You bet it is, buster, and we want it back!
Here’s the *real* deal on the “Social Security crisis”: For 20 years, us poor working slobs have been putting more money into Social Security than it needed to pay the current benefits. We did this in order to help fund the baby-boomer retirement. We’ve known for years that when the great population bulge that is the post-war “baby boom” starts retiring, what is being paid in to the system at that time won’t cover the benefits for those retirees. So we did something about it. We reached into our pockets (ok, our paychecks) and paid extra in order to solve that problem. But Bullshit stole… er, excuse me, “borrowed” the money, and gave it to his rich buddies. This whole push for “reforming” Social Security is really just Bullshit trying to welsh on paying the money back.
Don’t believe it? Check this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The estimated cost (by the most conservative estimates) of the Social Security “shortfall” is $3.7 trillion over 75 years. That’s a lot of moola. But the cost of making Bullshit‘s tax cuts permanent is $11 trillion over that same 75 years. In fact, just the tax cuts for the top 1% of taxpayers would be $3.4 trillion.
But that’s only if we make those tax cuts permanent. What’s the bill so far? Well, that’s much better! Lucky us, the cost in 2004 was *only* $280 Billion! So, if we extend that out for the rest of the term for the tax cut that was enacted in 2001, it’s *only* $1.5 Trillion. Which just *happens* to be *almost* as much as the Social Security Trust Fund currently has in assets. (According to this report from MSNBC, the Social Security Trust Fund has $1.6 Trillion.)
But wait! There’s more! There were other tax cuts in that legislation that haven’t taken effect yet. When you add these in, as Robert McIntyre at Citizens for Tax Justice does here, the cost is… hey, lookathat! – *exactly* the same as the SS Trust Fund, $1.6 Trillion. Amazing.
Like I said, George – heck, like *you* keep saying – it’s *our* money. And we want it back. Don’t even *think* about welshing on that, ‘k?