Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Social Security - It's not really there?
Smoke and mirrors! Don't be fooled...
Charles Krauthammer recently wrote about the White House and Social Security AND Jack Lew:
"The relative ease of the fix is what makes the Obama administration's Social Security strategy so shocking. The new line from the White House is: no need to fix it because there is no problem. As Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in USA Today just a few weeks ago, the trust fund is solvent until 2037. Therefore, Social Security is now off the table in debt-reduction talks.
This claim is a breathtaking fraud.
The pretense is that a flush trust fund will pay retirees for the next 26 years. Lovely, except for one thing: The Social Security trust fund is a fiction.
If you don't believe me, listen to the OMB's own explanation (in the Clinton administration budget for fiscal year 2000 under then-Director Jack Lew, the very same). The OMB explained that these trust fund 'balances' are nothing more than a 'bookkeeping' device. "They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits."
In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains — nothing."
