Posted on 09/13/2004 1:34:37 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Those in Congress who really want to protect Social Security should put some action behind their bluster. They should add language to the Labor-Health-Education Appropriations bill prohibiting funds from being spent to carry out an expensive Social Security giveaway to Mexico.
U.S. Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart signed an agreement June 29 that will allow Mexicans who have worked in the United States, their dependents and survivors to tap into Social Security.
This could spell trouble for American seniors and for baby boomers as they approach retirement.
To hear proponents tell it, this agreement is all about saving some 3,000 U.S. workers and their employers an estimated $140 million on taxes over five years. But actually, American taxpayers could be out hundreds of billions of dollars over coming years.
Social Security officials apparently believe their own (under)estimate that only 50,000 Mexican beneficiaries would receive benefits in the first five years. You don't have to be a math whiz to figure out pretty quickly that that number is laughably low. A General Accounting Office report last fall devastated the Social Security Administration's low-ball figures.
GAO concluded that the "highly uncertain" official cost estimate "does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico." Social Security must be the last agency to know we have a huge illegal immigration problem, with almost 70 percent of illegal aliens being Mexican.
Ronald Reagan said if you want more of something, subsidize it. Entitling Mexican illegal aliens and their family members to Social Security benefits would amount to a subsidy and a huge incentive to immigrate illegally to the United States.
As the GAO put it, "The [Social Security Administration] estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement could create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity."
Moreover, untold numbers of illegal workers have returned to Mexico and, GAO noted, they and their families "could conceivably benefit from a totalization agreement." While Social Security projected 300,000 Mexican beneficiaries in 2050, GAO said that figure "represents only about 6 percent of the estimated number of unauthorized Mexicans in the United States today, and thus appears relatively low."
At a 2003 House Immigration Subcommittee hearing, investigative reporter Joel Mowbray explained that Mexicans illegally working in the United States already can qualify for Social Security benefits; the totalization agreement only makes it easier for them, plus opens up eligibility for their dependents and survivors. He also noted the "several hundred billion dollars" price tag the "progressive" Social Security structure adds when "illegal aliens from Mexico [can] get back significantly more money than the taxes they paid."
Social Security's track record has been poor at estimating the number of beneficiaries under totalization agreements. GAO found frequent overestimates and underestimates, "usually by more than 25 percent." And "where the underestimates occurred, the differences were huge." Importantly, GAO noted "the number of estimated beneficiaries for prior agreements is substantially smaller than for the proposed Mexican agreement."
In other words, for Social Security number-crunchers to underestimate the beneficiaries for a totalization agreement with Australia or a Western European country is bad but not horrible because the totals are fairly small. However, underestimates for Mexico would have serious financial ramifications for our Social Security system.
The Mexico agreement raises the stakes for a Social Security trust fund set to run red ink starting in 2018 and go broke in 2042. Messing with Social Security, upon which some 47 million Americans rely today, doesn't make good political sense - certainly not for any rational politician in an election year.
Fraud and abuse will only worsen under this agreement. Mexico is notorious for its culture of rampant fraud. GAO was troubled that Social Security officials failed to inspect adequately Mexico's recordkeeping system to ensure its integrity.
Mowbray described for Congress a frightening scenario in which Mexicans could scam the system. He said Social Security's disability insurance program "is wracked with fraud," and millions of illegal aliens and their family members could exploit that route to start collecting payments early - and continue to collect benefits for years.
Social Security bureaucrats have addressed none of the concerns raised by GAO and others.
Congress should rein in the bureaucrats at Social Security and kill this agreement, which has all the earmarks of a costly bad deal that Americans will only regret.
Given the ridiculously low estimates on which it is being sold publicly, the unstable financial future that Social Security already faces, the incentive for runaway fraud and crime, this agreement is unwise.
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Mexico has never been honest about any deal they have ever made with America.
This is all part of Bush's "ownership" society. </ sarcasm >
It's not just them. I read in the India Times last year that Indians were contributing about $500 million a year to OUR Social Security.
This nonsense will probably go down as one of the biggest screw jobs ever done on the American people (and there has been a lot of competition). These cowards/sellouts in Washington from the White House on down are a disgrace.
And it would seem that Bush has never been honest with America about any deal he's made with Mexico.
The estimate I've seen is that this agreement will cost American taxpayers approximately $345 Billion dollars a year.
Every year.
Forever.
To give you an idea about just how big of a screw-job this really is, try to find a copy of the actual text of the agreement.
I dare you.
Or, I can save you the trouble because you won't find it anywhere. Not on the Social Security web site, not on Thomas, not anywhere.
Now why would the Bush Administration attempt to hide this from the American people?
I wonder...
If George W. Bush says it's good, then it's good. Because after all, he's a Republican.
/sarcasm
Well, gosh. We can't have that. Can't have yet another foreign special interest NOT sucking at the government teat. It sure beats paying benefits to American workers.
And I know he cares for me and my children because I heard him say so on TV...
This is indefensible. I just got a statement from SS today that said that my estimated benefit is based on current law and is likely to change because by 2042, payroll deductions will only cover about 73% of SS payouts.
I found it last month after finding the bill some congresscritters introduced to stop the totalization agreement. I just can't remember where it was.
Actually, their workers are paying for people who are getting benefits now. When the system finally goes belly up, they're going to get shafted just like everyone else.
Btw, you should be happy that President Bush let the AWB sunset. That's a good thing. Can you get your dealer's license now?
I wouldn't expect to find integrity in that system, even if it was thoroughly inspected. That's troubling, because if people can bribe their an official to create a record in the Mexican system, and then have that record count to qualify for US Social Security, we would have people who worked little or not at all in Mexico and who worked a year or two in the US qualifying for social security.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
To my knowledge, only three "congressmen" have introduced such legislation --Rohrbacher, Collins and Paul.
None of these currently has the text of the agreement on their web site(s).
You can write the social security department and they will send you a copy of the bill. Good luck on receiving it before this becomes law.
This is the biggest scam on the American public that I have ever seen. This article says 3,000 Americans are the reason for this treaty. Our population is approximately 295,000,000 and for 3,000 U.S. workers in Mexico (0.0001 percent of our population)we are going to enter a treaty with Mexico whose own social security is almost belly-up now.
My question is, why can't congress and Bush tell these 3,000 Americans to retrain. How many people have lost their jobs in the last 3 years from textile workers to IT workers and were told to retrain. Afterall, these 3,000 Mexico workers did not lose their jobs like the millions of U.S. workers who were told to retrain. They just don't like paying taxes in Mexico.
Now, congress and Bush are attempting a treaty for 0.00001 percent of the population with the corrupt country of Mexico. I really don't believe they are doing this for America. IMHO, this is totally unAmerican.
This treaty is to be passed in October as the 60 day period will end.
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This POS is still alive? Bad calculation, going for the hispanic vote - with no security on the borders, and adding this DAMN ATROCITY on America FOR MEXICO - and having to defend it...
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