As I recall the numbers, without any tax increase or changes, the
Trust Fund will not even be tapped till 2016 by which time it will
have grown to $4 trillion, then we will be paying out more that we
collect from payroll taxes. Then even with no increase in taxes or
changes, we would not spend out the Trust Fund paying full benefits
until 2038. After 2038, again even with NO tax increase or changes,
the payroll taxes collected will pay for 73% of the benefits promised.

My numbers may be off and need updating but that is the general shape
of it. Bottomline is that Wall Street and their Congressional lackeys
made a good fight to rip off America's largest single source of
retirement income, and almost convinced a giddy populace that they
could get rich in the magical stock market. They came within a
hairsbreadth of the biggest fleecing in American history.

Its another example of conflating the ideology of greed, with
political expression. The reforms of the Roosevelt years saved this
country from a radical turn to the left. The social security system,
the unemployment insurance trust fund, the workmen's compensation
system, the banking (FDIC) and financial system reforms, and the fair
labor laws of our fathers, established a safety net and a firm set of
ground rules within which capitalism and free market enterprise could
flourish.

Sadly, greed and one political party's obsession with tearing down the
stabilizing structure of our father's hard earned Roosevelt reforms,
that has resulted in the mess we are currently in. Now, panicked we
see the unseemly near nationalization of the tattered system by the
administration. We see over reactions that threaten the basic
competitive and entrepreunurial character of our economy. I find it
ironic that it will fall to the Democrats to rebuild the competitive
and entrepreunurial character of our economy.



Your "assumptions" cost the brokerage industry something like $400
million in propaganda to plant that false perception in American
minds. It is bull****.

Huh? *I'd gladly and happily sign (and honor) something that relieved me
of any right to any SSA administered funds if I could get my contribs
back now with even a 3-4% interest and never having to contribute
anything again - I'll take care of myself and dependents, thank you very
much.

Of course you would. And I would like my tax money used to subsidize
those 400 or so substantial US and offshore companies who pay no
taxes. I would like to be able to tell them pay their share of police,
fire, school etc costs. Boeing flies its planes out over international
waters to avoid taxes. Microsoft runs its money thru a closet in
Nevada so Bill Gates can posture about how my school taxes should be
spent, I subsidize Intel's factory roads, the Hartford forest lands
and Weyerhaeuser pay diddle squat. And I have a better insight these
days on just how the Ag bill works since I bought some farm land.


Bottom-line is that a lot of this ideology stuff has clouded what we
really need to do in this country to both take proper care of our
people and build up a productive, competitive and entrepreneurial
private sector that can pay for our way of life in a sustainable
basis.

Dave