A doom and gloom piece in the Washington Post about Social Security is drawing a lot of attention. R.J. Eskow has the most complete criticism of the piece.
If you think of the Washington Post as a left wing newspaper you are way behind the times or you are so far right that you think Fox News really is "fair and balanced."
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You can pretend that WaPo is not "liberal," but they are most definitely liberal/left. To deny that is to deny reality.
http://tinyurl.com/BakerreWP
Dean Baker slices and dices.
Not sure why you're trying to reason with people who think the media is still liberal. You will have better luck convincing the drunk at my street corner that the moon is indeed not stalking him.
The more accurate way to view the Social Security trust fund is to see what impact tapping it has on the budget?
Using the interest to make up the cash shortfall required new general revenues, and is a current budget expense, AS IF THE TRUST FUND DID NOT EXIST.
The same process is used for battleships, without a trust fund, albeit there is no government "promise" to continue paying for battleships.
The same process is used for paying Medicare Part D - the 75% "promise" of premiums charged beneficiaries.
The 75% charge is paid out of new general revenues, and is a current budget expense.
If you consider government bonds as cash equivalents, then is Medicare Part D fully funded?
Don Levit
And, conversely, if you think the Washington Post is not left, you are definitely not with the times of today or you truly think Fox is not "balanced and fair."
(Republican) Stepping back from the WPost story, It appears that they are trying to give Congressional SuperCommittee cover to cut back SS beefits and increase the contributions/tax.
All in All, the caculations are very strange -- but goverment "fund" accounting is a unique animal, before they start to play politics with the figures.
Between the lines, is this start of a WPost push to get rid of the most coperative "Republican" COS or to make the COS the fall-guy for the eventual reduction of promised SSA benefits? Just a feeling when reading the article. ...
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