Social Security's Bankruptcy Accelerates, and the Way Out
Posted by Anthony Gregory on 10/15/09 2:35 PM
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How do I know? Well, the government wants to issue "bonus checks" http://features.csmonitor.com/politi...a-bonus-check/ to Social Security recipients. The rationale is times are tough and people need more help. But what about the fact that there's been mild price deflation? And why should only those on the government dole get relief? Welfare expands, government salaries and payrolls increase, the taxpayer is milked more as the debt balloons. This is all unsustainable.
As for Social Security in particular, some wish to save the program by "privatizing" it -- mandating that young people invest in the market while still paying, one way or another, for retirees' benefits. This would be a disaster, and with the economic collapse, the nominally pro-market Bush Social Security plan, had it been enacted, might have discredited markets for a generation. Instead, we will see the entitlement state collapse sooner or later, and then it will be the federal government that's discredited.
I don't want to see it happen that way, however. So here's a decent transition plan: Pay for current retirees out of the general fund and end the payroll tax immediately. That's at least honest accounting. In a few decades, the program will be gone, without having to have thrown anyone out on the street, and without propping up an unconstitutional, uneconomical and grossly immoral system through a series of gimmicks that fails to restore liberty to anyone. We could also means-test benefits and offer a trade to seniors: Give up your social security checks and never have to pay federal taxes again. That would shrink the welfare state, rather than prolong it with a corporatized gloss.
Meanwhile, as there will be no cost of living adjustments, as Jesse notes (see article below), despite a real increase in the true cost of living, the answer is the same as it is for protecting all those with fixed incomes: End the Fed, or at least stop printing money, which effectively robs from the poor and those with fixed incomes to give to the state and its cronies.
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SOURCE and COMMENTS: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=26484
No Social Security COLA
Posted by Jesse Benton on 10/15/09 2:26 PM
It's official - there will be no Social Security COLA through 2012- and I don't mean an unsatisfying beveage to wash down your government cheese.
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The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on the consumer-price index for workers, urban wage earners and clerical workers. Seniors will not receive a cost-of-living increase for the first time since 1975.
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The highly manipulated, poorly calculated and politically motivated CPI is a horrible metric to judge the real cost of living. This news means that our parents and grandparents, forced into dependency on the state run ponzy scheme, will be further squeezed as they try to pay for medicine, food, ect.
Social Security is going broke, and fast. Meanwhile, Congress and the Obama Administration continue to raid the trust fund to mask just how horrific our real deficit is. We need to come to our senses, stop treating the trust like a slush fund and let young people opt of social security before this mountain of irresponsibility crushes us for good.
Read more here:
Obama Backs $250 Payment to Seniors Lacking COLA Hike http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a_QqatBnU_V4
SOURCE: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=26483