disturbing article

[johngalt1234]

Washington -- The first of the 77 million-strong Baby Boom generation will begin to retire in just four years. The economic consequences of this fact -- as scary as they are foreseeable -- are all but ignored by President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry, who discuss just about everything but the biggest fiscal challenge of modern times.

Yet whoever wins the 2004 race will become the first U.S. president to confront what sober-minded experts across the political spectrum describe as an impending "fiscal catastrophe" lying right around the corner.


Complete article found at link

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/12/MNG2S8NOI21.DTL


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[MODU]

Maybe not during this election cycle, but Bush and Greenspan addressed the issue last year.  I'll see if I can find the link.

[afleitch]

Clinton was aware of this. Hence the budget surplus. He gave a closing speech at the British Labour Party conference two years ago and warned of this very problem and seemed genuinely angry that it had all been wasted on a frivolous tax cut. I remember watching the speech live, and he made clear that it was the biggest financial problem looming, unemployment worries would be a thing of the past yes, but the Social Security bill would cripple the country. How can you choose between funding school or funding care-homes? I'll try to find a link to a report on his speech.

[afleitch]

Here we go!

''In my country evidence shows that their ideology drove them to adopt an enormous tax cut heavily tilted to wealthy Americans. I ought to be happy, I am one of them now! But I am not. Why? Because we adopted a tax cut in America before we had a budget, before we knew what our income was going to be, before we knew what our expenses were going to be, before we knew what our emergencies were going to be - and September 11th turned out to be quite an emergency. So we went from a decade long projected $5 trillion plus surplus to having it go away. We went from having the money when I left office to take care of the social security retirement cost of the baby boom generation, and half of the medical costs of them, to having it go away and using those trust funds to pay for tax cuts for people in my income group. Did the evidence support it? No. But the ideology did.''

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2002/story/0,12294,803564,00.html

You can read Clinton's speech here.

[AuH2O]

LoL

Maybe Clinton should have reformed Social Security in the 8 years he was President?

Maybe Bill Clinton should have reformed Medicare?

And now he blames Bush for Clinton's political cowardice? lol that is hilarious.

[English]

Raise the retirement age or scrap it entirely. Unfortunately because people live longer, they're just gonna have to work longer too. There's no other way to solve this problem.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

We should reform Social Security and Medicare by scrapping the payroll tax and just funding them out of income tax and other general funds.  There is no Social Security trust fund in reality, so let's just get rid of the mirage.  

Also, raising the retirement age will probably be necessary at some point...I know it is already scheduled to increase, but we may need to bump it to 70 for people in my generation.

[MODU]

That is the current practice.  People my age will able able to pull retirement 5 years later than what my parents can.

Because of this, I've already planned on the fact that there will be no funds available when I reach my "golden years," hence the reason why I've built my own retirement package through 401(k)s, invesmtnets, property, debt reduction, etc.  

However . . . I wish I would win the lotto before then, so I can retire earlier.  hehehe

[Wakie]

LoL

Maybe Clinton should have reformed Social Security in the 8 years he was President?

Maybe Bill Clinton should have reformed Medicare?

And now he blames Bush for Clinton's political cowardice? lol that is hilarious.

The irony of you saying this is that he tried but was thwarted by a Republican Controlled Congress.

Bush also has a Republican Controlled Congress and he gets nothing done.  But then again, as the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban proved, Bush is the Republican Congress's bitch.

[TheBulldog]

Wasn't one of the most memorable lines from Clinton's state of the Union address in 1997 "save social security first?"

[A18]

How to save social security: completely privatize 'it' (so that it no longer exists, and people can keep their own money).

[zachman]

How to save social security: completely privatize 'it' (so that it no longer exists, and people can keep their own money).

Here's the economic reason against that. If social security is privatized then there will be a sharp increase in capital shot into the stock market. This will cause stocks to go up. Mutual funds and traditional owners will sell large stakes of their stock, and the stock market will puncture rapidly, leaving the individual investors poor.

As for my social security plan, I'd reduce the payment to those under 70 by about 50% at an arranged date. That should reduce the price tag by over 20%.

[AuH2O]

Btw, Clinton had 2 years of a Democrat Congress.

And he never tried to reform Social Security, so anyone claiming otherwise is a liar.

[johngalt1234]

it doesnt seem that either Bush or Kerry wants to do anything about it.  I dont think they can or have the political will.  with each passing presidential election cycle, the choices continue to deteriorate.

I think it is time to look at the Libertarian party, cuz at least the size and scope of Govt will be reduced to have some impact

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

LoL

Maybe Clinton should have reformed Social Security in the 8 years he was President?

Maybe Bill Clinton should have reformed Medicare?

And now he blames Bush for Clinton's political cowardice? lol that is hilarious.

Clinton ran an $87 billion surplus his last year. Bush has turned that into a $600 billion a year deficit.

[johngalt1234]

I think we are losing track over here. It is not a matter of budget deficits. It is the matter of looming liabilities caused by entitlements such as Medicare.

The article points out the Medicare is going to cause more problems than Social Security. It isnt going to get easier from here on out.

Since We are talking about Clinton and how he ran surpluses that was all because of a booming stock market.  

The key fact is that in order to get elected all Clinton and recently Bush have pandered to the electorate(read senior citizens) by talking about a drug benefit that is the most recent occurrence.  Give people a free lunch and they will keep coming back for more.

There is no free lunch, because the Piper will demand payment sooner or later and the later we pay the more is demanded.
I dont like the fact that payroll taxes are going to go up soon. Maybe some on this board do....
I will vote my conscience and vote Badnarik

http://www.badnarik.org

[badnarikin04]

How to save social security: completely privatize 'it' (so that it no longer exists, and people can keep their own money).

GASP!!!!!

Phillip....making sense?!?!?!

IT'S ARMAGEDDON!!!

[DA]

Raise the retirement age or scrap it entirely. Unfortunately because people live longer, they're just gonna have to work longer too. There's no other way to solve this problem.

Sure there is, privitization.

[Bogart]

1. Privatize Social Security in some fashion for those under a certain age and for those older who wish to participate.

2. Means test both Social Security and Medicare.

Just for starters....