>cuthbertallgood: What said about raising the cap on payroll tax as a solution to future Social Security problems was very much correct.

Anything this easy to fix, can't be much of a 'crisis'.

To help solve the solve the social security issue we need to make sure everyone contributes including state workers/teachers/professors that are exempt from the SS tax in some states. Yep, the very folks arguing for social security tax increase may very well be exempt:
Summary of the law:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0547.htm
Heres an link from USAToday back in 2004:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-06-29-benefits-loophole_x.htm
Snippet:
DALLAS (AP) " Thousands of Texas teachers are rushing to retire before a lucrative loophole in Social Security law closes, but there's one catch: They must first spend a day washing windows or scrubbing floors.
Most Texas teachers do not pay into Social Security and instead participate in a state pension fund. But the loophole allows them to receive Social Security benefits if their last day of work before retirement is in a job covered by Social Security.

Someone pointed out very rightly that one of the problems we will face is the loss of good jobs that paid decent wages. bushit & toadies have lost over three million manufacturing jobs that were mostly held by folks who grew up during the times when it wasn't vital to have a college degree. A lot of the work was hard and with the parental enthusiasm of the day, people didn't want their kids to have have to work as hard as they did. (Don't know why, it didn't hurt any of us to have to work hard. We older folks have a vastly superior work ethic. We even have ethics!) That said, people spent their wages educating their kids and sometimes themselves, saved some but with the mismanagement and transfer of wealth through nefarious means by the right-wing thieves currently and mostly in charge of the piggy (no pun intended) bank, nowhere near enough to secure their futures. Families that had one wage earner were forced to become two-earner since mostly these "newly created jobs" pay a fraction of the previous wages.
I have said in numerous posts prior, that all or nearly all of Social Security's difficulties can be solved through raising the cap of the portion of income received. Those among us who have incomes that run to millions annually have the money to set up lush retirement plans and will never need SS. All this and still the money for $25,000.00 handbags to take on $100,000.00 cruises! Let them pay their fair share. They didn't work for their money in most cases. These obscene CEO packages are handed to the recipients and the "work" is delegated to people making a tiny fraction of the pay. It has ever been thus.

Note to Obama: If you really want to understand the problems in getting Social Security, disability, etc., talk to some people who have recently applied for it. Especially people who have a catastrophic illness and are treated like f*****g scum of the earth by asshole Social Security workers. Not all are this way. But you'd be amazed how many are. Then many times you have to go to court to end up being allowed to get the help that you need to be treated like a human being again. Try living on Social Security or disability, Senator. See how far you'd get.

Like Krugman, you are mixing and distoring messages here. There is a pending crisis within Social Security, and anyone who can grasp advanced financial concepts has said as much

An Analyis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas (http://www.kc.frb.org/PUBLICAT/ECONREV/PDF/1q06hakk.pdf):

"An overview of Social Security"s long-term outlook

Over the next decade or so, Social Security will be in sound fiscal shape, as dedicated revenues will more than pay for promised expenditures, even as expenditures rise. Moreover, since dedicated Social Security revenues paid to the Treasury Department are currently greater than expenditures paid by the Treasury Department for benefits, the difference helps reduce the federal budge deficit.

Beginning in 2017, through, the situation changes"when projected expenditures exceed dedicated revenues. The Treasury Department will continue to debit the Trust Fund for the expenditures it pays and credit the Trust Fund with dedicate revenue and interest credits. The Trust Fund balance will continue to be positive for some time, and Treasury will continue to pay for benefits. But when Social Security"s dedicate revenues fall below promised benefits, the government must draw on other revenue sources to help pay for the benefits. In other words, with no changes in other government spending or revenue, the government"s total budget deficit will grow.

Over time, the deficit between dedicated revenue and expenditures is projected to keep mounting. The government will continue to pay promised benefits as long as the balance of the Trust Fund stays positive. Eventually, when the expenditures exceed dedicated revenues plus interest, the Treasury must begin to redeem assets from the Trust Fund. The assets in the Trust Fund are simply IOUs, singed by the federal government. To pay the IOUs the government must look elsewhere for real resources. Thus, the federal budged deficit will continue to deepen.

The Trustees of the Social Security project that the Trust Fund"s assets will be depleted in 2041. Thus, under existing law, the government will have no choice: It must reduce expenditures by enough to insure that expenditures equal dedicated revenues."

Again, another misinformed political hack trying to mix messages.

I give you the same report that I gave Krugman.

An Analysis From the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas on the sovency of Social Securiy(http://www.kc.frb.org/PUBLICAT/ECONREV/PDF/1q06hakk.pdf):

"An overview of Social Security's long-term outlook

Over the next decade or so, Social Security will be in sound fiscal shape, as dedicated revenues will more than pay for promised expenditures, even as expenditures rise. Moreover, since dedicated Social Security revenues paid to the Treasury Department are currently greater than expenditures paid by the Treasury Department for benefits, the difference helps reduce the federal budge deficit.

Beginning in 2017, through, the situation changes"when projected expenditures exceed dedicated revenues. The Treasury Department will continue to debit the Trust Fund for the expenditures it pays and credit the Trust Fund with dedicate revenue and interest credits. The Trust Fund balance will continue to be positive for some time, and Treasury will continue to pay for benefits. But when Social Security's dedicated revenues fall below promised benefits, the government must draw on other revenue sources to help pay for the benefits. In other words, with no changes in other government spending or revenue, the government's total budget deficit will grow.

Over time, the deficit between dedicated revenue and expenditures is projected to keep mounting. The government will continue to pay promised benefits as long as the balance of the Trust Fund stays positive. Eventually, when the expenditures exceed dedicated revenues plus interest, the Treasury must begin to redeem assets from the Trust Fund. The assets in the Trust Fund are simply IOUs, singed by the federal government. To pay the IOUs the government must look elsewhere for real resources. Thus, the federal budged deficit will continue to deepen.

The Trustees of the Social Security project that the Trust Fund's assets will be depleted in 2041. Thus, under existing law, the government will have no choice: It must reduce expenditures by enough to insure that expenditures equal dedicated revenues."

So call it a crisis then or a crisis now.

There is more than one crisis at Social Security. I work at SSA in an inner city office.

At some point in the near future that trust fund is going to start paying out more than what it takes in. The 78 million baby boomers that have now started retiring are going to make sure that happens. Also with the fact that people are living longer, they are taking out way more than they ever paid in.

Raising the amount of payroll taxes someone pays is a good way to fix it for the future. Even if after the cap we have now, the tax rate was 7.65 instead of 15.30 (where the employee and employer would pay 3.225% each instead of 7.65 each) I think it would be fair.

Another issue that many people don't realize is that they workforce at SSA is declining rapidly and the employees that are retiring are taken 35-40 years of knowledge each with them. The President doesn't think replacing the workers we are losing is important. We are constantly given less money than what we need to run the operating side of SSA. In my office alone we are working with 8 less people than what we are supposed to have to serve the public that we see on a daily basis. We see at least 200 per day, and sometimes up to 400 per day. Everything is taking longer to get done and the few people that have been hired, 3 in the last 2 years (to replace 11 that have retired) are coming out of basic type training with a limited knowledge of a very complex program. All the experience is going out the door and we have no time to train people properly.

You may think that privatization of the workforce would fix this, but it wouldn't matter if there still isn't enough money to take care of the public properly.

I'm no Obama supporter, but what he said today on Meet the Press about raising the cap on payroll tax as a solution to future Social Security problems was very much correct, and I am happy to hear some politician take that position.

Ok, this is starting to get a little RIDICULOUS!

If you don't want decenting views, you should say so!

Don't post Obama bashing or reasonable arguements against him and not post reasonable comments in his support.

Post my comment please and stop being so stuck up! Next time you post something you should have a disclaimer that " No Obama supporter allowed".

Obama has said that SS is not in an immediate crisis but it needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.

I will give you a SCENERIO. You have been layed off but you have about $6000 in your account. You know you have enough money to feed your family and pay the bills for 3 months. Should you start worrying about the 4th month on day one or would you wait till 3months is almost over? That's what's going on here!!!

The Social Security retirement fund contains $1,844,300,000,000. Last year it took in $181,300,000,000 more than was paid out.

Some crisis.

What happened to my comment?

Obama spoke the words because they're true. Social security is in crisis.

Answer to the social security crisis: privatize, allow citizens to have personal accounts, control these accounts and where and how they are invested. And, maybe means test benefits, but that may be the start down a slippery slope.

no crisis fascism will solve it.

fascism is on its way even the demos support it. and americans support the two party system.

when the economy goes under americans will demand a dictator then this will bring on fascism.

as a learning opportunity americans must go through years of fascism and hardship.

then and only then will a republic appeal to americans and they may even learn the difference between a republic and a democracy.

the signs of fascism are everywhere blackwater setting up organizatons across america with indvidual spy organizations, laws limiting our consitutional rights, mercenary voluntree army, army now training how to torture americans in az, corporate controlling politicans, refusal to impeach fellow politicans for treasons, etc.

I know how to fix social insecurity...
immediately enact a 976 quintillion percent
increase in the income tax rate....the dollar
will be 1-1 with the peso soon enough, as
soon as it's worthless and there's no more
gummit po-gams, then they can print the Newdollar in odd-numbered denominations, and
only have 17 dollars total in circulation. Starve peasants, starve! LOL

Anyone who can count can see that we're going to have to do something about Social Security. Other countries have already taken measures. But not us. We can't admit there's a problem. And thanks to Reagan, ours is even worse than it should be.

Blaming the Republicans won't fix it.

Pretending the problem doesn't exist won't fix it.

Romanticizing about FDR won't fix it.

Wishing won't fix it.

Let's hear some plans so that we can all enjoy the program we've been investing in.

This guy Obama's working overtime to get his polling numbers as low as he can. He's funnier than Stephen Colbert. From bombing Pakistan to attacking baby boomers to his comments on Social Security to he can't promise to be out of Iraq by 2013, this guy is not only not ready for prime time, he's not ready for any time.

Why doesn't this idiot just drop out and back Richardson -- and Edwards should follow on his heels. That way at least anti-war forces could actually unite behind a "mainstream" type truly anti-war, pro-Constitution candidate.

Obviously Kucinich would make the best President by far. But if people can't make that leap -- they think the idea of a Department of Peace is somehow a bad one -- at least Richardson represents what Howard Dean used to call the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

This is specious. OBama clearly doesn't give a rats ass about the baby boomers and their useless ideas from the 1960's. So why get into a froth about social security.

I really hope that Biden or Edwards can make a string showing in Iowa. Obama was an empty flash in the pan - a no go show boat. And Hillary is a corporate owned proxy candidate for sleazy bill. If Edwards or Biden can't make a good showing then we're going to be stuck with Pres. Rudy for eight years.

Regarding Social Security,have most people lost sight of the fact that jobs that pay living wages have been lost and that the workers that still remain in the industrial workforce are employed at ever decreasing wages?That alone places the the system in a precarious position.Without the same funding levels from the same or increasing amounts of eligible workers you cannot expect the system to return the same level of benefits.With outsourcing,downsizing,diminishing Union participation with the resulting loss of benefits for the American work force the funding for the system will never reach the levels that are so crucial to it's success.Until this Corporation driven scheme is curtailed the average American citizen will have the same bleak lifestyle that they had before the Social Security System was instituted.

"He's an idiot. . . Parents are probably idiots too"
~~~~ Back to the Future I

That's it - I've had enough. I'm voting for Edwards - AGAIN.
*

Laugh. Oh, Obama is just so tough on Hillary. She may not be convincing voters she wants to fix social security?

Translation: Pick me for VP Hillary, Pick Me. I'll never point out to voters why they REALLY shouldn't vote for you.

There *is* a problem with social security, and it will grow in severity as we do nothing about it. No, we do not have to switch to private accounts like the GOP wants, but Obama is right to take this issue on.

ABC NEWS: Edwards Picked Over Obama as 'The Un-Hillary'

Teddy Davis, Nov. 8, 2007

Former North Carolina Senator Nabs Coveted Iowa Endorsement

DES MOINES, IA -- Caucus4Priorities, a group seeking to redirect spending from the Pentagon to domestic needs, plans to endorse John Edwards Friday in Des Moines.

The decision to endorse Edwards over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama came down to "courage versus caution," according to the group's executive director.

"There's a rhetoric gap with Obama," executive director Peggy Huppert told ABC News. "He told me personally: 'Trust me. Ideologically, I'm with you.' But people have told him to be afraid of being pushed too far to the left. He doesn't bring up [cuts in Pentagon spending] on his own. He doesn't incorporate it into his speeches. He skirts around it. He talks around the edges. He never gets to the heart of it in strong, bold language."

Edwards, by contrast, won over the group with his harder edge.

SOURCE: ABC NEWS (Edwards Picked Over Obama as 'The Un-Hillary', Nov 08,2007)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3840606&page=1

Without the sure income from SS taxation, our Presidents would have much harder times to wage wars because the money is borrowed by the Federal Government the moment it arrives in Washington. Senator Obama has never made an attempt to stop this (read: make a lock box the law of the land). In fact, he has helped President Bush to raid the SS fund by voting funds for the war in Iraq. Every time this Senator talks about money he tries to make us forget his pro-war votes in the Senate.