Reports of program's demise are greatly exaggerated (USA Today)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> •Immediate fix. According to Social Security's trustees, the system could be fixed for at least the next 75 years by increasing the tax, paid collectively by you and your employer, from 12.4% to 14.3%. Alternatively, it could be fixed by decreasing payouts by an average of 13%. While these unpleasant options are not being recommended, they show how a fix — either in conjunction with private accounts, or not — is within reach.

• Worst-case scenario. If nothing is done and Social Security depletes its reserves at mid-century, it could still pay benefits at 73% of the level it currently promises, simply by lowering its payouts to the amount it takes in each year. Again, not politically palatable, but a lot more than zero.

•Problems in perspective. If nothing is done, Social Security could still pay promised benefits for 75 years by borrowing $3.7 trillion. That's a troubling amount of debt, to be sure. But it's less than the $8 trillion the recently enacted Medicare drug benefit is expected to cost during that time, or the $11 trillion in lost revenues caused by the tax cuts enacted in President Bush's first term.

•Other solutions Plenty of proposals exist to shore up Social Security, with or without private accounts. One is to raise the retirement ages, now at 62 for early retirement and as high as 67 for full retirement, to account for longer life spans. Other proposals include cutting benefits for affluent retirees, or reducing cost-of-living adjustments by pegging them to inflation rather than to the average annual growth in wages. <snip>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2005-02-01-benefits-our_x.htm

[bemildred]

1. Babble.

Notice the careful avoidance of the possibility of raising or removing
the wage cap.

[struggle4progress]

2. I certainly agree that the wage cap seems like the most natural ...

... aspect to address, but it's possible that few in Congress are willing to touch it. I've never gotten a favorable response from my Congressman on that particular reform proposal.

I'm not really a USA Today fan, and I always suspect their take on issues has been carefully vetted to avoid creating controversy. So the real reason for this post is simply that such an article in USA Today suggests some real nervousness about the political consequences of Social Security "reform" among the corporate elite. With the current media concentration, and the usual corporate secrecy, the effort to "read" the ruling class becomes more and more like Cold War Kremlinology

[bemildred]

4. Yeah.

I consider USA Today to be one of the most supine of the
state propaganda organs, and that they feel the need to
publish a "story" like this does indicate something.

I consider the Social Security "issue" at present to be a
combination trial balloon and distraction. They are looking for
a formula that can be sold to dismantle Social Security, and if that
fails they will try to make it worse somehow so another attack
can be mounted later, and in the meantime it will suck up political
energy that could be troublesome if applied against the war policy etc.

[struggle4progress]

5. Right.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. yes, everything EXCEPT raising the wage cap

Hmmm. I wonder how many voters even know that there is a cap and that the richest CEO in the country pays so little FICA?