Obama is ignoring reality so he can threaten Social Security, just like Republicans repeatedly do ....

... either through his own ignorance or through deliberate malevolence, I don't know which.

Obama's already backed off his promise to reverse the tax cuts for the rich robber barons and royalty wannabes. Now he's suggesting that Social Security needs 'fixing.' Whatever that means.

Medicare and health care for all Americans needs fixing. Americans need jobs. America needs industry. America needs good schools. America needs mass transit systems. America needs bridges and roads fixed. America needs ...

America does not need a government that cuts the taxes of the wealthy and in additions hands out massive sums so that banks can pay their crooks bonuses and buy other banks. That's the kind of government the Thugs and Robber Barons wish. Obama was not elected to follow in Bush's footsteps.

I do not believe that Obama is either stupid nor ignorant of the real state of Social Security. That makes any pretense on his part to 'fix' it less than honest. If his intent was other than to steal from the funds contributed over the years by all of us then he would be more specific about what fix means. There is no reason to believe that Obama want's to improve Social Security for those who contribute to this worthwhile system. If anything Obama is showing that he is willing to concentrate on making the rich happy and forget about the rest of us. It would be really ironic if Obama tries to accomplish what Bush failed to do with Social Security. That is destroy it. In an economic crises where he should be looking to increasing the security of all American's he appears to be following the same failed Thug approach. Tax cuts for the rich and steal from the working people.

So far, Obama's promises are appear as solid as sand.

US workers have been paying into Social Security for decades. The baby boomers even paid in EXTRA so that the baby boomer retirement blip would be funded. SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT BROKEN!
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From Beat the Press: The Washington Post Merges its Editorial Section and News Section [emphasis added]

The Washington Post regularly editorializes for cuts in Social Security benefits. It also routinely makes untrue statements in its news article about the state of the program that have the effect of undermining confidence in it. It did so yet again today with a front page story that told readers, "beginning in 2011, Social Security will take in less revenue than it pays out and will be forced to dip into reserves to pay benefits."

This is wrong, the program is projected by the Trustees to take in more money in tax revenue than it pays in benefits until 2017. The Congressional Budget Office puts this date at 2020.

Of course being "forced to dip into reserves" is not a problem for the program. The reason that the program built up a huge stock of reserves (more than $2 trillion) was to defray the cost of the baby boomers retirement. We over-taxed workers for the last quarter century precisely so that we would have reserves to tap when the baby boomers retired.

--Dean Baker
Posted by Dean Baker on January 16, 2009 5:41 AM