Today is my last day guest blogging here at Wizbang, and this is my final post. Kevin’s triumphal return is upon us. He comes bearing wardrobe malfunctions. And they are glorious.
Guest blogging has been real, it’s been fun, and it’s even been real fun. I hope I entertained and informed the Wizbang crowd sufficiently. All of my fellow guest bloggers (Pennywit, Rob, and Mary Katharine Ham— not to mention the irreplaceable Jay Tea and rare-but-solid Paul) did a fantastic job over the past couple of weeks, and their blogs are each worth bookmarking. If you’ve enjoyed my posts, I would be honored for you to give WILLisms.com a bookmark, as well.
Today is also Social Security Reform Thursday. This week’s topic: KidSave Accounts. They’re a neat idea worth consideration.
Passage of meaningful reform is unlikely any time soon, but I intend to blog on Social Security reform every Thursday until the case for reform becomes so overwhelming that no vote-seeking politician could dare continue obstructing it. After all, Social Security reform is a process, not an event.
So, behold, yet more evidence for the necessity of reform:
According to the Social Security Trustees’ Report (.pdf), each year that Congress delays fixing Social Security, the cost of reform grows by $600 billion. The cost of this hidden gridlock tax is more than $2,000 every single year, for every single American.
This translates into $1.64 billion per day, $68.3 million per hour and $1.14 million per minute.
Think about it.
Now, a gratuitous yet relevant Social Security graph:
If there’s no Social Security reform by the 2006 elections, don’t you think that the public will be more than a little curious what their members of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, were doing all this time?
I sure do.
Will Franklin owns and operates WILLisms.com. Keep it classy, y’all.
600 Billion? To put it in perspective 8% of current Federal debt or about 3 times the amount spent servicing current debt each year.
Look would take this a lot more seriously if the government would fix the debt, with the money saved in debt service alone we could fix SS without changing a thing.
So far nether the GOP or the Dems have offered any plan that will address the concerns pointed out in this post.
My plan for “Saving SS”, fix the budget. Good luck.
Hmmm.
And Medicare is in worse shape.
Think about that.
Rick,
Several Republicans have introduced legislation that would fix Social Security. The proposals have been scored by the Social Security actuaries as achieving solvency.
And we can’t “fix the budget” without addressing major mandatory spending such as Social Security, and, as ed points out, Medicare. Incidentally, Medicare’s problems should not be an excuse for inaction on Social Security. On the contrary, successful Social Security reform ought to be a platform for proving Medicare can and should be reformed. The same goes for the debt. Where do you think all those dollars of debt are going? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not “pork barrel” projects or any other non-military discretionary spending. It is entitlements. And it only gets worse in the years to come. Sure, a big debt is not good. But using it as an excuse to not reform a broken pyramid scheme facing a demographic meltdown is just plain foolish.
It is exceedingly disingenuous (or ignorant, I am not sure which is worse) to claim that “nether the GOP or the Dems have offered any plan that will address the concerns pointed out in this post.” That’s just so untrue. Where have you been, man? There are lots of great ideas out there.
And that’s the point of Reform Thursday. To extend the discussion. To actually look at specific proposals. To think about the bigger picture and the principles involved.
Social Security is a pay more and get less retirement plan!…Every American is required to pay their hard earned money for their Golden Years into it!(Social Insecurity)… Our future generations should be allowed to choose!… WHY?…would anyone decide to invest in a retirement plan that “GUARANTEES” you will pay more and get less?…
To think about the bigger picture and the principles involved.
Too much to ask of Rick, I’m afraid.
Reform … Social Security sooner or later(hopefully sooner) will have to be fixed!… I love that NOdometer!…