Snake Noises
Well, as it's a hot topic currently, expect to hear more hissing as we continue to discuss Social Security. Today's link is to an article by Gary Becker.
His point is privatizing retirement accounts reduces the amount of fiscal chicanery the government can engage in with the funds. This is a strong case for privatization in and of itself, absent any other reasons. The financial picture of the federal government is deliberately distorted by the effects of the additional income from SS taxes. Removing the money from the general ledger will lead to a more accurate picture of the budget. Surely that's a good thing, right? I would think everyone wants the budget numbers to be as accurate as possible.
Of course, the ugly truth is that nobody wants to fix SS because they don't have to fix it yet. The system can limp along for a few more years before it becomes too critical to ignore. Then, it will simply cost more money to fix the failing vestiges of socialism. After all, it's federal money, not real money. So what if it costs a few more billion to fix? It's not like anybody in Congress is covering the checks. They're relying on all of us to pay up to fix the failures of the past 60 years.
On a related note, this is why certain Senators piss me off when they start talking about long-term problems like SS. In particular, Robert Byrd (D-KKK), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Ted Kennedy (D-runk), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Joe Biden (D-DE), Pete Domenici (R-NM), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) all need to have a nice hot cup of STFU on the issue. They've all been in the Senate for better than 30 years. Hell, crazy old Robert Byrd has been in the Senate since before my father could vote. They've had ample opportunity to bring up fixing long-term structural problems in entitlement programs. At this point, they are most emphatically part of the fucking problem, in addition to being walking arguments for term limits.
His point is privatizing retirement accounts reduces the amount of fiscal chicanery the government can engage in with the funds. This is a strong case for privatization in and of itself, absent any other reasons. The financial picture of the federal government is deliberately distorted by the effects of the additional income from SS taxes. Removing the money from the general ledger will lead to a more accurate picture of the budget. Surely that's a good thing, right? I would think everyone wants the budget numbers to be as accurate as possible.
Of course, the ugly truth is that nobody wants to fix SS because they don't have to fix it yet. The system can limp along for a few more years before it becomes too critical to ignore. Then, it will simply cost more money to fix the failing vestiges of socialism. After all, it's federal money, not real money. So what if it costs a few more billion to fix? It's not like anybody in Congress is covering the checks. They're relying on all of us to pay up to fix the failures of the past 60 years.
On a related note, this is why certain Senators piss me off when they start talking about long-term problems like SS. In particular, Robert Byrd (D-KKK), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Ted Kennedy (D-runk), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Joe Biden (D-DE), Pete Domenici (R-NM), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) all need to have a nice hot cup of STFU on the issue. They've all been in the Senate for better than 30 years. Hell, crazy old Robert Byrd has been in the Senate since before my father could vote. They've had ample opportunity to bring up fixing long-term structural problems in entitlement programs. At this point, they are most emphatically part of the fucking problem, in addition to being walking arguments for term limits.
posted by T at 2:15 PM
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