A good article was published at Tech Central Station yesterday about why reform isn't (and shouldn't be) dead. A couple of excerpts:
Nobody really knows the exact size of future obligations created by today's payroll taxes: Future benefits will be paid under future program rules, and the program's financial insolvency makes those rules uncertain.
Opponents of personal accounts ignore that uncertainty and continue to proclaim that Social Security constitutes "guaranteed" retirement support.
The only way of "guaranteeing" benefits is to give everyone ownership over their retirements or pass a bill requiring a supermajority to alter benefits...and the latter option isn't going to happen.
Simply assuming that future benefits would be paid through higher taxes and ignoring the risky nature of Social Security's "intergenerational compact" appears to be a sure recipe for disaster.
Get it right, dammit. The reason why SS "benefits" aren't guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. is that it's a government program and your "benefits" aren't actual government bonds. But it's just as much a lie to say that SS Equity Funds would be guaranteed, by the full faith and credit of the U.S. or anything else for that matter. The stock market can crash, and probably will given Republican spending. And this is one of many reasons why SS Equity Funds make no sense. The only reason to involve the government in retirement at all is to guarantee some base level of safety to retirees backed by the full faith and credit of the government. No equity fund can do that so it doesn't even make sense to talk about them as part of a government retirement plan.
And again, get it through your thick skull, we won't own PRAs / SS Equity Funds. They will. Itf we owned it, we could take our money out of it whenever *we* wanted to and invest in whatever *we* wanted to, and decide on whoever we wanted to manage it.
SS Equity Funds EQUAL Big Government Corruption!
S4 Sucks and Gives Change!
