Reason and Radical

No Crisis

Remember -- there is no Social Security crisis. Bush does not want to reform it -- he wants to destroy it. Consider this from the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

"For these reasons, it would be better to rely on the actual numbers than accept president bush’s claims about social security. the official numbers tell a very different story. The social security trustees report shows that the program can pay all scheduled benefits through the year 2042, with no changes whatsoever. even after 2042, the program would always be able to pay a higher benefit (in today’s dollars) than what retirees currently receive, although less than the full scheduled benefit.

The non-partisan congressional budget office did an independent investigation of social security’s finances and came up with an even brighter picture. They found that it could pay all benefits through the year 2052 with no changes whatsoever. furthermore, according to both sets of projections, the changes required to keep the program solvent through its entire seventy-five year planning period are smaller than the changes made in any of the decades from the 1950s to the 1980s.

If people knew the truth about social security’s finances, then there would be no support for President Bush’s benefit cuts and privatization plan – that is why proponents of privatization have worked hard to spread fear about social security’s financial health."

posted by Leimodnu @ 4:30 PM