The Bills Keep Piling Up

Unnoticed in the media last week among the all important stories like what Barack Obama's preacher said on the pulpit (why are people still talking about that?), John McCain's teeth, and nipple rings, the Social Security Board of Trustees released its 2008 annual report on the finances of the Social Security Trust Fund.

It's not pretty and hasn't been for years:

The Report released Tuesday pointed out that when benefits payouts exceed revenue, Social Security will have to dig into its assets the fund has accumulated over the years to fund the over-extended benefits. The Report also noted that once Social Security goes upside down, it can only continue to fund the benefits until 2041. ... if the Government does not somehow begin to pay back the money it owes to the Social Security Funds, then current benefits will HAVE to be reduced by 2017 because there will be no assets for them to fall back on. With nearly 80 million baby boomers planning to begin drawing benefits in the coming years, there is no way possible to reduce benefit spending.

All candidates agree that a massive Social Security Reform is inevitable. The major difference is, the Democrats think the Government can fix it, while the Republicans feel it is better off partly privatized and less reliant on the Government. Where all the front-running candidates falter is the fact that they have all been in Senate for at least the last 2 years, with McCain and Hillary being in the Senate for a minimum of 6 years, and neither of them have yet to do anything about the Social Security problem.

Read the rest at Political Lore

Star Parker on Social Security

Social Security always reminds me of that movie "Dumb and Dumber" where Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels characters find that suitcase full of cash and they end up spending it all. In the process they write "IOU's", to keep track of where the money goes. "Don't lose THAT one, that's a Lamborghini!" one of them says (or something to that effect). It's obvious that there is no way that the money is ever going to come back upon presentation of the "IOU".

That's what our national "pension" system is. A big scam and a looming economic calamity for us. It's a stack of IOU's that are never going to be able to be redeemed.

Star Parker writes a column that talks about how Chile has been able to privatize it's Social Security system by giving its citizens a choice on whether to continue to participate in, or to opt out of the government administered program.

Hardly surprising, but 90% of the citizens choose to opt out of the government system.

Star's article is here.