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The next great bailout: Social Security (the day of reckoning may finally be here)
Fortune ^ | 7/30/2009 | Alan Sloan

Posted on 07/30/2009 7:25:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

[...]

Perhaps as early as this year, Social Security, at $680 billion the nation's biggest social program, will be transformed from an operation that's helped finance the rest of the government for 25 years into a cash drain that will need money from the Treasury. In other words, a bailout.

[...]

Unlike the pigs feeding at Uncle Sam's trough, the people who qualify for Social Security old-age benefits -- the ones who'll benefit from the bailout -- have played by the rules and paid Social Security taxes for decades. It would be immoral to tell them, "Sorry, we have to trim your cost-of-living adjustment because we can't afford it," while expecting them to continue footing the bill for bailing out imprudent people and institutions.

Why am I talking about Social Security when health care is sucking up virtually all the oxygen in Our Nation's Capital? Because Social Security is a really big deal, providing a majority of the income for more than half the people 65 and up, and also supporting millions of disabled people and survivors of deceased workers; because the collapse of stock prices and home values makes Social Security retirement benefits far more important even to upscale baby boomers than they were during the stock market and home-price highs of a few years ago; and because the problems aren't that hard to solve if we look at Social Security realistically instead of treating it as a sacred, untouchable program (liberals) or a demonic plot to make people dependent on government (conservatives).

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bailout; bho44; economy; entitlements; federalspending; genx; lping; socialsecurity; thecomingdepression
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To: Know et al

They better have a metal detector for the Govt. employees doing the End of Life interview of an Old person.....2nd Amendment rights and claims of self defense..? “He said NO to saving my life via medical treatment”.....so I shot the SOB in self defense. Please assemble a jury of my peers. I plead self defense.....but hurry, I don’t have much time.


41 posted on 07/30/2009 8:19:15 PM PDT by 4Speed
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To: SeekAndFind
Social Security is the largest Ponzi scheme in human history. FDR should be disinterred and burned at the stake for foisting it on the American people.
42 posted on 07/30/2009 8:22:25 PM PDT by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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To: 4Speed

The problem with that plan is many federal workers don’t pay into Social Security.

Some are under the civil service plan.


43 posted on 07/30/2009 8:30:47 PM PDT by pickyourpoison (" Laus Deo ")
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To: Know et al
"I believe Obama’s fix for Social Security is going to be euthanizing people as they become eligible for SS benefits."

Let's be realistic. A needle is cheaper than bullets.Do You Know What's In A Vaccine?

44 posted on 07/30/2009 8:43:38 PM PDT by Larousse2 (Like June Carter Cash, "I'm just tryin' to matter.")
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To: SeekAndFind

Disability’s the new welfare - dems will protect that part of the program. The elderly? They can work until they drop...


45 posted on 07/30/2009 8:45:08 PM PDT by GOPJ (Maldives sea levels have NOT risen in 1250 years -Professor Nils-Axel Moerner)
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To: 4Speed

Jury? What Jury, you “Enemy Combatant” you!


46 posted on 07/30/2009 8:47:43 PM PDT by Larousse2 (Like June Carter Cash, "I'm just tryin' to matter.")
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

“1. An early tax assessed (taken) from all 401k and IRA private-retirement accounts.”

Bingo. No matter how much the government has said about Roths’ tax-free savings, there WILL be an assessment on these, too. The pool of what assets there are left is just too tempting for the Commies running this show.

I’d like to pretend I saw it all coming, but I draw a paycheck, and the fact is that anyone who’s not working for themselves is in trouble. Having wages set for you instead of being able to set your own is a surefire way to go broke in Zimbabwe. That’s the future U.S., one way or the other.


47 posted on 07/30/2009 8:51:00 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile (When Republicans don't vote conservative, conservatives don't vote Republican.)
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To: SeekAndFind

May as well cut the SS benefits now. So what if you older folks have paid into it your whole life... we don’t have the money and us younger folks are paying and will continue to pay and pay, all without any hope of receiving anything in return for our toil.


48 posted on 07/30/2009 8:53:32 PM PDT by Sparticus (Libs, they're so open minded that their brains leaked out.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“The same author not only mentions Social Security but Medicare, which he says is even MORE of a problem than Social Security....”

It’s bad

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

$39 trillion


49 posted on 07/30/2009 9:10:26 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin
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To: Sparticus

When Bush brought up Soc insecurity The dems assured us there was no problem.


50 posted on 07/30/2009 9:16:40 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

Heil Obama/Pelosi/Reid


51 posted on 07/30/2009 9:22:01 PM PDT by Semperfiwife (Health "care" - by the same folks who run Amtrak and the post office)
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To: 2111USMC

Ted Kennedy, in office over 30 years...Robert Byrd, in office over 50 years...every single geezer in Congress voted to STEAL your retirement money...They are worse than Bernie Madoff. They “made off” with your money a loooong time ago.


52 posted on 07/30/2009 9:24:47 PM PDT by Semperfiwife (Health "care" - by the same folks who run Amtrak and the post office)
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To: pickyourpoison

And with ALL health care workers soon to become federal employees, even LESS money paid into Social Security.


53 posted on 07/30/2009 9:27:02 PM PDT by Semperfiwife (Health "care" - by the same folks who run Amtrak and the post office)
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To: SeekAndFind; Atom Smasher
post 4 is the reason for post 3.

It's about money, plain and simple.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the very likely scenario of people like the Emanuel Brothers and others sitting around a table somewhere saying, "we have to get rid of beneficiaries..."

54 posted on 07/30/2009 9:30:20 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (The revolution IS being televised.)
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To: Mike Darancette
What took ya? I started collecting the early retirement November last year. (born Sept '46 ..... 9 months and 10 minutes after my dad got home from the war, according to him)

Nam Vet

55 posted on 07/30/2009 9:33:35 PM PDT by Nam Vet (TOTUS is absent and ROTUS speaks ! [Racist of the United States])
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To: Nam Vet

What took YOU?

I’ve been sucking on the teet for 12 years already!

Born in 1972.

(In all honesty, I am terrified about my medical future. I just recently got my pain to where it’s tolerable, making it possible for me to be a college student and hopefully work again someday. I don’t want to suffer like I did before. I’d rather die. And that’s what they want me to do apparently... just die.)


56 posted on 07/30/2009 9:46:43 PM PDT by Miztiki
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To: 4Speed

The people who collected taxes and customs duties for The Crown in the 1760s and early 1770s were thoroughly despised and roughly treated. Their homes were trashed. Many, if not most, gave up their posts.

Can you just imagine how thoroughly despised Government “End of Life Interviewers” would be? I would imagine they would have constant threats on their lives, just like the tax collectors did, and nobody would take the job. The job would come with standard-issue body armor.


57 posted on 07/30/2009 10:02:09 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Larousse2

Yeah, Yeah, I know all that! But what about the ‘Polo Bahhs’?


58 posted on 07/30/2009 10:05:50 PM PDT by Eighth Square
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To: Atom Smasher

That is their plan. Deny care to the oldsters, and then the problems with Social Insecurity and Medicare die off, so to speak.

We Baby Boomers should have known we would be left holding the bag in this Ponzi scheme. The party is over.


59 posted on 07/30/2009 10:20:51 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX
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To: Nam Vet

Born Sept ‘47, me and my twin were born in student housing at AZ State.


60 posted on 07/30/2009 10:21:43 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Obamacare is "Shovel Ready".)
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