Social Security Report—The Sky Is Not Falling
Ohmigawd…Look out…Everybody Run…The Sky Is Falling!!!!
Yesterday’s media coverage of the latest Social Security
trustees’ report wasn’t quite that hysterical. But
you can be sure we’re going to hear loud and repeated calls that Social
Security is in a huge “CRISIS” from the Bush administration and
other groups with a big stake in privatizing the cornerstone of
America’s retirement security.
Most media outlets trumpeted how the report’s figures show Social
Security will pay full benefits through 2040, a year less than last
year’s report predicted. After that, without any changes whatsoever, it
will be able to pay out 74 percent of scheduled benefits. Social Security
trustees, three of whom are Bush cabinet members, annually update the
status of Social Security.
(The report follows the Bush administration’s move to eliminate
traditional pension plans for workers employed by private
contractors at the U.S. Department of Energy.)
The loud cries of crisis and extremist talk show banter about grandma
and grandpa living in a refrigerator box unless we privatize Social
Security and let Wall Street take care of the nation’s seniors are
likely to grow following the report. But the Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities took the kind of deep breath we all
should:
The new trustees’ report is consistent with previous reports. It
shows that Social Security faces a significant but manageable challenge.
While acting sooner rather than later will help reduce the size of the
eventual adjustments, the trustees’ report indicates that Social
Security does not face a deep structural crisis requiring drastic
changes.
The panic mongers always point to the huge impact of the Social
Security shortfall (estimated at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years) on
the deficit. Center Executive
Director Robert Greenstein points out there is an even larger
threat—President Bush’s tax cuts:
The Trustees’ report places the size of the Social Security
shortfall at $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years, a little more than one-third
the cost of the tax cuts over the same period. The cost of the tax
cuts just for the top 1 percent of Americans—people with annual
incomes today of more than $400,000—itself is about equal to the cost
of closing the Social Security shortfall.
House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reminds us that when Bush took
up residency in the White House, he inherited a $5.6 trillion budget
surplus—and immediately squandered it:
Rather than using the Clinton surpluses to strengthen Social Security
or Medicare, the President and the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress
chose to go into debt by recklessly giving massive tax cuts to the
wealthy.
She also says the report’s findings that Social Security can pay full
benefits through 2040 and 74 percent after that:
…flatly contradicts Republican efforts to manufacture a
‘crisis’ in Social Security to justify a privatization plan that is
unaffordable, unnecessary, and unwise.
Of course, a manufactured “Social Security crisis” was the battle
cry of Bush’s failed attempt to privatize Social Security. His so-called
solution would have
eliminated guaranteed benefits, reduced benefit levels and boosted the
retirement age.
The AFL-CIO, the Alliance
for Retired Americans and other groups long have pointed out how
Social Security is the cornerstone of retirement security and should be
strengthened—but not through risky privatization schemes.
On the lighter side, over at Daily
Kos, Gumby,
who also notes the mainstream media’s “sky is falling,” coverage of
Social Security, posts a poll: “Is the President trying to destroy
Social Security again?”
Gotta admit, it’s a little snarky, but take a look.
by Mike
Hall