Joined:
October 2006
Posts: 5575
Location: big island | December 26, 2007
Here is the problem. Starting back in the 1980s, our Social Security Taxes were raised to build up a lump of cash to cover the expected increase in costs as the Baby Boomers retired, and we all went along with that tax increase because many of us ARE Baby Boomers. But the problem is that Presidents, especially Clinton, looted the Social Security trust fund to balance the Federal Government's books. In Clinton's case, it was the Social Security money that allowed him to declare that his budget had a surplus. The problem is that now the Baby Boomers are starting to retire, and the Social Security Trust Fund (along with the Native American trust fund, the Federal Employees Retirement trust fund) are empty, filled with government IOUs. We The People are already taxed more than we can pay, as is evidenced by the flood of TV commercials for "Tax Resolution" services. Clinton "borrowed" his cash from the Social Security fund at a time when it was claimed the economy was booming. Obviously, if one has to borrow when the economy is good, there will never be a time when repayment is possible, and with the economy tanking now, certainly the government has to choose between denying the benefits we already paid for, or trying to tax us all a second time for those benefits.
Guess which they will choose. |
OT: not about politics, but yours and my future...