Real Worry Is Medicare, Not Social Security

Recent conversations with friends sound a familiar theme. A college administrator asks me if he can count on Social Security upon his retirement. An electrician told me he has no realistic hope of retiring and that he worked as much overtime as he could. Social Security is going bankrupt and he can’t accumulate enough in his 401(k) to sustain any sort of retirement.

My friends’ concerns about Social Security are less a reflection on the condition of the program than of a media obsessed with privatizing it and bashing the public sector. The circumstances of most of my neighbors would be better characterized in much different terms. Even many who do have health insurance experience gaping holes in the coverage. They live in leaky, energy-inefficient homes in a society that has too long deferred the maintenance of the critical supports of modern life.

That so much attention is focused on the relatively small and distant problem of Social Security speaks volumes about the biases of the corporate media. The country faces unfunded liabilities for which little or no provision has been made, but Social Security isn’t one.

When the Social Security and Medicare trustees released their annual report at the end of March, the media duly chimed in with doomsday forecasts and chastised politicians for putting their heads in the sand. Nonetheless, as Dean Baker, economist and author of a careful study of Social Security points out, the overall health of Social Security has not deteriorated since the last annual report.

Baker has long reminded the media - unfortunately to no avail - that the Social Security system currently takes in far more in taxes than it pays out in benefits. Even with the impending retirement of the baby boomers, the system’s total payouts will not exceed its accumulated revenues until 2041. Even if no modest changes were made in benefits, retirement ages or the payroll tax cap, it could continue to pay post-2041 beneficiaries three quarters of promised benefits.

I’ll bet that most General Motors workers would be happy if GM had been able to keep three quarters of its promises to them. And will holders of 401(k) plans be assured that all their investments will pay off?

Social Security’s modest gap - half a lifetime away - could be made up with a relatively small increase in taxes (an increase on the order of 1 percent) on the much higher real wages workers will enjoy two decades from now. After such a tax increase, our children and grandchildren would still enjoy far higher disposable incomes than our generation does.

How have media managed to leave so many of us worried about so little? They warn us that impending Medicare and Social Security expenses for the growing wave of retiring citizens will crush us. Yet this is like saying that Hank and Tommy Aaron are the greatest home-run hitting brothers of all time. True enough: Hank hit 755 and Tommy, 13.

Medicare funding is a serious problem. Lumping it with Social Security discredits that system. The deceptive addition of Social Security to an overwhelming current problem also stigmatizes analogous, universal approaches to health care. The best answer to Medicare’s more pressing problems would be to give all citizens, (or at least starting with 60- to 65-year-olds and working down) the chance to enroll in the program. Such a step would improve its financial base and leave us with healthier citizens reaching Medicare age. (I was amazed when a tennis partner recently described the medical treatments he was postponing until he became eligible for Medicare.)

In addition to health care, our greatest unfunded liability is our public infrastructure. By most of the measures we use in everyday life to assess risk, our leaky homes, decaying roads and bridges and deteriorating wastewater treatment plants are a more dangerous problem than Social Security or Iraqi insurgents. In “The Edge of Disaster,” Stephen Flynn points out that maintenance of our freight rail system will need nearly $200 billion over the next two decades. Without such an investment, our highways will be further overtaxed - already the cost of road congestion is $63 billion annually - and will simply deteriorate that much quicker.

Here in Maine we face $250 million in deferred replacement and overhaul of wastewater treatment plants. These systems were built in response to passage of the Clean Water Act with substantial support from the federal government. Now this aging overburdened infrastructure is leaving our beaches, clam flats and coastal waters at risk from E. coli and other contaminants.

Our great national infrastructure, its dams, roads, rails, levees, have immense spillover effects. Vast in costs and complex in interconnections, this infrastructure can only be sensibly maintained through some infusion of public funds and some public planning. The starvation and careless disregard of their spiraling deterioration is the 800-pound guerilla in the room. Without addressing this theme, no economic agenda will make us productive enough to support our progeny in retirement.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers may contact him at jbuell@acadia.net.

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14 Comments so far

Daniel David April 15th, 2008 12:16 pm

The problems with Medicare (especially whether, as recommended above, it can be expanded to younger premium-paying age groups), AND Social Security, AND infrastructure are all dependent on a single question: Whether individual voters via government CAN overpower the grip that corporations have on American politics.

Discounting the third parties which either don’t even exist or are stuck at tiny “handfuls” of people, there is one and only one answer for today: Democrats, lots and lots and lots of Democrats! Dem Congress and Dem White House ALL AT ONCE. All else is empty talk.

Bash all you want. Yell all you want. Lie all you want.
It will not diminish this truth.

crankylady April 15th, 2008 12:17 pm

Yes, Social Security should not be thrown on the same discussion heap with Medicare. Will the Medicare alarmists ever admit that bringing down medical and pharmaceutical costs (and profits) should be the first line of attack?

Teji April 15th, 2008 12:22 pm

You need money to pay for infrastructure etc..Where is it? How many ways are there to raid the treasury,defund social services,and accelerate migration of money from the poorer sections of the population to ever fewer and fewer hands at the top? Myriads…often with the active “support” of the people from the poorer sections!

Shawn April 15th, 2008 12:44 pm

“You need money to pay for infrastructure etc..Where is it?”

Well, much of the money needed for infrastructure is being given away to the rich in the form of tax breaks. Then, we have the money being given away to the MIC, Blackwater, Halliburton, etc. through the illegal war in Iraq. Preznit Bu$h is giving the big oil companies $15 billion in royalty exemptions for drilling on public lands while they are enjoying record profits (which should be heavily taxed )from gouging the public with high fuel prices. Surely, if all of this money that is being currently WASTED on the rich and through corporate welfare were instead applied to repairing our national infrastructure, it would make a major impact without ever defunding any other social programs. Folks, it’s our money that Bu$h is frittering away! It’s way past time that this is put to a screeching halt!

armybrat April 15th, 2008 1:52 pm

I’ll bet the infrastructure in Iraq on US bases doesn’t suffer from budget deficiencies - nor any other base around the world. And their healthcare (in foreign countries) is the best in the world. So where does all that money - and socialism - come from? Civilized people provide the necessities of life for their community - savages spend all they get on bigger weapons and more military waste. That’s the real problem. Fascism doesn’t work - I saw what it did to Germany and Spain. Maybe you Americans should travel more.

andersdl April 15th, 2008 2:28 pm

The media is Wall Street’s propaganda agent. Wall Street wants a majority of the US electorate to believe that Social Security is hopeless and the only solution is to privatize it, meaning that it would become one big 401k plan that is hard wired to Wall Street. The same Wall Street crooks that have gotten rich from excessive fees they charge you for your 401k plan will get even richer with privatized Social Security fees. The media has been hammering the US electorate with the same negative message for a quarter century and winning over more disbelievers each year. If the media are successful, neither the college administrator or the electrician will likely retire as Social Security in its current form is an essential component of 90% of US retirees’ “three legged stool”.

If Social Security survives, the college administrator, the electrician and most other US citizens will still have a major challenge finding affordable and reliable medical insurance. Unless they are among the lucky few whose employer or union provides retiree insurance at reasonable or no cost, they will be paying exhorbitant rates with unlimited potential rate increases.

jzelensk April 15th, 2008 2:32 pm

Author John Buell is correct. The Social Security (SS) trust fund has a $2.7 trillion surplus balance, which will grow to over $6 trillion before it begins to be drawn down to accomodate the retiring boomers. That surplus began to grow dramatically after the 1983 SS reforms that raised the wage cap, the payroll (FICA) tax rate, and the retirement age.

The boomer genration is the only generation to fund both the SS pensions of their parents, and their own, through this advance fund build-up. Remember, this money has come from working stiffs since ‘83 (a point when the median age of a boomer was 28).

Also remember that the payroll tax is regressive (although the SS pension benefits are slightly progressive). It’s only paid on wages - from the first dollar - up to around $90K in wages. All incomes earned over that level (no matter how high) are payroll tax-free.

Beginning with the Reagan tax cuts (& dramatically exacerbated by Bush II), this surplus has been given away to the wealthy in the form of lowering the progressivity of the federal income tax system. SS surpluses have always (since ‘35) been invested in US Treasury bonds, deemed the safest investments available. They actually pay pretty well, despite what anti-SS pundits allege, especially after adjusting for risk. The Treasury bonds are how the general fund of the government covers its deficits. So, since ‘83, the SS trust fund has been bankrolling the general government by buying up its bonds.

Now, follow the money. Those SS surplusses went - where? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has shown that the Bush tax cuts are overwhelmingly responsible for our federal deficits which add to the national debt each year (with war spending second). Money is taken from the wages of working stiffs via the payroll tax, enters the SS trust fund surplus, is lent to the general government in return for T-Bonds, and then sent to the super-wealthy via tax cuts. This chain of events is indisputable.

Some, like Robert Samuelson (Newsweek) say that the boomers are selfish, etc., for expecting to see SS checks when they retire. Au contraire, boomers have already paid in to the system enough to fully fund the SS program. This is not a generational conflict, but one of economic (wealth and income) class. It is also one of massive fiscal slight of hand (how many times have you been told that SS is heading for bankruptcy, but no talk of the US general fund?).

In 1983, 90% of earned wages were covered by the FICA tax. Today the wage cap is around $90,000. If we were to restore the cap to again capture 90% of wages for the SS program, it would be set at around $130,000. So over a quarte century, folks in the upper ranges of earnings have been able to escape an ever larger part of their responsibility of paying the share of the costs that they paid 25 years ago.

But more to the point, the neocons are desperately trying to find a way for those who pay Income Taxes (mostly the wealthy) never to have to repay the money that the general fund has borrowed from the SS trust fund. That is the real bottom line for the “privatizers.” These funds came from the working class, ended in the pockets of the wealthy, and the latter will fight tooth and nail to keep the money.

Opinionated April 15th, 2008 8:20 pm

All I know is that Medicare has saved my elderly, ailing mother and the rest of the family along with her. My father died at the end of March and she was bedridden with an injury two days later. It’s been a month and a half, and she’s barely starting to get back on her feet. Medicare has provided a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, visiting nurses, and a hygenist. They’ve provided a hospital bed so she can sit up and a raised commode so she can use the john. Without assistance and training from the pros, I would have had NO idea how to care for her. It’s still rough but we have thanked heaven for Medicare every day. Unfortunately, they have cut funding for respite care, so as caretaker I never get a single day off and it may kill me yet, but without them, Mom would have died weeks ago. As is, she may make it even yet and if she doesn’t, she’s been able to spend her last days in the home she knows and loves.

Keep Medicare. Never were tax dollars more wisely or more compassionately spent.

chessgames56 April 15th, 2008 10:20 pm

The Medicare dilemma is related to the larger health care crises. To save Medicare, or even have a chance of saving Medicare, we must adopt a single payer system–and soon. That will be the only way to keep down medical costs. It’s either that, or let the whole house of cards fall under its own weight, which will probably happen soon.

Kernel April 16th, 2008 12:17 am

John Buell___Very fine and timely article. So many people are not aware that the tricksters are trying to destroy both systems if possible. Just raising the cap slightly on Social Security income subject to the tax would fix that for decades. The medicare problem is certainly a big one and we may need a complete workover to keep it functioning, but will never get it with the present people in Washington.

If McCain gets in, we can look for the finish of both programs as there will be plenty of money for war and the military but none to give our citizens a decent life. How much good would the money we put into the biggest embassy on earth in Iraq do if it went into people programs in our own country?

The Bush legacy will be a great one–He destroyed our country in only eight years. We have only started to see the effects of the disastrous course this gang forced on us and we may never get back where we were.

voxclamantis April 16th, 2008 12:51 am

Americans may never get universal health insurance, but if you make it to my age you will probably eventually get Medicare. Most of your health care costs will be paid, and your insurance worries will be over. Then you can move on to the next major problem - finding health care. Our free market system is an absolute parody of real medicine. You get bumped from one arrogant specialist to the next, and whereas you will find plenty of people willing to blow smoke up your ass you will be very lucky to find a doctor who cares about doing his job. Compared to systems in every other industrialized country on earth, health care in this country is a joke. Seniors today should be afraid. America health care is barely short of lethal.

MiMiCcS April 16th, 2008 3:58 am

Where is the money to pay for it? Its the same place the Federal Reserve System banks and commercial banks get the money to loan you and the government money. They create it out of thin air. Poof, want 300 K, here it is, and they write you a 300 k a check on one hand, and enter 300 K on the other side of the ledger with their magic wand, creating 300 k of money. Didn’t even need to print the money.

If government creates it’s own money, and uses it for the general welfare of the people, like social benefits, infrastructure development and repair, rebuilding a new physical economy, then life could be good again, but the bankers won’t get as rich.

Central banking, where banks create the money and loan it to the government at interest, as established by the Bank of England in 1694, which led to the Fed in 1913, is the root cause of all evil and wars today.

But wait you say, if we don’t have the Fed we will have inflation and too much debt (heh heh). We never had inflation in our first 135 years except during war, since war causes inflation by increasing demand for weapons and supplies for fighting the war, and this is compouded today because it is financed by borrowing money). In fact, we had deflation during peace time, and no income taxes, which made you richer if you saved money. Inflation is the banks profit, and since 1913, 1 dollar is now worth 4 cents, and we have to pay income tax to pay the interest on money our government borrows to boost (the Fed was created at the same time as the Income tax. The income tax and central bank was part of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
As for too much debt if Congress issued it’s own money. WTF do you think we have now?

As for Americas health care being lethal. There is a reason for it. They want people to die earlier. The more people uninsured, the better. Those who find themslves out of work in their 50’s, many will never make it to 65 since they won’t be able to afford either insurance or HC, even with insurance since when you get sick, they find a way to deny you the treatment. If you die early, less social security payments they have to make, since they already spent the 2 trillion that is supposed to be in the trust fund, from money you and your employer paid as tax, and paying you from the trust fund when we have more retirees that will make social security run at a deficit for 20 years, as opposed to a 30 year run of surpluses, means they will have to borrow the money, starting from 2017, under the current system.

They could just write the trust fund a 2 trillion dollar check with money they create, but they won’t, since the current system of banking allows them to globalize and depopulate us, and people have been too dumbed down by MSM, and even the blogs, to even question it. It’s all here, as well as the solution.

http://www.webofdebt.com

Lobo Gris April 16th, 2008 5:48 am

Daniel David April 15th, 2008 12:16 pm

“Bash all you want. Yell all you want. Lie all you want.
It will not diminish this truth.”

You are the liar DD. On the one hand you claim you have no special connections or inside knowledge of the Democrats, and on the other that you know what Obama really wants to do rather than what he says in the campaign.

But hey, anything is OK as long as your chosen candidate is the one elected right?

Lobo Gris

Daniel David April 16th, 2008 1:35 pm

I claim no connections to the Democrats because I have none.
But I know a real liberal trying to get elected as a moderate when I see one. And Obama is exactly that.

Daniel David April 15th, 2008 12:16 pm

The problems with Medicare (especially whether, as recommended above, it can be expanded to younger premium-paying age groups), AND Social Security, AND infrastructure are all dependent on a single question: Whether individual voters via government CAN overpower the grip that corporations have on American politics.

Discounting the third parties which either don’t even exist or are stuck at tiny “handfuls” of people, there is one and only one answer for today: Democrats, lots and lots and lots of Democrats! Dem Congress and Dem White House ALL AT ONCE. All else is empty talk.

Bash all you want. Yell all you want. Lie all you want.
It will not diminish this truth.
crankylady April 15th, 2008 12:17 pm

Yes, Social Security should not be thrown on the same discussion heap with Medicare. Will the Medicare alarmists ever admit that bringing down medical and pharmaceutical costs (and profits) should be the first line of attack?
Teji April 15th, 2008 12:22 pm

You need money to pay for infrastructure etc..Where is it? How many ways are there to raid the treasury,defund social services,and accelerate migration of money from the poorer sections of the population to ever fewer and fewer hands at the top? Myriads…often with the active “support” of the people from the poorer sections!
Shawn April 15th, 2008 12:44 pm

“You need money to pay for infrastructure etc..Where is it?”

Well, much of the money needed for infrastructure is being given away to the rich in the form of tax breaks. Then, we have the money being given away to the MIC, Blackwater, Halliburton, etc. through the illegal war in Iraq. Preznit Bu$h is giving the big oil companies $15 billion in royalty exemptions for drilling on public lands while they are enjoying record profits (which should be heavily taxed )from gouging the public with high fuel prices. Surely, if all of this money that is being currently WASTED on the rich and through corporate welfare were instead applied to repairing our national infrastructure, it would make a major impact without ever defunding any other social programs. Folks, it’s our money that Bu$h is frittering away! It’s way past time that this is put to a screeching halt!
armybrat April 15th, 2008 1:52 pm

I’ll bet the infrastructure in Iraq on US bases doesn’t suffer from budget deficiencies - nor any other base around the world. And their healthcare (in foreign countries) is the best in the world. So where does all that money - and socialism - come from? Civilized people provide the necessities of life for their community - savages spend all they get on bigger weapons and more military waste. That’s the real problem. Fascism doesn’t work - I saw what it did to Germany and Spain. Maybe you Americans should travel more.
andersdl April 15th, 2008 2:28 pm

The media is Wall Street’s propaganda agent. Wall Street wants a majority of the US electorate to believe that Social Security is hopeless and the only solution is to privatize it, meaning that it would become one big 401k plan that is hard wired to Wall Street. The same Wall Street crooks that have gotten rich from excessive fees they charge you for your 401k plan will get even richer with privatized Social Security fees. The media has been hammering the US electorate with the same negative message for a quarter century and winning over more disbelievers each year. If the media are successful, neither the college administrator or the electrician will likely retire as Social Security in its current form is an essential component of 90% of US retirees’ “three legged stool”.

If Social Security survives, the college administrator, the electrician and most other US citizens will still have a major challenge finding affordable and reliable medical insurance. Unless they are among the lucky few whose employer or union provides retiree insurance at reasonable or no cost, they will be paying exhorbitant rates with unlimited potential rate increases.
jzelensk April 15th, 2008 2:32 pm

Author John Buell is correct. The Social Security (SS) trust fund has a $2.7 trillion surplus balance, which will grow to over $6 trillion before it begins to be drawn down to accomodate the retiring boomers. That surplus began to grow dramatically after the 1983 SS reforms that raised the wage cap, the payroll (FICA) tax rate, and the retirement age.

The boomer genration is the only generation to fund both the SS pensions of their parents, and their own, through this advance fund build-up. Remember, this money has come from working stiffs since ‘83 (a point when the median age of a boomer was 28).

Also remember that the payroll tax is regressive (although the SS pension benefits are slightly progressive). It’s only paid on wages - from the first dollar - up to around $90K in wages. All incomes earned over that level (no matter how high) are payroll tax-free.

Beginning with the Reagan tax cuts (& dramatically exacerbated by Bush II), this surplus has been given away to the wealthy in the form of lowering the progressivity of the federal income tax system. SS surpluses have always (since ‘35) been invested in US Treasury bonds, deemed the safest investments available. They actually pay pretty well, despite what anti-SS pundits allege, especially after adjusting for risk. The Treasury bonds are how the general fund of the government covers its deficits. So, since ‘83, the SS trust fund has been bankrolling the general government by buying up its bonds.

Now, follow the money. Those SS surplusses went - where? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has shown that the Bush tax cuts are overwhelmingly responsible for our federal deficits which add to the national debt each year (with war spending second). Money is taken from the wages of working stiffs via the payroll tax, enters the SS trust fund surplus, is lent to the general government in return for T-Bonds, and then sent to the super-wealthy via tax cuts. This chain of events is indisputable.

Some, like Robert Samuelson (Newsweek) say that the boomers are selfish, etc., for expecting to see SS checks when they retire. Au contraire, boomers have already paid in to the system enough to fully fund the SS program. This is not a generational conflict, but one of economic (wealth and income) class. It is also one of massive fiscal slight of hand (how many times have you been told that SS is heading for bankruptcy, but no talk of the US general fund?).

In 1983, 90% of earned wages were covered by the FICA tax. Today the wage cap is around $90,000. If we were to restore the cap to again capture 90% of wages for the SS program, it would be set at around $130,000. So over a quarte century, folks in the upper ranges of earnings have been able to escape an ever larger part of their responsibility of paying the share of the costs that they paid 25 years ago.

But more to the point, the neocons are desperately trying to find a way for those who pay Income Taxes (mostly the wealthy) never to have to repay the money that the general fund has borrowed from the SS trust fund. That is the real bottom line for the “privatizers.” These funds came from the working class, ended in the pockets of the wealthy, and the latter will fight tooth and nail to keep the money.
Opinionated April 15th, 2008 8:20 pm

All I know is that Medicare has saved my elderly, ailing mother and the rest of the family along with her. My father died at the end of March and she was bedridden with an injury two days later. It’s been a month and a half, and she’s barely starting to get back on her feet. Medicare has provided a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, visiting nurses, and a hygenist. They’ve provided a hospital bed so she can sit up and a raised commode so she can use the john. Without assistance and training from the pros, I would have had NO idea how to care for her. It’s still rough but we have thanked heaven for Medicare every day. Unfortunately, they have cut funding for respite care, so as caretaker I never get a single day off and it may kill me yet, but without them, Mom would have died weeks ago. As is, she may make it even yet and if she doesn’t, she’s been able to spend her last days in the home she knows and loves.

Keep Medicare. Never were tax dollars more wisely or more compassionately spent.
chessgames56 April 15th, 2008 10:20 pm

The Medicare dilemma is related to the larger health care crises. To save Medicare, or even have a chance of saving Medicare, we must adopt a single payer system–and soon. That will be the only way to keep down medical costs. It’s either that, or let the whole house of cards fall under its own weight, which will probably happen soon.
Kernel April 16th, 2008 12:17 am

John Buell___Very fine and timely article. So many people are not aware that the tricksters are trying to destroy both systems if possible. Just raising the cap slightly on Social Security income subject to the tax would fix that for decades. The medicare problem is certainly a big one and we may need a complete workover to keep it functioning, but will never get it with the present people in Washington.

If McCain gets in, we can look for the finish of both programs as there will be plenty of money for war and the military but none to give our citizens a decent life. How much good would the money we put into the biggest embassy on earth in Iraq do if it went into people programs in our own country?

The Bush legacy will be a great one–He destroyed our country in only eight years. We have only started to see the effects of the disastrous course this gang forced on us and we may never get back where we were.
voxclamantis April 16th, 2008 12:51 am

Americans may never get universal health insurance, but if you make it to my age you will probably eventually get Medicare. Most of your health care costs will be paid, and your insurance worries will be over. Then you can move on to the next major problem - finding health care. Our free market system is an absolute parody of real medicine. You get bumped from one arrogant specialist to the next, and whereas you will find plenty of people willing to blow smoke up your ass you will be very lucky to find a doctor who cares about doing his job. Compared to systems in every other industrialized country on earth, health care in this country is a joke. Seniors today should be afraid. America health care is barely short of lethal.
MiMiCcS April 16th, 2008 3:58 am

Where is the money to pay for it? Its the same place the Federal Reserve System banks and commercial banks get the money to loan you and the government money. They create it out of thin air. Poof, want 300 K, here it is, and they write you a 300 k a check on one hand, and enter 300 K on the other side of the ledger with their magic wand, creating 300 k of money. Didn’t even need to print the money.

If government creates it’s own money, and uses it for the general welfare of the people, like social benefits, infrastructure development and repair, rebuilding a new physical economy, then life could be good again, but the bankers won’t get as rich.

Central banking, where banks create the money and loan it to the government at interest, as established by the Bank of England in 1694, which led to the Fed in 1913, is the root cause of all evil and wars today.

But wait you say, if we don’t have the Fed we will have inflation and too much debt (heh heh). We never had inflation in our first 135 years except during war, since war causes inflation by increasing demand for weapons and supplies for fighting the war, and this is compouded today because it is financed by borrowing money). In fact, we had deflation during peace time, and no income taxes, which made you richer if you saved money. Inflation is the banks profit, and since 1913, 1 dollar is now worth 4 cents, and we have to pay income tax to pay the interest on money our government borrows to boost (the Fed was created at the same time as the Income tax. The income tax and central bank was part of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
As for too much debt if Congress issued it’s own money. WTF do you think we have now?

As for Americas health care being lethal. There is a reason for it. They want people to die earlier. The more people uninsured, the better. Those who find themslves out of work in their 50’s, many will never make it to 65 since they won’t be able to afford either insurance or HC, even with insurance since when you get sick, they find a way to deny you the treatment. If you die early, less social security payments they have to make, since they already spent the 2 trillion that is supposed to be in the trust fund, from money you and your employer paid as tax, and paying you from the trust fund when we have more retirees that will make social security run at a deficit for 20 years, as opposed to a 30 year run of surpluses, means they will have to borrow the money, starting from 2017, under the current system.

They could just write the trust fund a 2 trillion dollar check with money they create, but they won’t, since the current system of banking allows them to globalize and depopulate us, and people have been too dumbed down by MSM, and even the blogs, to even question it. It’s all here, as well as the solution.

http://www.webofdebt.com
Lobo Gris April 16th, 2008 5:48 am

Daniel David April 15th, 2008 12:16 pm

“Bash all you want. Yell all you want. Lie all you want.
It will not diminish this truth.”

You are the liar DD. On the one hand you claim you have no special connections or inside knowledge of the Democrats, and on the other that you know what Obama really wants to do rather than what he says in the campaign.

But hey, anything is OK as long as your chosen candidate is the one elected right?

Lobo Gris
Daniel David April 16th, 2008 1:35 pm

I claim no connections to the Democrats because I have none.
But I know a real liberal trying to get elected as a moderate when I see one. And Obama is exactly that.

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