tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post1395341803310446920..comments2023-10-29T10:54:58.681-04:00Comments on Vox Baby: Fine Work by the Treasury on Social SecurityAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13514024573333057559noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-56922694970556348582007-09-27T11:25:00.000-04:002007-09-27T11:25:00.000-04:00"To the extent that new revenues are brought in, t..."To the extent that new revenues are brought in, they are directed to personal accounts, so that they do not get commingled with the rest of the government's revenues."<BR/><BR/>I think for republicans that has to be the politcal tradeoff for higher taxes, that they get personal accounts in return to safeguard those revenues. Is such a compromise really viable on the hill. Republicans seem xtrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12900358822347362833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-629572636164090222007-09-27T10:58:00.000-04:002007-09-27T10:58:00.000-04:00I am a Republican and I don't trust anything that ...I am a Republican and I don't trust anything that comes from the Bush administration.<BR/><BR/>The federal government is the only organization in the entire country that can committ accounting fraud and have it be legal (the crooks, in this case, make the rules).<BR/><BR/>The "trust fund" is a means of disguising the real deficit and was a 1983 flim-flam to make the tax system more regressive.<BRsave_the_rustbelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15292805042626368911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-66586047002051926162007-09-27T09:28:00.000-04:002007-09-27T09:28:00.000-04:00That's the danger with simply bringing in more rev...That's the danger with simply bringing in more revenues. It is also the reason why the <A HREF="http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2005/12/nonpartisan-social-security-reform.html" REL="nofollow">LMS plan</A> has personal accounts.<BR/><BR/>To the extent that new revenues are brought in, they are directed to personal accounts, so that they do not get commingled with the rest of the government's revenues.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13514024573333057559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-5983469352174002432007-09-27T09:22:00.000-04:002007-09-27T09:22:00.000-04:00Is it really prudent to "pre-fund" Social Security...Is it really prudent to "pre-fund" Social Security through raising the payroll cap if all congress does is piss away the money. Isn't the result just boost Social Security's claims on the General Fund by the amount of payroll taxes raised and then spent to plug general fund gaps? Wouldn't such a scenario worsen our structural deficit?xtrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12900358822347362833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-2455426158636139932007-09-26T07:53:00.000-04:002007-09-26T07:53:00.000-04:00You said a mouthful, Mr. Samwick. Thank you. It's ...You said a mouthful, Mr. Samwick. Thank you. It's time we got serious about the real choices facing Americans. Social Security, Medicare, and all the federal entitlement programs MUST be fixed. The Treasury Department's attempt to highlight areas of the debate on which the different sides agree may or may not work, but it's to the Department's credit to try.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-10627900709110811312007-09-25T14:46:00.000-04:002007-09-25T14:46:00.000-04:00This assumes the 'reform' is the right one, but as...This assumes the 'reform' is the right one, but as it can only be very roughly judged in the distant future, it is nearly equally plausible that such a premature action could actually be less fair to current generations than delaying it to a more predictable time. <BR/><BR/>If we really want to worry about such remote prospects, then perhaps we should be establishing 50 year war making budgets Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-46063106165065630312007-09-25T14:25:00.000-04:002007-09-25T14:25:00.000-04:00This is nothing but a new Greenspan committee. The...This is nothing but a new Greenspan committee. There is no reason whatever to ever collect a single payroll tax dollar in advance of paying it out. Anyone who claims that the SS Trust Fund is anything for which solvency even has a meaning is either ignorant or lying. The future funding of SS is no more or less difficult if every single present and future pseudo-bond were to be completely Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-55979828490716068542007-09-25T14:04:00.000-04:002007-09-25T14:04:00.000-04:00The balance in the trust fund is the current value...The balance in the trust fund is the current value of the claims of the Social Security system on the General Fund. It is an asset to Social Security, so the Treasury brief on the finances of the Social Security system is describing them accurately. The trust fund is also a liability of the General Fund, so if one were to then analyze all of the government's finances, the relevant metric would Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13514024573333057559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-87765636056535873082007-09-25T12:06:00.000-04:002007-09-25T12:06:00.000-04:00Mr. Samwick, I have a question, potentially stupid...Mr. Samwick, <BR/><BR/>I have a question, potentially stupid, all of these social security proposals seem to view 2041 as the operative year, that is when the trust fund revenues are exhausted. However, my understanding is that we spend the social security surplus, i.e. the revenues that are supposed to be dedicated to the trust fund, every year. Do these plans/projections assume that the trustxtrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12900358822347362833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8537995.post-81183283976792147702007-09-25T10:27:00.000-04:002007-09-25T10:27:00.000-04:00I eagerly await your posts on Medicare (the unment...I eagerly await your posts on Medicare (the unmentioned elephant in the room), rather than the Social Security mouse, whose blood has been drawn repeatedly to make the general fund look more pleasant than it actually is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com