Social Security

Tomorrow's Washington Post has This great story on the coming Social Security fight. I don't think I've seen the issues set out more clearly anywhere. Jonathan Weisman starts out by laying out the facts:

In just 14 years, the nation's Social Security system is projected to reach a day of reckoning: Retiree benefits will exceed payroll tax receipts, and to pay its bills the system will have to begin redeeming billions of dollars in special Treasury bonds that have piled up in its trust fund.

Well, er, trillions - but what's a factor of a thousand among friends.

The fight will come over the implications:

To President Bush, this is a crisis, worth nothing short of dramatic structural changes to a social insurance system that since 1940 has lifted the elderly and disabled from poverty. To those who wish to preserve the system, it is merely the day when Congress must own up to its past profligacy and begin repaying Social Security for the trillions of dollars it has borrowed to fund immediate tax cuts and spending.

The entire article should be required reading for all of us who wish to derail Bush's scam to deprive those currently 50 (or 55) and younger of the Social Security benefits they having been paying for all their working lives.



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