Privatize social security?

Aside from being just the DUMBEST IDEA since No Child Left Behind or voucher programs, where the heck does the president get his numbers from?

You might want to look at what the Congressional Budget Office (the non-partisan entity responsible for tracking and projecting gov’t spending) has to say about the future of SS.

A few handy tidbits…

“The expected trust fund exhaustion date--the year in which the trust fund balance (and thus the trust fund ratio) falls to zero--is 2052 in CBO's projection. But as the uncertainty range in Figure 1-2 shows, there is a 10 percent chance that the exhaustion date will be 2034 or earlier and a 10 percent chance that it will be after 2085. Although the figure shows negative trust fund ratios after the exhaustion date, under current law the trust funds cannot be negative because the Social Security program does not have the legal authority to borrow money. Thus, those negative balances represent the cumulative amount that the federal government's general fund would have to provide to pay all scheduled Social Security benefits. “

What this “trust fund ratio” means is simply the amount coming in versus the amount being paid.

This does NOT MEAN it will run out of money.

This little snippet may help explain…

“Trust-fund-financed benefits equal scheduled benefits until the trust funds are exhausted (projected to occur in 2052) and Social Security revenues thereafter. In 2053, dedicated revenues are projected to equal only 81 percent of scheduled outlays, so trust-fund-financed benefits are 19 percent lower than scheduled benefits (see Figure 1-3). The difference grows: by 2100, projected revenues are only 71 percent of projected outlays. “

As for putting the SS trust money in the market, HAVE YOU SEEN THE F’N STOCK MARKET?!?!

Why not just bet it on a horse?!?!

Besides SS is a GREAT BARGAIN for retirement moneys…

Just look:

Estimated Administrative Costs of Pension Systems and Their Effect on Assets at Retirement

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Pension System		Annual Administrative Cost	Percentage Reduction in Assets at Retirement
Social Security		$11 per participant	2
Federal Thrift Savings Plan		$25 per participant	5
Mutual Funds (Average)		1.09 percent of assets	23
Private Defined-Contribution Funds, by Analyst
	Pension Dynamics Corporation (Large plan)	$24 per account plus 0.8 percent of assets	21
	Pension Dynamics Corporation (Small plan)	$60 per account plus 1 percent of assets	30
	IRS Form 5500 Tabulation	$49 per account	9
	General Accounting Office	$103 per account	19

There’s lots more.

www.firstgov.gov really IS the best place to start when looking for anything government related.