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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (65963)	5/5/2008 6:08:37 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

If you were a British taxpayer, and a consol were never redeemed, that consol looks just like paying for SS or any other gov't expense that never stops while the gov't exists. You pay and pay and pay to pay the bond holder his interest. If that consol is debt, SS is debt. You know and I know that, in political reality, SS, once started, never stops; ie., it is a debt. Now in theory the gov't could say "OK. We're done. No more social security payments." But in fact that has no more chance of happening than of the gov't abolishing the military. (That has - sort of - been done by Japan and Costa Rica.) A more palatable version would be to say that those who have contributed for X years will get their SS and those who have contributed for less years will get payments at retirement until they are paid back. Given the leftist strength in this country, that also has no chance. You're stuck. You will keep paying. And that means it is a debt. Now the amount of that debt IS open to discussion. SS has COLA - cost of living increases. The amount of those depend on what predictions you make as to inflation - and how the gov't figures inflation. That last statement is how the gov't couls (and likely will) get out of its increasing SS debt. It simply uses an artificially low inflation figure. The mechanism is already in place for that and being used. SS Part D is another problem.