes did not go into the trust fund and were very much a form of indexing that Bush talks about. SS has always been indexed in the sense that return for each dollar taxed for SS decreased as the number of dollars taxed increased. Thus those at the lower brackets received more money than those at the higher end. By proposing to make the return worse, Bush is pushing people in the upper backets to support private accounts which will destroy SS. [21] This is what most people remember from this era. [22] While people don’t think of this as a tax beats me since it truly increases the amount of money in taxes that we pay into the system. [23] Many of us remember the third party candidate Ross Perot. Perot promised to open the hood, diagnose the problem, and fix the car – anything to avoid saying tax increase. [24] There were several factors making the con successful – (1) who likes to admit they are being conned; (2) Reagan was such a genial con man; and (3) the illusion more money. [25] In the name of social security. [26] These are actions. [27] The justification was one that as the economy improved then so would tax receipts. The problem was the economy did not improve sufficiently to make up the loss in tax receipts. President Reagan’s advisor David Stockman was taken to the woodshed for daring to speak the truth. [28] Keep in mind the mantra of less government. They mean less government for the rich, more rules for the poor. [29] Defense spending increased dramatically and knew no limit. [30] Of course Bush 41 couldn’t pull the con off nearly as well as Reagan. He just resorted to plain meanness. [31] Reagan had training as both an actor and an ad-man. For those of you who don’t remember, Reagan sold soap. [32] I hope you don’t believe that republicans and the rich (particularly the Mellon-Scaife family) were upset about a blow job and a fib (remember Newt lied under oath in his divorce). They were upset about having to pay higher taxes. [33] Remember It’s the economy stupid. [34] Remember saying that we are going to raise taxes is the death knell for a politician. [35] President Clinton pushing higher tax rates on the rich played an important role in the Democrats losing Congress. While people like to say that Hillary’s health care plan was the reason, I believe that higher tax rates on the rich played a more important role. [36] The modest government investment included increased funding for Small Business Innovative Research, the starting the Manufacturing Extension Program, and investment in the Advanced Technology Program. [37] Despite these gains at the end of the Clinton administration there remained a great deal of work increasing education, reducing the trade deficit, and managing energy better that needed to be done. [38] Economically sound is relative to what had passed before. [39] Even the Federal Reserve’s interest rates were not too low. [40] This is Bush 43 or Dubya. [41] Gore called the argument fuzzy math, but in reality the argument was that of a con-man. Reduce taxes and the economy will do even better resulting in even more tax receipts. [42] While
the election was close and Gore would have won the election had the votes in [43] Housing development became the primary economic driver for the nation. But unfortunately the Federal Reserve could no longer juggle rates in response to perturbations in the economic indicators. [44] Hard to appreciate how within a year we went from modest budget surpluses to the largest deficits in the history of the nation. [45] Remember a part of the con was to take a one time privatization hit to the deficit, adding trillions to deficit and blaming social security in the process for the dramatic increase in the deficit. Bush will use anything to hide the inadequacy of the tax structure. [46] This
should be readily apparent from the British memos exposed during [47] Most of the Bush doctrine is not based on reality but rather faith. [48] This is independent of Tom Delay’s ethics or the hollowness of Bush’s programs. [49] The reality is the war is and has been over. Having won, we are faced with the problem of what to do now that we have won. There is no one to turn the country over to. Obviously the goal was not just to topple Hussein or we could have left with Hussein once he was captured. [50] Independent of the destruction of social security, the federal deficit is structural cannot be maintained indefinitely. The sooner we address the problem the less of a problem it will be. [51] While
stated last, this is the most serious and complex problem. The deficit and the
occupation of |
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