1: Just like any family sitting at their kitchen table does…
2: Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill workin’ nights an’ evenin’s together to find the best…
3: Tighten our belts…
4: Social Security will be “broke” in…
Day: February 16, 2011
Social Security isn’t even hard to understand. Taxes go in, benefits go out. Unlike healthcare, which involves extremely difficult questions of technological advancement and the specter of rationing, Social Security is just arithmetic.
[…]
Right now, Social Security costs about 4.5% of GDP. That’s going to increase as the baby boomer generation retires, and then in 2030 it steadies out forever at around 6% of GDP.
That’s it. That’s the story. Our choices are equally simple. If, about ten years from now, we slowly increase payroll taxes by 1.5% of GDP, Social Security will be able to pay out its current promised benefits for the rest of the century. Conversely, if we keep payroll taxes where they are today, benefits will have to be cut to 75% of their promised level by around 2040 or so. And if we do something in the middle, then taxes will go up, say, 1% of GDP and benefits will drop to about 92% of their promised level. But one way or another, at some level between 75% and 100% of what we’ve promised, Social Security benefits will always be there.
This is not a Ponzi scheme. It’s not unsustainable. The percentage of old people in America isn’t projected to grow forever. Lifespans will not increase to infinity. Taxes go in, benefits go out. It’s simple.
Kevin Drum: big yep. And almost a usable political slogan as well: Taxes go in, benefits come out. Got to work on something for the T-word, though.
It is, however, remarkable how the serious people in the MSM have obligingly turned Social Security into some sort of indecipherable rocket science which everyone knows will be defunct sometime later this week, all without ever pausing to consider that Social Security is A): self funded outside the annual budget (and therefore deficit neutral for many, many years to come), and B): the easiest fix currently in the entire governmental clusterfuck that the GOP both caused and loves to natter on about. You want to talk about something important? Let’s talk Medicare or defense spending if you want to get at the real dollars, Gwen. Let’s talk about the Bush tax cuts. Your Liberal Media.
It is, however, remarkable how the serious people in the MSM have obligingly turned Social Security into some sort of indecipherable rocket science which everyone knows will be defunct sometime later this week, all without ever pausing to consider that Social Security is A): self funded outside the annual budget (and therefore deficit neutral for many, many years to come), and B): the easiest fix currently in the entire governmental clusterfuck that the GOP both caused and loves to natter on about. You want to talk about something important? Let’s talk Medicare or defense spending if you want to get at the real dollars, Gwen. Let’s talk about the Bush tax cuts. Your Liberal Media.
Lemkin 