Dave you should definitely read Roth's new book. I think you'd like it.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 16:26:50 -0500, "Vito" said:

The White House said on Monday for the first time
that President Bush (news - web sites)'s plan to add personal retirement
accounts to Social Security (news - web sites) would be financed in part
by
new government borrowing that could top $1 trillion.

Funny thing is that this whole scenario was played out in the private
sector
some 30 years ago. Starting in the 40s, and before for some companies,
companies would go along with union demands for bigger pension promises
because those promises didn't have to be funded, and hit the income
statement only in the form of a footnote. Then Studebaker-Worthington
failed
and left its retirees holding the bag, so the Congress critters suddenly
screamed "this is awful" and jumped in with guvmint insurance and a whole
passel of regulations. Now with the airlines in trouble the insurance fund
may become insolvent, so they're trying to figure out whose pocket to take
the money from to meet those obligations the guvmint took on.

Fact is that FDR's little Ponzi scheme is finally heading for the point
all
Ponzi schemes ultimately reach, when there aren't enough new suckers
coming
in to make good on the promises made to the first suckers.

Borrowing the money simply makes explicit what everybody should know--the
guvmint owes. Somebody's gonna pay--the only question is who. Current
taxpayers? Future taxpayers? Retirees? If you increase borrowing, you get
one answer. If you cut benefits and postpone retirement, you get another
answer. If you raise SS taxes, you get a different answer still.

I see that Lindsay Graham has his own proposal that would stick it to
those
making more than the SS wage limit. That's an answer that should appeal to
all the Dems. But based on what was said in the campaign, it sounds like
they'd prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the problem will
go away.

Dave