The NYT, aka "the old gray lady" proves she is going further to what used to be the right, before the Clintons made it the center-left. They even use the term "entitlements."

News flash for the centrists, be they the NYT, the Clintons, or MSNBC, the right wing HATES you. If you think they do not plan to hang you along with the rest of the left, you are wrong.

every single promise it makes to its citizens.

She would have some bias

you cut through all the smoke, the truth will always come out. The writer is not Liberal at all, and the views are hers and hers alone. And there seems to always be a connection to Wall Street. Wall Street has attacked those programs ever since they beganned. Most of the news media today are owned by corporate interests. This is not the same country where you had independent outlets. Many of them were gobbled up by larger and privately owned organizations with a few wealthy families. And she is a voice for them. I wonder what her salary is?

Like this gem:

NYT’s Jackie Calmes’ “Grossly Inaccurate” Hit Piece on Neil Barofsky
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/nyts-jackie-calmes-grossly-inaccurate-hit-piece-on-neil-barofsky.html#rudxV6a3I3VeXwRD.99

Social Security must (by law) be invested in treasury notes.

So that creates a accounting debt increase each month.

If Social Security quit receiving funds that would stop.

Sort of like preventing school shootings by closing all the schools.

The general fund would have to borrow money from somewhere in order to cover it's deficit. Instead of borrowing from the trust fund, it would just be forced to borrow that much more from either the general public or foreign governments.

It sure is lucky for us that Social Security has been running a surplus since the Reagan administration. Without that, it would have been much harder to maintain those low tax rates on the rich.

Why if I didn't know better, I'd think they planned it that way.

But that would be terrible, raising payroll taxes on the poor in order to finance income taxes for the rich. And when the bill came due to pay that money back to the workers .... ENTITLEMENT REFORM!!!!

to fund those wars was borrowed to a great extent from the Social Security Trust Fund and the Federal Employees' Retirement Funds (to which they contribute).

Remember, the money in the Trust Fund got there thanks to the fact that the baby boomers and subsequent generations paid the money in.

The rich are going to have to pay much, much higher taxes.

From none other than Fox News (I would not normally quote them, but this article shows how utterly wrong their editorial policy and that of the NYTimes are on the national debt, Social Security, etc.):

But if you thought China's been doing most of the bankrolling, you might be surprised to learn who really holds our federal mortgage.

Fully two-thirds of the national debt is owed to the U.S. government, American investors and future retirees, through the Social Security Trust Fund and pension plans for civil service workers and military personnel. China, it turns out, holds less than 8 percent of the money our government has borrowed over the years.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/04/who-do-owe-most-that-16-trillion-to-hint-it-isnt-china/

That is where these assumptions come from.

Why do you think they are Republican talking points?

http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/12frusg/12guide.pdf

Maybe you are the one who has been misled.

If they cut benefits 25% then none. If they budget from the Treasury the shortfall then it will be quite a sum, 25% and increasing.

If you are someone who intends to insist on their full benefit and who doesn't want to touch current procedures then yes this adds substantially to the deficit.

2033 is 20 years away. Over a 75 year projection that means 55 years of contribution to the deficit/debt.

22 years is a long time in DC
in that time we could add 10 wars .... I wonder how much that would add

raise the cap on SS ........... problem is solved
add wars ......... problem not solved at all

how much is the changing climate going to add to the debt??

I just love people like you adding in the SS when they are talking about the debt
By law SS can not add to the debt, so the law has to be changed to add it in

And no the law does not have to be changed.

How do you think Obama got the funds for the payroll tax holiday? From the Treasury yes?

So it already has truly contributed to the deficit.

however that is not part of what is being discussed because it has nothing to the debt today
SS holds $2.6 trillion in Treasury bonds .......... did the money come from that??
Show me where the money came from if you are so sure

I also noticed you did not take everything in consideration when you worried about SS 22 years out
How many wars will we be in during those years??

If we get into more stupid wars that isn't my idea. Heck I supported Obama over Hillary for exactly that reason.

And the SS holds treasuries thanks to overfunding from the Reagan days. But as scheduled it will only last til the middle of the boomers hit 66/67.

People who say the estimates are BS are counting on growth above what the government projects. I wonder why they see such a rosy future when our demographics will tilt more and more towards the elderly.

I wonder why you are not answering my questions

Even though you were against those wars they happened anyway

Let's build a war fund so we are ready to get into war

I wish they would then at least I know they are acknowledging reality. As it is I can't take people who insist Social Security is fine seriously.

and I can not take people that refuse to answer questions that are put to them

Or if you prefer to tackle the problem as they come upon us then our last batch of crises should be to your liking.

I guess that's the kind of planning I should expect from today's citizenry. No plans for a retirement fund, or anything in life.

are you going to do? This is the whole reason behind SS in the first place! Why does history have to be something you need to learn and relearn? This wide-eyed "why oh why won't people plan for retirement" question is silly. Western European nations had this figured out. Now if they can shake the politicians who look all sad-eyed as they prescribe "austerity" for their social programs, which doesn't work (as we've seen!), we'll start getting somewhere. In the meantime, get behind a stimulus program that DOES work, has been PROVEN to work, and THAT will be useful...

solution, which Congress refuses to do. Stop wasteful spending that got you there. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not wasteful spending. Those programs have a purpose. They reduce poverty. The poor and middle class did not create this debt over the last ten years. The baby boom generation did not build this debt because many of them are not currently eligible to receive any current benefits.

The entire Debt came from wasteful spending. The Bush tax cuts were not paid for and it was wasteful spending, because this country had no ca strophic event for them at the time. The country was running a surplus. The idea for them at the time was based on trickle down economics. That was the idea, if you lessen the tax burden on those at the top, they would create jobs, and grow the Economy. It was the same idea behind dismantling Welfare, but many of those people were not employed.

What the top did was not create jobs, but downsized and outsourced jobs to maximize profits. The minimum wage also stagnated over the last decade. These were the Policies this country followed for the last decade. The result of this, was the people at the top getting wealthier and those in the middle and on the lower end of the Pyramid seeing their economic statuses weakening. There needs to be a reversal of this trend and those at the top need to give up some of those profits. The spending that President Obama did was necessary in order to protect the poor and middle class. Those at the higher end do not need any protection. The programs you are talking about cutting or reforming keep people out of poverty. And the Wall Street gang that got this country into this mess, want to hang on to their profits by claiming it will hurt them from creating jobs. The best thing to do is actually penalizing them for not creating jobs. They have not been penalized at all.

They are hoarding money for self enrichment. At some point you have to believe they could care less about the economy of this country. They are just plain greedy. How much more profits do they need to create jobs? Start penalizing them for taking jobs and stashing cash off shore and reward companies that create jobs here with good salaries. That way, you get more revenues and less government dependence. Stop cutting the government also because the Government is the biggest competitor to the private sector. Rebuilding infrastructure is not wasteful spending. Another thing, control the price of services. We pay too much for health services in this country. People should be able to make a profit but the prices should be reasonable. Just like the Oil companies jack up prices when there is no shortage, Congress should do the same oversight on Health care costs.

Until demographics catch up with Republicans, which should happen within the next 10 years and well before the SS trust fund runs out, we will not be able to implement this simple fix. And until then, we should just leave SS alone. Why hurt people by slashing benefits when it can be easily fixed by removing the cap once we have the votes in Congress?

Social Security taxes on every cent of their bonuses. Better yet, don't exempt any bonuses from a Social Security tax that is somewhat lower but applies to all income.

And if you want to blame someone for the cost of Social Security and Medicare, blame the "Greatest Generation."

The Baby Boomers did not ask to be born. Their parents, the Greatest Generation (certainly the most fertile) are responsible for their existence.

And, by the way, Baby Boomers supported the senior years of their parents in the Greatest Generation in glorious style compared to what the Baby Boomers are having and will continue to have.

A very elderly person who remembers the Medicare of her pre-Greatest-Generation parents (retired in the 1960s and 1970s) reported to me that the Medicare benefits (not Social Security) for that even older generation were better yet than those of the older seniors of today. (Remember Medicare was created during the LBJ administration. Private insurers cannot and will not insure seniors for affordable rates. It is not profitable.)

The US can afford Medicare and Social Security and the related programs, but it will require an aggressive reallocation of the country's wealth to repay the money owed the Social Security and government employee retirement funds at all levels. The alternative is for children to take care of their parents on an individual basis. That has been tried before and did not work.

The Greatest Generation is to blame. Through their numbers and willingness to work and innovate, the Baby Boomers created the greatest period of wealth and prosperity any nation of the size of our country had known. And now what do they get for it? A nation that does not want to fund their retirement. For shame.

Further, often forgotten is the fact that the sums that Baby Boomers paid into the Social Security Trust Fund are far larger than the raw numbers indicate. Since 1965 (when Baby Boomers were 20), we have seen massive inflation.

Some 1965 prices:

Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.05
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.31
Cost of a dozen eggs: $0.53
Cost of a gallon of Milk: $0.95

Milk and eggs are subsidized today, and not as healthy, natural or good as they were in the 1960s. They have increased in cost, but not as much as other items.

http://www.1960sflashback.com/1965/economy.asp

Gas was $4.19 in Los Angeles (low-cost station). The value of money has declined dramatically.

The money we put in when we were young is worth far more than it was when we put it in.

We bought a 3-bedroom home in 1968 for $13,400. Never forget it. Now estimated to be worth over $167,000 and it is not in a "good" neighborhood.

Our elderly lived through the best years this country had to offer. They had the opportunity to save and have had years and years to figure out that social security is meant to provide only a portion of what it takes to live comfortably. .

In contrast look at our young people. They haven't had their chance yet and look what we've stuck them with.

I am considerably more outraged at what we've done to our kids than what we are doing to our elderly.

have stuck them with anything. The premise that the Baby boom generation, especially those that are in the middle class and poor will be living for another 20-30 years after retirement, is ridiculous. There are a lot of people that have not even reached retirement age. Not only this, the population of this country will be over 400 million people by 2050. They payed professionals to put together this projection and many of them are payed by corporations. There projections are bias theory and not factual evidence.

There maybe some natural ca strophic event, like an epidemic or natural disaster that can alter those projections. I'll make a prediction on a theory right now. I predict the Death rate will balloon during the Baby Boom generation because more people will be older. I do not have the belief people will live forever. I think the last part of their lives should be the best and the young will get by like they always have. What needs to be done is create jobs for the young, at good salaries, and especially for the changing demographics in this country. The more of them you put to work and give opportunities, the better this country will be off. The people at the top who has been given opportunities in this country need to create opportunities instead of hoarding wealth for themselves. The ball was actually dropped during the me generation in the Reagan Era and not with previous generations.

People over 65 had a chance to save but now most of them aren't receiving any income from their savings because interest rates are so low. I'm pretty knowledgeable about that fact.

Meanwhile the problem is for people from 45-60. Many of them were the first to lose their jobs. Quite a number of them also lost their homes -- which is what middle class and poor Americans invest in to save for retirement.

That is the generation that will be lost and suffer the most.

As an older person, I have been through recessions before. So has my mother who lived through the Depression as a teenager. Young people will recover if the economy improves. Of course, if we continue to buy imported goods made with cheap labor and further depress American wages, no one will do well. But hopefully the younger generation will re-read the original documents like the Federalist Papers and figure out that our nation became strong thanks to judicious tariffs. Our free trade policy is ruining our wage structure, our manufacturing and industry and thus devastating our revenues.

The young people will be able to make their own way. Older people have to live with the mess. Do you want your parents to die for lack of health care, food or shelter? Most people don't want that for their own parents.

If we imposed reasonable import taxes -- tariffs and did away with corporate tax loopholes, especially for multinational corporations, our economy would rebound pretty quickly, and we would not have to make these choices.

You're right that social security isn't solvent indefinitely. But there are some simple changes that can be made to make it solvent after 20 years.

Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to implement any sort of "grand bargain" while the House of Representatives is controlled by the biggest collection of right wing fanatics since the Civil War. There will be a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress some time in the next 20 years. That's when we fix the problem.

And if its such a simple fix why can't they propose it now?

They can propose all they want, but nothing short of drastic cuts will pass the House of Representatives. The equation changes drastically once the problem gets closer and people start paying attention. Congress will not actually let social security go bankrupt. If they do, they will face the wrath of millions of angry retired baby boomers.

Yes, Social Security is an expenditure just like every other expenditure, until they amend the constitution to completely separate it from the rest of the budget. That doesn't mean that raising the retirement age or reducing payments is a wise or prudent choice for reducing our nation's expenditures.

Social Security is fine and by law is separated from the rest of the budget. Yes it's started the last few years to spend more then it takes in, but all those years before then it's been hoarding money, so it's going to be fine for at least another 2 decades worst case, more like 3 if we do nothing.

But yes, eventually it'll have problems if it keeps on spending more then it takes in. The best fix to that is to lift the cap on income it taxes, since only the first $110,000 or so you earn is taxed by social security.


Medicare on the other hand is not separated from the budget, and healthcare costs in it have been going up. It does need some immediate fixing. I think a combination of the following would be very helpful short and long term.

-Remove the ban on Medicare negotiating on lower cost prescription drugs, let them negotiate like every other health insurance company in the world does. This was put on the books as a gift to them by Republicans, and seniors tend to get sicker and need more prescription drugs then the rest of the population.

-Raise the Medicare taxes, the fact is the baby boomer generation is starting to retire now, so Medicare covers more people, and will have more expenses no matter what you do unless you kick people off of it. You can't fix Medicare's financial problems without raising the taxes.

-Have the IRS get more aggressive on Medicare fraud, from what I understand Medicare fraud has been going up the last decade, which costs tax payers money. It would probably be a good idea to throw more people in jail for Medicare fraud to, instead of letting them become governor of Florida.

Doctors shouldn't have a financial incentive to give patients an MRI that they don't need.

It seems like the only "solution" that anybody ever really talks about is cutting Medicare, never examining the exorbitant costs for health care and/or what can be done to better control costs even though the real solution is obvious to at least some people!

it would be cutting the program, just that the cuts would come to big Pharma and not necessarily to the recipients of the medical care, so in a sense he is right.

Social Security is SELF-FUNDING.

Whenever *anybody* says that Social Security is responsible for the deficit and debt,
they are shilling for only one thing - to destroy Social Security. Period.

spewed on NPR this evening too.

demand to see exact figures on all three programs compiled from reputable, nonpartisan organizations, such as the Congressional budge office, not the PEW Foundation, which support this statement.

There are so many errors and distortions in this New York Times article that I had to quit reading about three-fourths of the way down. I wonder who or what exactly encouraged The Times to present this article in this manner.

Sam

the article claims it is the babyboomers' retirement which is partially to blame. I do not believe that is much of a factor. The babyboomers prepaid their retirement as a result of the agreement reached in either 1982 or 1983, paying over and beyond the normal FICA rate, for about three decades. So it is wrong to say the babyboomers' retirement is the problem because the Social Security Trust Fund has the accumulated payments.

Yes, Uncle Sam has borrowed against it and cannot afford to repay the debt, but that is not the fault of the babyboomers. The same thing has been done with Federal Government employee pension funds.

Part of that I think it was 22 percent pays for Social Security disability and survivors benefits which would not necessarily have been prefunded. Improve the unemployment situation and raise the cap and more revenue would flow into the system and Uncle Sam could pay less. But don't blame the babyboomer retirement....

Medicare Part D should be changed, and Uncle Sam should be allowed to negotiate for lower drug prices.

Medicaid -- I am for totally funding whatever is necessary with the proper fraud safeguards in place because it is what a civilized society should do.

Sam

I don't trust them anymore.

IMO

The real motto for the SCREW YORK TIMES should be:

All The Corporate Propaganda We're Ordered To Print

alternative reality that is Fox News... but nope, it was still the NY Times website...

The article is definitely mind-blowing, and not in a good way. Though I doubt this insane error will get as much attention as their test drive in a Tesla.