During the late 90's, what was the Dem position on Social Security?

[The Straight Story]

I am asking because I am wondering if they are going to back the chimpster and if so do the roots of doing that go back to another time:

They project that economic growth today will extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund to 2034, 2 years longer than was projected in last year’s report.

After that date, however, the Trust Fund will be exhausted, and Social Security will not be able to pay the full benefits older Americans have been promised. Therefore, still I say we must move forward with my plan to set aside 62 percent of the surplus for Social Security, investing a small portion in the private sector for better return, just as any private or State government pension would do.

As I said in my State of the Union Address, we then must go further with difficult but achievable reforms that put Social Security on a sound footing for 75 years, that lift the earnings limitations on what seniors can earn, and that do something about the incredible problem of poverty among elderly women living alone.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/about/history/presidents/Clinton3_30_99.asp

edited to add:
also see here:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1065&sequence=0
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION: EXPERIENCES ABROAD

Doing some google unclesam searches you can find other interesting views over the years - many are convinced it is broke long term and we need to fix it. Chimpy has the congress and another 4 years and can probably pass something on it, so perhaps the dems are on board for A change and want to get their hands into the whole thing and make sure it does not go haywire (ie, compromise).

I don't know the intents of all dems in congress, or where they fully stand on the issue, but given that it has been a large topic for many years and that assmaster is going to make it a big issue now, I am not surprised that we see dems now speaking up on the problems and solutions.

At any rate, your thoughts on it all?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[thefloyd]

2. Well the difference is when

Clinton was in office we could afford it!!

[Yupster]

3. The trust fund will not be exhausted in 2034

It will be exhausted in 2018 when it must payout more than it takes in.

At that point it will have to dip into its saved surplus. It's at that point that we will all notice that there is no saved surplus. The surplus has been spent. Those missiles are expensive things after all.

[DefenseLawyer]

4. No, actually

in 2018 SS will begin paying out more than it takes in, and instead of adding to the surplus, it will begin using the surplus to pay benefits. The surplus will not be exhausted until i believe 2042 or something; then there will be no surplus left to make up for the shortfall between the amount taken in and the amount paid out, so benefits would have to be cut by about 30%,since at that time they will be taking in 30% less than they pay out. The real problem is that they have been spending the surplus for some time, so it is all on paper anyway. That is the real crisis. That was Al Gore's "lockbox" that got so many laughs on SNL

[Yupster]

6. Listen to what you're saying

"The surplus will not be exhausted until I believe 2042 ..."

"The real problem is that they have been spending the surplus ..."

Don't you see?

It won't be exhausted in 2042. It's exhausted now. It's already been stolen and spent.

The money has been stolen and the thief has left a worthless IOU in the safe. Maybe he'll return someday and give it all back.

Let's all close our eyes, hold hands and say it together. "I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies..."

[Pepperbelly]

7. they pay off bonds EVERY business day.

What is your point?

[papau]

11. IOU = gov bond, -so all my gov bonds are worthless? interesting...

LOL

:-)

[TacticalPeek]

5. There is a great deal of disinformation on SS flying about.

It could even find it's way on to DU.

:)

Before getting too far off in the ditch, check out this over at TalkingPointsMemo.


I'm actually a little surprised Vice President Cheney said this. But if he wants to be upfront about the folly of his administration's proposal, who am I to complain?

This from Fox ...

"We're going to borrow $758 billion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts. We think that's a manageable amount ... Trillions more after that," Cheney said, acknowledging that the personal accounts will help younger workers but will not solve all the problems of solvency.




The observant will note that this has no relationship to anything Clinton ever said. Do read the Josh Marshall link.


Also, several threads over at Eschaton are highly informative and revealing of the SS BS being thrown up by Shrub's gang of thieves, and passed blindly along by their shills in the "liberal" media. And again, Clinton has nothing to do with this.

[snippy]

8. Here it is in a nutshell.

Democrats advocated "saving Social Security" by using the annual surpluses the government was then running to pay down the publicly held portion of the federal debt. This was done each year there was a surplus. Paying down the publicly held debt would make it easier and cheaper for the government to monetize the Social Security trust fund by borrowing money in the bond market to use to pay benefits once Social Security itself was no longer running a surplus.

Democrats and a few republicans wanted to continue to run annual surpluses and continue to pay down the publicly held debt. Many people expected the annual surpluses to continue and anticipated that it was possible that all of the publicly held debt could be paid off in the not too distant future. If that occurred before Social Security stopped running a surplus, the government would be left with excess cash at the end of each fiscal year. Clinton proposed that if the government did have excess cash, it should be invested by the Social Security trust fund in the stock and bond markets. Republicans howled and screamed at this suggestion so it never gained any traction.

All of the democratic positions on Social Security in the late 1990's were based on the assumption that government surpluses would continue except during periods of recession. No one anticipated that a fiscal maniac would become president and rape the federal treasury and future generations of Americans. All democratic proposals to invest Social security assets in the stock market were based on continued annual surpluses eventually eliminating the publicly held portion of the national debt, not on risking Social Security assets in the hope of getting a higher return on those assets while reducing the completely safe and guaranteed benefits to be received by retirees.

[TacticalPeek]

9. Well and precisely put.

Class, let's simply recall the talk about whether we really needed such a thing as the long bond anymore, and what might take its place.


"No one anticipated that a fiscal maniac would become president and rape the federal treasury and future generations of Americans."

So good it stands repeating.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. create a surplus (which Dems DID!) and set aside billions in a LOCK BOX

repukes laughed at the "Lock Box"...well i bet they will be "laughing out of the otherside of their necks" soon enough if nitwit gets his way (which he will NOT!)!