This page was last updated on November 1, 2010.
Ignore GOP tactics on Social Security; Daniel A. Bosh; Beaver County Times; October 31, 2010.
If you’ve read Mr. Bosh’s letters over the years, you recognize him as a died-in-the-wool leftist. In the 2004 presidential campaign, Mr. Bosh was a Democrat national delegate committed to Dennis Kucinich. Mr. Bosh is a representative of the Steelworkers Pension Trust. There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Bosh representing the USW but it means Mr. Bosh isn’t an impartial observer when it comes to labor union issues.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“A recent letter concerning the Republicans and their plans for Social Security reveals some misunderstanding on the part of the writer.
“First, the Republicans are the ones trying to scare people about Social Security.
“They have opposed its existence and predicted its collapse since its establishment.”
[RWC] Name a Ponzi scheme that didn’t collapse.
“More recently, Republicans claim that a funding crisis is imminent, even as Social Security annually runs a surplus.
“Today, the Social Security Trust Fund stands at more than $2.5 trillion of U.S. government-backed securities, and yet the RNC website says that ‘Social Security is running out of money.’
“Actually, it will take roughly the next quarter century to deplete the trust fund in the worst-case projections.”
[RWC] Perhaps Mr. Bosh gets his news from Beaver County Reds. According to the Social Security Trustees in their 2010 report to Congress, SS was to go into deficit (benefits paid exceed SS taxes collected) in 2016, the Disability Insurance portion of SS will be bankrupt in 2018, and the overall SS “trust fund” (the equivalent of a stack of federal government “IOUs” for revenue already spent by the feds for other programs) will be exhausted by 2037. Because of the current recession, news reports indicate SS is already in deficit, a full six years ahead of the 2008 projection. That’s because SS (as well as Medicare) is a Ponzi scheme.
“Second, the favorite plan of Republicans is privatization, the diversion of funds away from the Social Security Trust Fund and into private accounts on Wall Street.
“Privatization will reduce revenues to Social Security, raise its costs and bring about the failure that Republicans have been predicting.
[RWC] So-called “privatizing” of Socialist Security doesn’t divert funds away from Socialist Security and Mr. Bosh knows it. Current proposals give taxpayers the option to invest a very small portion of their SS taxes in personal accounts, but still under the oversight and rules of the SS Administration. Democrats themselves proposed and supported personal accounts in the late 1990s. Remember the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), Sen. Hillary Clinton’s immediate predecessor? This was also a recommendation of the bipartisan President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security in 2001.
“I agree that it is our duty to be educated and informed, but we need to start with accurate information.”
[RWC] It’s too bad Mr. Bosh doesn’t take his own advice.
© 2004-2010 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.