Harry is feckless and factless on Social Security
Sen. Harry Reid continues to insist Social Security is just fine. Pay no attention to the actuarial tables. Pay no attention to the fact the trust fund is a myth. Pay no attention to the baby boomers retiring.
In 1950 there were 16 workers supporting each retiree. Now there are 3.3 workers per retiree and that will fall to 2.2 in 2041.
On Monday Reid said it is an “outright lie” to say that Social Security is “headed toward bankruptcy.” He called the entitlement program “the most successful social program in the history of the world.”
“Let’s worry about Social Security when it’s a problem,” Reid said. “Today it’s not a problem.”
Two weeks ago, he told MSNBC, "Two decades from now, I'm willing to look at it" -- when he's 91 years old.
What was it John Maynard Keynes said about the looking at economic issues in the long run? Oh, yes, “In the long run, we’re all dead.”
Reid made his Pollyanna pitch while fellow Democratic Senator Tom Harkin was leading chants for Congress to "raise the cap," referring to current law that imposes the Social Security payroll tax only on the first $106,800 of gross wages. Someone in the Reid party thinks there is a problem and the answer is the usual: redistributionism.
The Congressional Budget Office says this about the so-called trust funds:
“Such intragovernmental transfers, which are projected to total $644 billion in 2011, reallocate costs from one category of the budget to another but do not directly change the total deficit or the government’s borrowing needs. If intragovernmental transfers are excluded and only income from sources outside the government (such as income from payroll taxes) is counted, the trust funds as a whole, in CBO’s view, will run annual deficits that increase from $549 billion in 2011 to $922 billion in 2021. …”
“Excluding interest, surpluses for Social Security become deficits of $45 billion in 2011 and $547 billion over the 2012–2021 period.”
Do the math, Harry.
Harry on Monday:
Harry earlier on same topic:
