Billionaire and presidential race spoiler Ross Perot is back. During the 1992 race Perot was famous for making economic charts and graphs part of his political process as he attempted to explain in clear terms the economic trends of taxation, government spending, GDP and national debt, and why he thought we were headed towards disaster.
Now Perot has launched a web site, Perot Charts, which is just stock full of charts and graphs highlighting America’s “economic crises” due to deficit spending.
In a statement Monday, Perot said the nation's debt reached $9.4 trillion in April and is rising more than $1 billion a day.
"We are leaving our children and grandchildren with debt they cannot possibly pay," he said. "The economic crisis facing America today is far greater than anything since the Great Depression."
There’s also a blog with some additional materials. I rather like this chart:
It clearly shows that the top 10 percent of earners pay an astounding 69.7 percent of the taxes in this country. Add in “earned income tax credit” and what we have here is wealth redistribution (can you say “socialism” children?).
Now we hear that Obama wants to eliminate the $250K limit on Social Security taxes:
The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make," while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only "a very small percentage of their income."
This would be the largest expansion of FDR’s “New Deal” since LBJ’s “Great Society”. Obama would be turning something that was originally intended to be a pensioning program for retirees into yet another liberal wealth redistribution scheme. It’s bad enough that the government takes my money and returns it years later with a fraction of the interest that I could earn in the private sector. Now he wants to take money and flat out give it to people who didn’t earn it.
To further complicate matters, Obama is proposing a “Doughnut Plan” in which income between $102K and $250K would still be immune to Social Security tax. Any doubt that once in place, the hole of this “doughnut” would gradually shrink until it completely disappears?
McCain, on the other hand, would not consider an increase “under any imaginable circumstance” (something Obama would never promise). Then again, he is mangling the presentation of his Social Security plan to the point of appearing to be flip-flopping on the word that frightens liberals so much: “privatization”.
Hey McCain, when you allow younger workers to choose the accounts they want to put their retirement savings into it is in fact partial privatization, so don’t be afraid of calling it that. Old people will understand as long as you guarantee their retirement income too. We have to get out of this hole. Lead us there, and maybe even libertarians like me will follow.
The Bush administration signed a confidential agreement with Mexico in 2004 that could send billions of tax dollars to Mexico in the form of Social Security payments.
Under current law, illegal aliens are not eligible for Social Security benefits. Under the secret agreement, however, anyone who obtains legal residence can use their work history to obtain benefits for them and their dependents — and although the benefit amount is governed by work in the U.S., work history in Mexico counts in qualifying for benefits.
As Congress is on the verge of granting yet another blanket amnesty, this legislation has the potential of costing the teetering Social Security system billions of dollars, hastening the certain bankruptcy of the system.
The Social Security Administration claims that the agreement will only cost $105 million over the first five years, but the Government Accounting Office places that figure much higher.
- A 2003 GAO report said the agreement with Mexico was shoddy work that didn't investigate the reliability of Mexico's data or take into account the millions of illegal aliens who would become eligible.
- They also disputed the Social Security Administration's estimate that the agreement would cost $105 million a year for the first five years, saying the costs could be much higher given the uncertainty of who could benefit.
The TREA Senior Citizens League, an offshoot from a group of retired military personnel, sued the government to obtain the text of the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement after three years and a half years of stalling by the government. After reviewing the agreement, TREA says that the payout could be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Those aligned against the agreement say that it is potentially a huge drain on the Social Security trust fund and may encourage even more illegal immigration. Those supporting it say that it is only fair that those who paid into the system should receive the benefit.
Of course, many of those who paid into the system did so after having stolen the identities of real Americans. A loophole in the current Social Security law would authorize benefits for earnings under fraudulent or "non-work authorized" Social Security numbers.
Currently, wages that can't be posted matched to an individual worker because official records don't contain a name/SSN match go into an "earnings suspense file". Illegals who are able to obtain a real SSN will be able to claim those earnings, even if they are not citizens.
Note that the earnings suspense file now contains over a half trillion dollars. Further, according to the congressional testimony of SSA Inspector General Patrick P. O'Carroll in February 2006:
We believe the chief cause of wage items being posted to the earnings suspense file instead of an individual's earning record is unauthorized work by non citizens.
Once an immigrant gains access to a work authorized Social Security number -- whether a legal citizen or not -- wages earned while in the U.S. unlawfully could be reinstated to the worker's new Social Security account. The Congressional Research Service reports the earnings suspense file currently stands at approximately $520 billion.
And of course, all illegals who paid into the system did so as criminals that were here illegally. That's why it's called illegal immigration.
Thankfully, there are those like Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) who see to the heart of the matter:
My record is clear: I do not believe that those who engage in illegal activity should benefit financially for their illegal actions.
Bush has not yet signed the agreement nor sent it to Congress for consideration, who will then have 60 days to reject it or it becomes law. Politicians don't have to go on record to vote against it, it'll just happen! Given that the alien-friendly, terrorist coddling, criminal loving Democrats take power today, it is not a stretch to imagine that Congress will see it soon. Nor is it unreasonable to imagine that they will either vote to further destabilize our retirement fund, or ignore the issue so that it automatically becomes our tax burden.
Yep, I'll be working until I'm 72 for sure. So will many of you.
According to the Vanguard® Center for Retirement Research, even the wealthiest 40% of retirees depend on Social Security for a third of their retirement income, on average.I figure I'll be working until I'm 70, given the lengthened life spans, aging population and government debt. But when I eventually retire, I'm going to be depending on getting back at least some of the vast sums of money I've put into the system.
Technorati Tags: Social Security.
The 2005 poll shows that 52% support the plan with 40% opposing it. This poll was commissioned by the Cato Institute.
But in 2003 a Cato-funded Zogby poll found that 68% of Americans favored such a plan.
Is it getting worse for the president? We can't tell, because the population suveyed is different. One is of likely voters, the other is the general population.
Also, we don't know the how the wording of the questions compare. As Zogby himself says:
"The thing that is compelling in this poll is that this is the response you get when you use a positive approach on Social Security reform," Mr. Zogby said. "If you use the 'Chicken Little, sky-is-falling' approach, then voters understand that something has to be done, but don't see the connection between personal accounts and fundamental reform of Social Security."Power Line takes it further, saying, "I've never liked talking about Social Security "rates of return," since the fact is that there isn't any investment, just payment of taxes." and then quoting these passages from the article:
Among supporters, the most popular reason for supporting private accounts was, "It's my money; I should control it," Mr. Zogby said. "This was true for every group except African-Americans, who chose inheritability as their biggest reason for supporting accounts."Power Line and Zogby are both correct: the president should focus the debate on what it will do for the taxpayer, not on the accounting problems.The poll's results suggested that Mr. Bush's proposal would be much more popular if he focused "on the points in this poll," Mr. Zogby said in an interview. "Nobody can understand or relate to the system's insolvency in 2043. But it wins a majority when the issue is raised as a matter of choice and as a positive opportunity," he said. "If it's pitted as just Social Security reform because it is becoming insolvent, that's not enough."
But one more aspect of Social Security should be considered and I found it at the QandO Blog:
There’s a bigger point to be made here though, and I found it in this month’s National Review.There's more. Read it all.As you know, United Airlines is about to default on its pensions. Of course, the pension program is backed by the US government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
What that means is the taxpayers are now on the hook for the United pensions. If other businesses follow the example of United, its possible the taxpayers could end up being on the hook for billions.
"Social Security is a major problem in this country. We have to make sure that it's preserved for those that come after us," Mr. Hoffa said in an interview with Gannett News Service. "I think President Bush should be given credit for the fact that he has initiated a debate regarding what we should do."
Wexler's legislation, dubbed the Social Security Forever Act, would remove the current cap on payroll taxes that fund Social Security for those with incomes above $90,000 a year. The bill would impose a 6 percent tax on income above that level - 3 percent paid by the wage earner and 3 percent by the employer.As expected, rather than trying to give people more control over their money or more return on their investment, a Democrat is taxing the rich to subsidize the poor. Ah well, at least it's better than simply, "No!"The bill also would attempt to protect Social Security funds from being diverted for other reasons by reinstituting expired "pay-as-you-go" rules in the federal budget process that require that any future tax cuts or spending increases be paid for elsewhere.
However, the rest of the Party of No is not amused:
Democrats reacted frostily to Wexler's bill."U.S. Rep. Wexler represents a party of one," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"It's still the belief of the Democratic caucus that the president has to take private accounts off the table before we can begin substantive negotiations," Manley said.
That is about to change:
Democratic senators on the Finance Committee this week quietly floated a document titled “Savings Options,” which sources say is designed as a counter to Bush’s plan for personal accounts in Social Security. The document, obtained by The Hill, details several legislative possibilities, including a mandate on employers to provide payroll-deduction savings options for all employees.Fine so far. Or youth will get some sort of retirement savings option, even if they aren't government-selected funds. If done correctly, this could be a valid solution.
Then there's this:
It also tackles low-income incentives for saving by setting up accounts at birth in which the government would deposit $500 for each newborn and $1,000 for families with below-average incomes. The accounts would allow parents to contribute more money until the child turns 18, “with a government match for contributions from lower-income parents.”So the government will start using our tax dollars to fund retirement for people beginning at birth, years before they get a job from which to retire.
The mind boggles.
Last year Democrats impaled themselves on the Iraq war. They were so anxious to denounce the invasion that they failed to acknowledge the most basic point of all: that, having waded into Iraq, the United States could not leave prematurely. By attacking the Bush policy relentlessly, Democrats sounded negative. By refusing to say clearly that they would finish the Iraq job, they sounded irresponsible.Money quote:Now Democrats risk making the same mistake on Social Security. They are so anxious to denounce private accounts that they fail to acknowledge the most basic point: Social Security has a serious deficit. The Post reported Friday that nearly every Democratic senator refuses even to contemplate the Bush proposals. But the Democrats have no proposal of their own. They sound negative and irresponsible.
Progressives may prefer Sperling-style add-on accounts, as I do. But a party whose senators unanimously refuse to contemplate carve-out accounts is a party that's closed its collective mind. And a party that refuses to acknowledge the urgency of entitlement reform is a party of ostriches.
"We were in planning stages [with friendly Democrats]," said Ryan. But each essentially told him: "I like what you're doing. I like this bill. I think it's the right way to go. But my party leadership will break my back. The retribution that they are promising us is as great as I have ever seen. We can't do it."Ryan said he believed the only thing that can assure passage is an outpouring from America's grassroots.
Mr. Linkletter, the former host of "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" and current National Chairman of the United Seniors Association (USA), made his views on the AARP known Monday in an interview on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto."During the interview, the 93-year-old conservative Linkletter touted the importance of Social Security reform with personal retirement accounts and went on to call the AARP, which opposes President Bush's reform plan, "the largest liberal lobbying group in Washington."
HUMAN EVENTS has learned USA has no intention of backing down from Linkletter's criticism of the AARP. In fact, the coming issue of USA Next, a quarterly publication by USA and a special supplement to HUMAN EVENTS, takes on the AARP directly.
In addition, USA CEO Charlie Jarvis will appear on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor" on Thursday, February 10, to launch the "USA Next Stop Scaring Seniors NOW!" -- a campaign focusing on the AARP and the alleged damage it has done and continues to do to America.
Together, advocates on both sides plan to spend tens of millions of dollars, perhaps as much as $100 million, before the year is out. That's less than Social Security pays out in benefits every two hours but still a lot for a legislative campaign.$100 million every two hours? No wonder the Democrats want to secure the "lock box". They'll be able to raid it if they ever take back power!