I came home and began some web searches. I found a few interesting things.
Here we have Paul Krugman saying that Social Security is just a little bitty problem and that anyone who says otherwise is either a fear mongerer, seeking to privatize the system, or a dupe. He places Barack Obama in the latter category. The crux of his argument is that Social Security is just fine because Medicare is much worse.*
Ted Kennedy says that Social Security and Medicare are both doing just fine and all we need to do is raise taxes.
On Meet The Press Harry Reid said Social Security has "some problems 40, 50 years from now".
In this video Hillary says that "there are a lot of people on the other side of the isle who never wanted us to have Social Security and Medicare." She then claims that, when her husband left office, Social Security was solvent till 2055 and now, due to the Bush Administration and an irresponsible congress, the life of Social Security has been cut to 2041.
I checked the 2008 Social Security Administration projections and, just as Senator Clinton said, it shows the fund going broke in 2041.**
I then checked the same report for 2000, the year Bill Clinton left office. It shows the fund going broke, not in 2055, but in 2036.
With just a little bit of political sniping, Hillary actually makes sense in this clip, Identifying Medicare as a crisis and Social Security as a problem.
John Edwards said Senator Clinton was just using scare tactics on Social Security and pledged to solve the problem by raising taxes. (Senator Edwards' remarks on Social Security are about 4 minutes into this video.)
*Paul Krugman has written, perhaps, two intelligent columns in his entire life. He is totally obsessed with his loathing of all Republicans and never allows facts it interfere with his twisted logic. I find it extremely interesting in this column that he says transcending partisanship is "neither possible nor desirable".
**The SSI issues three projections using optimistic, pessimistic and intermediate assumptions.
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Comments: 8
I am a firm believer that the cap on social security should at least be raised, if not completely thrown out. $90K was rich in the 30's - 70's, but now it is considered middle class. I don't see any problem with people paying through all of their salary, not just the guys on the bottom 50%.