Reply #2: why would thieves tell you they're stealing from you? [View All]

"Given the heightened scrutiny of Social Security and it’s potential problems in recent weeks, it seems like the public would be aware of all the problems associated with the program, as well as their causes and of course the solution(s) being proposed."

HA!, for that the public would have to be paying attention for at least 20 years AND be able to remember details. What do you think this is, football statistics?

OK, you've got the general fund (where our taxes go), the social security fund (where most of our payroll taxes go), and the surplus social security fund (where the ADDITIONAL payroll taxes that we've been paying since '85 or '86 go). Three things, I know, infinitely complex.

What Hollings and Moynihan were particularly upset about was that they were behind the (85 or 86) increase that WOULD HAVE fixed Social Security! All we would have had to do was stick to their plan and Social Security would be fine today! It's not in as bad shape as the Republicans would have us believe for sure, but it's not true really to say that there is no crisis either. But when the bastards come back with their hands out to increase the payroll taxes AGAIN, remember that they already "fixed" it once, (and they really did! it was a good plan, if they didn't loot it, there would be trillions available (6 or 7, I think) just sitting there, collecting interest for the last 20 years!)

When Moynihan saw what they were doing with his beautiful plan, he said screw it, if you're just going to steal the (surplus) money for the general fund, GIVE IT BACK! He tried to repeal HIS OWN PLAN! (yes, what he really wanted was to just get back to actually following the plan, but I believe he was willing to toss it if it came to that.) For this stunning bit of honesty, Moynihan was crucified by the Republicans, they actually accused him of trying to DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY! For the most part, the Democrats stood by and twiddled their thumbs. Until Barbara Boxer and Conyers (and a few others) no Democrat has made the mistake of trying to tell the truth about anything important again!

Any President who makes the mistake of really using a "lockbox" will be destroyed politically by the opposition who will scream bloody murder about the "sudden skyrocketing" deficit that will be caused by this bit of truth in accounting. Really, they're all in this together, the Dem's and R's. Bush II took advantage of their (Dem's) past complicity and promptly gave the only bit of money that had ever NOT been looted out of the trust fund (under Clinton BTW) to the wealthiest people in the country! Bush (II) to Dem's: "What, you've hand your hands in the cookie jar for the last 20 years and you think you're going to tell the truth NOW?! Ha!" Plus, the whole thing is so outrageous it sounds like conspiracy theory, even though this one has been in all the papers.

Remember, income taxes affect all your income, payroll taxes including the surplus payroll taxes stop at a cutoff point, somewhere around 90K/year these days I think.

What this means is that the B* tax cuts, while going primarily to the people who had paid the most in ABSOLUTE terms into the surplus trust fund (because they made the most money and paid in all the way to the cutoff point), ACTUALLY paid in at the lowest rate when you look at it as a percentage of income.

If anything I'm saying here comes as news to you one important thing to remember is that if you properly pay your taxes, AND IF the majority (or all) of your time in the workforce was after 1985, AND IF you don't pay the maximum (earn less than the cutoff point), YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS GETTING SCREWED THE HARDEST IN ALL THIS MESS! YOU have paid a greater PERCENTAGE of your income into Social Security THAN ANYONE ELSE and will most likely get it the hardest on the back end as well, when they slash your benefits.

But that won't be all, before they slash our benefits we can count on at least one more major increase in the payroll tax (to "pay back" that money they've been stealing from you since '86) but this one will be much nastier than the last, 20 years of compound interest on trillions of dollars is hard to make up (remember there was actually supposed to be 40 years of compound interest in the trust fund before we had to take anything out!)

This will be (looked back on as) the largest financial scandal ever and it has been done completely in plain sight. The MSM's reporting on this was actually pretty good back in the day, until they started accusing Moynihan of destroying, rather than saving, SS. Then it went to hell although there's nothing I've said here that should be considered in any way "secret".

The second largest financial scandal ever was the Savings and Loan debacle, the reporting on it has always been for shit, though there has been enough info out there that in a rational world would prevent any Bush from attaining any elected office. "Curiously", the Dem's pretty much sat on their hands for this one too.

Of course, BushCo may very well come up with a new fleecing that will trump both of these older scandals, we'll see.

Cheers!