On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:35:53 -0800, Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Erik Reuter wrote: > > * Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > > > >>I haven't said "do nothing." But I don't see how we can possibly > >>reach any sort of consensus about what to, since we don't agree on > >>whether this is a present or future crisis. > > > > > > So you agree to taking the cut to 73% now for your generation? You would > > champion this policy to your cohorts? > > Those are the two choices, eh? Nothing or cut to 73 percent when? > Yeah, if we do nothing there is a possible 23% cut in benefits. After Bush fixes it we have a, wait for it, a 40% cut in benefit including the new privatized accounts. I can believe that.
"After Bush's re-election, I carefully read the 225-page annual report of the Social Security trustees. I also talked to actuaries and economists, inside and outside the agency, who are expert in the peculiar science of long-term Social Security forecasting. The actuarial view is that the system is probably in need of a small adjustment of the sort that Congress has approved in the past. But there is a strong argument, which the agency acknowledges as a possibility, that the system is solvent as is. "Although prudence argues for making a fix sooner rather than later, the program is not in crisis, nor is its potential shortfall irresolvable. Ideology aside, the scale of the fixes would not require Social Security to abandon the role that was conceived for it in 1935, and that it still performs today -- as an insurance fail-safe for the aged and others and as a complement to people's private market savings." http://tinyurl.com/3kk77 At least 16% of SS benefits go to the disabled which hasn't really been addressed by the trial balloons. Gary Denton _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
