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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (29183)	1/22/1999 1:59:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

The issue of the SS funds was that over time since the Federal Budget will have to borrow to pay them, thereby issuing the regular treasuries, essentially converting debt. Why? The budget is going into "surplus". If the politicians don't decide to cut taxes in other places, the surplus can be used to pay back the SS trust funds. The issue is not one of default. The problem is that the regular income taxes may have to be raised in the regular income tax to cover these transfer payments. But why would it be wrong for regular income taxes to be used to pay back the SS trust fund, when for the past 15 years or so FICA taxes in excess of SS cash flow requirements did the converse, essentially augmenting income taxes and other general revenue? That's a lot of money, you know. Again, how are the SS trust fund obligations different in principle from other components of the national debt? Any way it turns out, it's intergenerational theft. The current recipients paid little into the system. That's sort of true, currently, though less true for new beneficiaries every year. It certainly won't be the case when SS cash flow goes into deficit in 2009 or 2013 or whenever. At that point, new retirees will have been paying at the ~15% / ~$60k ceiling for 25 years or so. It's all a pretty murky situation for you to be making a big "lying" case out of. The "lying" long predates Clinton, at any rate. "Intergenerational theft" is a nice catchy line, but you may as well just say "taxation is theft", and leave it at that. If you want to gut Social Security and Medicare, you should say so, and work to get political backing for it. If you don't, you're not being any more honest on the matter than Clinton. I'd wager you'll have a hard time finding any politicians running on a "gut SS/Medicare" platform, but let us know, ok? Ronald Reagan did sort of endorse that at one point, but then he went into denial when Carter brought it up in the '80 debates.