where i agree with the dems

Maz , what they are saying is that SS did nothing with their surplus except accept IOU's from the government. They did not buy stocks or land to be sold off. While it may not have tricked you , it has masked the size of the debt that the rest of the government has run up. That I think is the point. LBJ did it to mask Defense spending on Vietnam if the truth be told. Originally Posted by WTF

hey WTF

many progams most likely wouldnt have seen the light of day without that slight of hand

Want to talk about misleading semantics? Just take a peak at what you just said. Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

I guess I know longer get a "Cheers", huh.

Talk about misleading...I said "expanded"...you start arguing "started". Mybe you need to go pick up one of your grade school primers and start trying to learn how to read and comprehend again.

Or could it be that you are just trying to mislead. Oh my God, NO. What a deciever that would make you. That just can't be true.

As someone who is in Health Care and will probably retire that way, I can honestly say that Mandatory Health Insurance WILL help. The fact is, that millions of people use government money to pay for their medical bills thus resulting in the debt we have now. Add to that a multi-billion dollar fraud debt, and it's no easy fix.

Even if people who are paying NOTHING now are forced to pay something as low as $40 a month, that is still feeding back into the system. Of course you can't force people to have the insurance, just like you can't force people to get car insurance....but the ones who can afford it already have it now.

The cons I see with this rule are that many will still not buy insurance. They will just pay the fine if and when they are caught, but that's still money back in the system. The reason we have so many people in the ER now is because people who are uninsured wait until something major happens to ever get help. They neglect primary care, screenings, and other tests which could have prevented this crisis in the first place.

When you have a choice of feeding your children or paying your premium, most opt for the first. Closing the doughnut hole in Medicare part D is another aspect I wrote a paper on last semester. The main problem with Health Care in the U.S. in general is that we treat the symptom and not the root. We are so quick to prescribe yet another pill, instead of trying to get to the main source of the problem. Medication is literally killing America because it allows people to continue making bad choices and get a quick fix after the fact. "Oh don't want to stop smoking, eat right and exercise? Here take this!"

In a way I find most Docs are like bad service providers....they get you in, out, and bill you for every additional thing they can think of. You have docs at war with their Admin., Admin at war with the insurance companies, and the patient is lost in the mix while everyone else is just worried about their bottom line. Personally, I am ashamed to have to work in U.S. Health Care because I have so much more respect towards other countries approach to it...especially Europe.

Then again, there are big bucks in Health Care Admin. in the U.S. but it would be nice to see a CEO stand up for what is right now and then. Originally Posted by London Rayne

Ahh my dear, if society determines that “health care” is a God given right, then how its cost is apportioned has very little to do with masking those costs under the word “Insurance”. It ain’t insurance…its free heath care.

What may be surprising to some is that I agree that some basic health care ought to be available to all. It is just a cost of living in this country and reaping the benefits of doing so. But what the definition of “basic health care” and how much should be covered and what controls are placed upon society is where the “devil is in the details”.

No one likes the term “death panels”. Fine by me…call them something else. But of course, there has to be some kind of system to determine who is going to get additional care and who is not. Whether we choose to determine that by a person’s age, or the lifestyle choices, or their contribution to society, or whatever…there has to be some basis for choice.

Society has to decide how much a life is worth. Yep, that’s a terrible thing to say…but society does have to decide. We can all come up with as many scenarios as we can imagine asking should this be covered or should that be covered. But all of those scenarios are going to trail off into moral arguments that are never going to be agreed upon. In the end, how much are we willing to spend to save a life…after that, either pony up yourself, or tough titty.

The somewhat frightening thing about such “how much is a life worth” determination is…that once we determine such a thing…there are going to be many things that society can spend money on that will save more lives per dollar spent (i.e. more bang for the buck) than health care.

But playing on all the emotions of the various groups is how politicians get elected and stay in office.

Whatever you may think about increases or decreases in government spending is a separate matter. It simply, however, has nothing to do with the SS system. Social Security runs as a completely separate and independently accountable entity to the rest of the federal budget. No matter how you may want to spin it the facts are the facts. Social Security has not been "raided" by anyone.

Mazo. Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

Agreed but what never was talking about , I think, was that it masked the Federal debt. By doing so, government was able to expand in a way that it might not have.

I agree it is just an accounting trick but it worked!

And yes I agree that Repub's use it for BS. They now want to cut SS benifits and not DEFENSE SPENDING. It is total BS and again I think, that was never's point.

Ahh my dear, if society determines that “health care” is a God given right, then how its cost is apportioned has very little to do with masking those costs under the word “Insurance”. It ain’t insurance…its free heath care.

What may be surprising to some is that I agree that some basic health care ought to be available to all. It is just a cost of living in this country and reaping the benefits of doing so. But what the definition of “basic health care” and how much should be covered and what controls are placed upon society is where the “devil is in the details”.

No one likes the term “death panels”. Fine by me…call them something else. But of course, there has to be some kind of system to determine who is going to get additional care and who is not. Whether we choose to determine that by a person’s age, or the lifestyle choices, or their contribution to society, or whatever…there has to be some basis for choice.

Society has to decide how much a life is worth. Yep, that’s a terrible thing to say…but society does have to decide. We can all come up with as many scenarios as we can imagine asking should this be covered or should that be covered. But all of those scenarios are going to trail off into moral arguments that are never going to be agreed upon. In the end, how much are we willing to spend to save a life…after that, either pony up yourself, or tough titty.

The somewhat frightening thing about such “how much is a life worth” determination is…that once we determine such a thing…there are going to be many things that society can spend money on that will save more lives per dollar spent (i.e. more bang for the buck) than health care.

But playing on all the emotions of the various groups is how politicians get elected and stay in office. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

great post RK

Ahh my dear, if society determines that “health care” is a God given right, then how its cost is apportioned has very little to do with masking those costs under the word “Insurance”. It ain’t insurance…its free heath care.

What may be surprising to some is that I agree that some basic health care ought to be available to all. It is just a cost of living in this country and reaping the benefits of doing so. But what the definition of “basic health care” and how much should be covered and what controls are placed upon society is where the “devil is in the details”.

No one likes the term “death panels”. Fine by me…call them something else. But of course, there has to be some kind of system to determine who is going to get additional care and who is not. Whether we choose to determine that by a person’s age, or the lifestyle choices, or their contribution to society, or whatever…there has to be some basis for choice.

Society has to decide how much a life is worth. Yep, that’s a terrible thing to say…but society does have to decide. We can all come up with as many scenarios as we can imagine asking should this be covered or should that be covered. But all of those scenarios are going to trail off into moral arguments that are never going to be agreed upon. In the end, how much are we willing to spend to save a life…after that, either pony up yourself, or tough titty.

The somewhat frightening thing about such “how much is a life worth” determination is…that once we determine such a thing…there are going to be many things that society can spend money on that will save more lives per dollar spent (i.e. more bang for the buck) than health care.

But playing on all the emotions of the various groups is how politicians get elected and stay in office. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

I agree that the majority view the elderly as drains on the system, until it's their own family that is in that same spot. There really is NO one solution I suppose, but a little compassion instead of focusing on the bottom line might be a nice change. Do I want to foot the bill for everyone else's issues...hell no, but I bet I would take that back if I were ever walking in those shoes and could not afford to get treatment.

Bottom line is the ER won't turn you away just because you can't afford to pay, so I really don't see why anyone has health insurance knowing that. I have it because I get very good benefits and it is cost effective for my family. At under $300 a month for medical, dental, and vision, I am not complaining. I pick my own doctors and don't have to wait in line at a charity hospital. If I am not satisfied, I have the ability to change doctors and even insurance companies. I like having those options available to me, so I pay for them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/security/stories/oss052998.htm

A little history. In 1968, in order to pay for the war in Vietnam and pretty up the numbers of a surging budget deficit, President Johnson arbitrarily decided to include Social Security in the budget. Social Security was then, as now, taking in more money every year from workers than it pays out to old folks. It helped LBJ produce balanced books Originally Posted by WTF

Good summation, and I read the article. Yet Johnson used the Social Security fund to mask the cost of the war AND his "Great Society" programs.

I also found this graph comparing defense spending with social spending using constant dollars. http://economicscourageous.wordpress. com/category/economics/great-society/

Good summation, and I read the article. Yet Johnson used the Social Security fund to mask the cost of the war AND his "Great Society" programs.

I also found this graph comparing defense spending with social spending using constant dollars. http://economicscourageous.wordpress. com/category/economics/great-society/

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Yea but that is a BS accounting trick. It does not include interest that we have to pay for past military borrowing! That's like saying the interest on your mortgage does not count as a cost of living in that house, charge it to medical costs.To better understand follow the link.



http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

I also found this graph comparing defense spending with social spending using constant dollars. Originally Posted by I B Hankering

*SIGH*

I expected more from you Hank. I really did.

As usual, people find something posted on the internet by some anonymous source and, for whatever reason, simple assume that it's the absolute word-of-God truth personally handed down to the poster on a golden scroll.

This graph compares "payments to individuals" to defense spending. The payments to individual line item is not just social security. It includes all forms government programs that have some form of direct payment to any person for any reason. It's everything from medical care to railroad retirement to post-Katrina rebuilding funds. If the government cut somebody a check it's in the payments to individual line.

Nor is this graph in "constant dollars". It's just normalized to total outlays which is a whole different thing.

In 2009 Social Security made up less than 40% of the payments to individuals line. This graph is meaningless when talking about social security. It's just one more piece of disinformation put out to steal your vote.

If you want to see the real numbers for yourself you can go to the GPO's historical budget page HERE and get all the real numbers for yourself. The defense spending line is broken out in several of the tables including section 3. You'll find the breakdown on payments to individuals in section 11.

And for those of you who don't have Excel, here's the graph using the REAL numbers. This is total defense spending from line 4 of table 3.1 vs. total Social Security benefits payments from line 15 of table 13.1 normalized to total federal outlays from line 35 of table 3.1.

Quite a different picture, huh? Notice how social security benefits leveled off as the program became full vested in the '70's. Not exactly the out-of-control spending picture presented by the first graph is it?

Cheers,
Mazo.

what i am complaining about happened...social security funds mask the true deficit and i think should be taken out of the budget.... Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

Alright, since you can't seem to understand it in English, how about we try saying it in lawyer speak?

United States Code, Title 2, Chapter 17A, Subchapter I, § 632

"(a) Content of concurrent resolution on the budget.

On or before April 15 of each year, the Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year. The concurrent resolution shall set forth appropriate levels for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year and for at least each of the 4 ensuing fiscal years

. . .

The concurrent resolution shall not include the outlays and revenue totals of the old age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act or the related provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in the surplus or deficit totals required by this subsection or in any other surplus or deficit totals required by this subchapter."

See how it says that the budget doesn't include the trust funds?

Notice the bit about how they don't include the trust fund totals in the surplus and deficit figures?

Understand the point about how putting Social Security "on budget" is actually against the law?

Any of this getting through?

No, I guess not.

Oh well.

Mazo.

[quote=London Rayne;968252]


When you have a choice of feeding your children or paying your premium, most opt for the first. Closing the doughnut hole in Medicare part D is another aspect I wrote a paper on last semester. The main problem with Health Care in the U.S. in general is that we treat the symptom and not the root. We are so quick to prescribe yet another pill, instead of trying to get to the main source of the problem. Medication is literally killing America because it allows people to continue making bad choices and get a quick fix after the fact. "Oh don't want to stop smoking, eat right and exercise? Here take this!"

In a way I find most Docs are like bad service providers....they get you in, out, and bill you for every additional thing they can think of. You have docs at war with their Admin., Admin at war with the insurance companies, and the patient is lost in the mix while everyone else is just worried about their bottom line. Personally, I am ashamed to have to work in U.S. Health Care because I have so much more respect towards other countries approach to it...especially Europe.
quote]
That is why we will never be like Europe. Europe for the most part does not have fat poor people, and they do not have the intitlement syndrome that Americans have. They also have much different tort laws than America. Physicians here practice under what I like to call cover your ass medicine. Order unnecessary test because if they don’t they will be sued. I see people multiple times per month come through the E.R. because they are 400lbs Smoke 3 packs of smoke a day and have shortness of breath and chest pain while you a wanting on their test to come back, CXR, Lab, EKG. etc they start complaining about not being able to smoke at our smoke free facility. That would also never be tolerated in Europe. Now you are correct that we need to fix the cause, but we can't it is a poeple problem. Now the person I used as an example is also the most likely to sue. Now granted these case can usually be settled for 5 to 10k because after all they only are looking for a new hover round and a big screen T.V. to watch for lottery returns.

One other thing about the example of the patient above. True story we had a frequent flyer come by ambulance to our facility, and because we were not going to order the C.T. for the 3 time in a month. The patient called an ambulance service to pick them up at our facility to take them to another. Of course the ambulance service refused and called to let us know about what had just happened. By the way Medicaid paid us $67 for this E.R. visit, and the patient is not retirement age nor have they worked in many years. They just get so sick that they will eventually qualify for disability. Now how do fix this?

@ WTF

I’m having the same trouble with your pie chart that you say you’re having with my graph. Hypothetically, let’s say I had to have my car serviced and repaired last year. It’s a necessary expense, but I don’t have the cash; so I charged $1,000 on my credit card. I promised myself I’d pay it off as soon as I could, but then I took a vacation to Cabo, and enjoyed a couple of nights out at nice shows and restaurants each month since I charged the repairs. To confound things, I used my credit card to pay for all of that entertainment. Needless to say, I never got around to paying off my credit card balance, and—even though I paid $250 a month on the credit card for the last twelve months—I have continued to incur interest. So I ask, “Have I paid for the tires yet?” Your way of reckoning says I haven’t. Even though I paid $3,000 towards my debt, my credit card never had a zero balance. To my way of thinking, it’s kinda like the government choosing to fund new or expand existing social service (or other) programs rather than reducing the public debt to zero.

I’ll give you this. My chart is probably just as biased as your pie chart.

@ Mazomaniac

Yeah, I took the easy way out because I didn’t feel like finding my copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s LBJ biography and looking for passages about LBJ’s budget woes. But I did use your hyperlink and checked the numbers presented by the GPO: Section 3 — Federal Government Outlays by Function. Unless, I am reading the table wrong, it shows outlays for social services passed military expenditures in 1971—just like the chart indicates. Thereafter, social expenditures continued to outpace military expenditures—just like the chart indicates. In 2009 the military budget was $661,049,000,000; whereas, the social services (Human resources on the table) budget was $2,155,782,000,000, or a little over three times the military budget. Am I wrongly interpreting the information?

I guess I know longer get a "Cheers", huh. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Not on this topic, no.

Talk about misleading...I said "expanded"...you start arguing "started". Mybe you need to go pick up one of your grade school primers and start trying to learn how to read and comprehend again.

Or could it be that you are just trying to mislead. Oh my God, NO. What a deciever that would make you. That just can't be true.

OK, fine. I've always respected your normally reasonable arguments but on this topic you're obviously so dense that even x-rays can't get through you so I'll just have to lead you by the nose.

Here's the law:

Social Security Act of 1935, Title II, Section 201(b).

"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to invest such portion of the amounts credited to the Account as is not, in his judgment, required to meet current withdrawals. Such investment may be made only in interest-bearing obligations of the United States or in obligations guaranteed as to both principal and interest by the United States"

Think hard about what this says in relation to your argument about Johnson.

According to the US Code the SSA MUST invest 100% of the trust fund and it MUST invest that money only in US Treasuries.

What does that mean?

It means that every fiscal quarter the bean counters down at the SSA do some simple math. They take the amount of money that came in via taxes and interest and they subtract the amount they need to pay out in benefits and administrations expenses. What's left over MUST go into the trust fund. They then put that money for the trust fund - ALL of that money - in a great big bag and take it down the street to Treasury building and buy as many US government bonds as they can with it.

100% of the trust fund money, by law, goes to buy government bonds. It always has.

100% went to buy bonds in 1940. 100% went to buy bonds under Johnson. 100% went to buy bonds under Reagan. 100% went to buy bonds under every single fucking president we've had since the first dime rolled into the SSA in 1938.

What does that mean for your argument that Johnson "expanded" (or "started" or "encouraged" or whatever other verb you want to use) the use of the trust fund to buy government debt?

It means you're full of shit.

100% of the trust fund money was going into government bonds no matter what Johnson or anybody else wanted to do with it. Johnson couldn't have "expanded the borrowing from the trust fund". The trust fund was already going to put all of its money back into government securities anyway. Johnson had absolutely no control over that. It was done automatically by law.

Do you see why your argument is such a ridiculous impossibility?

If Johnson had tripled the federal budget how much of the trust fund money would SSA have put into government bonds? Answer: 100%

If Johnson had halved the federal budget how much of the trust fund money would SSA have put into government bonds? Answer: 100%

If Goldwater had been elected in 1964 how much of the trust fund money would SSA have put into government bonds? Answer: 100%

If Jo Jo the Talking Dog had been elected in 1964 how much of the trust fund money would SSA have put into government bonds? Answer: 100%

Get the point?

There was nothing that Johnson did or even could have done that in any way affected the amount of money the US government "borrowed" from the SSA trust funds either before, during, or after his presidency. The amount of government bonds purchased by SSA is determined solely on the basis of how much surplus there is in the SSA accounts at the end of each quarter not on how big the federal budget is for that period. No President, Johnson or otherwise, has any control over the trust fund investment.

Everything you believe on this subject is wrong. It's a lie. It's a sham. It's a magnificently effective fabrication created by a brilliant political manipulator to dupe you into thinking that something evil happened in 1968 that was all the fault of the Democratic Party. You've been suckered on this to such a huge extent that you'd rather believe the sun rises in the west before giving up on this idea.

But hey, I'm ready to be proven wrong.

Prove to me that Johnson somehow managed to "borrow" more than 100% of the trust fund.

Show me the actual law that changed the way the trust funds worked under Johnson.

Explain to me how SSA can give the Treasury more than 100% of the surplus every quarter without anybody ever noticing that the books don't quite balance.

You do that and I'll be happy to accept your argument. In the mean time I stand by my position that you're full of shit on this. You're just parroting something you heard in Forbes or the WSJ or on the Glen Beck show because you're too lazy to even bother to think about whether it could even be true let alone whether it is true.

You show me why I'm wrong other than "I read it on the internet somewhere" and I'll be happy to continue the debate. In the mean time all I can say about me being the one who's "misleading" is .

Mazo.

But I did use your hyperlink and checked the numbers presented by the GPO: Section 3 — Federal Government Outlays by Function. Unless, I am reading the table wrong, it shows outlays for social services passed military expenditures in 1971—just like the chart indicates. Thereafter, social expenditures continued to outpace military expenditures—just like the chart indicates. In 2009 the military budget was $661,049,000,000; whereas, the social services (Human resources on the table) budget was $2,155,782,000,000, or a little over three times the military budget. Am I wrongly interpreting the information? Originally Posted by I B Hankering

You're confusing the line items just like the guy who generated your original graph did.

Table 3.1 Line 5 includes ALL human services outlays. That includes expenditures that come out of the both the general fund and the SS trust funds. The trust fund expenditures (which includes administrative costs and other outlays beyond the benefits payments I put in my graph) are the off-budget numbers found on line 12. As you can see, the SS outlays surpassed defense during the '90's but went back below them later on.

The reason you can't honestly mix the Social Security numbers into the other "Human Resources" figures as they are shown on line 5 - although Tea Party members love to do so no matter how much you try to explain it to them - is that the revenue that funds the various human resources subfunds comes from completely separate sources.

The Social Security benefits in my graph are paid for solely by SS taxes.

The "payments to individuals" in your original graph are funded by both the SS tax and general revenue taxes.

Mixing those two is grossly misleading because the non-trust fund numbers fluctuate independently from the SSA numbers. How much the government puts out for things like housing assistance changes dramatically over time as do general tax revenues. Social Security revenues and outlays, on the other hand, have been relatively stable since the program filled out in the 1970's.

This is the problem with most of the analysis you see on the net. People just don't understand what the line items in the budget actually mean and they don't take the time to look it up. They just seize on a set of figures that they like and dump them up on their blog. Others, of course, purposely do it for their own selfish political goals.

You can see from your own exploration of the numbers just how complex the federal budget info can be. You just can't trust what you see on the net without checking it out for yourself. You really have to go in and do your own research on this kind of stuff.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[quote=Fastcars1966;969192]

When you have a choice of feeding your children or paying your premium, most opt for the first. Closing the doughnut hole in Medicare part D is another aspect I wrote a paper on last semester. The main problem with Health Care in the U.S. in general is that we treat the symptom and not the root. We are so quick to prescribe yet another pill, instead of trying to get to the main source of the problem. Medication is literally killing America because it allows people to continue making bad choices and get a quick fix after the fact. "Oh don't want to stop smoking, eat right and exercise? Here take this!"

In a way I find most Docs are like bad service providers....they get you in, out, and bill you for every additional thing they can think of. You have docs at war with their Admin., Admin at war with the insurance companies, and the patient is lost in the mix while everyone else is just worried about their bottom line. Personally, I am ashamed to have to work in U.S. Health Care because I have so much more respect towards other countries approach to it...especially Europe.
quote]
That is why we will never be like Europe. Europe for the most part does not have fat poor people, and they do not have the intitlement syndrome that Americans have. They also have much different tort laws than America. Physicians here practice under what I like to call cover your ass medicine. Order unnecessary test because if they don’t they will be sued. I see people multiple times per month come through the E.R. because they are 400lbs Smoke 3 packs of smoke a day and have shortness of breath and chest pain while you a wanting on their test to come back, CXR, Lab, EKG. etc they start complaining about not being able to smoke at our smoke free facility. That would also never be tolerated in Europe. Now you are correct that we need to fix the cause, but we can't it is a poeple problem. Now the person I used as an example is also the most likely to sue. Now granted these case can usually be settled for 5 to 10k because after all they only are looking for a new hover round and a big screen T.V. to watch for lottery returns. Originally Posted by London Rayne

Don't ya just love being in Health Care lol. I am glad I am not at the prime of my career just yet, because you guys will see me in the paper with this big mouth lol.