I think the grossest misleading statements made by Bush tonight were related to his chronic push for tax cuts while he ceaselessly talks about the increasing unaffordability and rising costs of funding "entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid".
Mr. Bush took office with the federal budget essentially in balance. Four months before, in Oct., 2000 the fiscal year ended with just an $18 billion increase in total federal borrowing. Social Security was sound. More than $100 billion in surplus social security payroll taxes colllected in the prior year were handed over to the SSA Trust fund, along with T-bonds representing the $18 billion borrowed from the surplus collected, to fund government operations.
As I've pointe out in another recent thread, the federal debt will increase by $700 billion in the current fiscal year, ending on 9/30/08. The borrowing will include all of the more than $186 billion collected in surplus Social Security payroll taxes, a $200 billion budget deficit, and Mr. Bush's new $150 billion tax rebate economic "stimulation" proposal. In the seventh year in the war in Afghanistan, and the fifth year of war in Iraq, the $700 billion in new debt will be rounded out with the addition of borrowing to pay for $175 billion in "supplemental approrpiations" to fund war operations. These appropriations are not budgeted because, this way, they don't factor into the amount announced as the annual budget deficit.
Mr. Bush's tax cuts and war spending are bankrupting both the federal government and the SSA trust fund, and he is not willing to change a thing. He's announced the withdrawal of a few thousand troops from Iraq, but he is sending more troops to Afghnistan, bolstering the US force there to 30,000.
<h3>Mr. Bush has not used the term "national debt" in years.....</h3>
There were warnings, more than a year before Bush became president, that a large tax cut (much smaller, though. than the ones Bush succeeded in implementing), was not realistic, since it would result "in much larger non-Social Security deficits". That warning was during a period when sound fiscal management had resulted in no "non-Social Security deficit". Currently the "non-Social Security deficit" is at least $200 billion annually, not including additional borrowing to fund at least $120 billion in "supplemental appropriations" for funding war operations, and the $186 billion in Social Security payroll tax receipts, not counted as part of the annual deficit, but spent each year on government operations. In 2000, only $18 billion of the yearly Social Security surplus was spent, and then owed to the SSA trust fund.
<h3>During seven years of president Bush's "leadership", the amount of surplus Social security funds spent by the government, but not counted in the budget deficit numbers, was $1.174 trillion, including $186 billion in this past year, alone. The amount of money in the <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fyOps.html">SSA trust fund was $1.006 trillion</a>, at the end of 2000</h3>, vs. $2.180 trillion at the end of 2007.
How can President Bush preside over a government that spent $1.174 trillion of the money collected from our earnings and matched by our employers, except for earnings above $105,000 annually, a government that continues to borrow and spend an addtional minimum of $186 billion in surplus Social Security payroll taxes collected, more than doubling the amount the government owes to the SSA Trust fund, while having the motherfucking BALLS to declare in his speech tonight:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bush
...Every Member in this chamber knows that spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is growing faster than we can afford....
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He took $1.174 trillion of our money, we and our employers paid it to the government in advance, and he cut taxes, most liberally to the people who stop having SSA taxes deducted from their income on annaulk amounts above $105,000, spent it on continuing government operations not counted as part of his announced annual budget deficits, doubled the amount owed to the SSA trust fund to a level over $2 trillion, advocates making these tax cuts permanent, and complains that the cost of funding "entitlement programs" we have paid in advance for, are "growing faster than we can afford"....
<h3>But Ustwo posts that my "attitide" is the actual problem.....</h3>
Quote:
http://www.cbpp.org/9-17-99socsec.htm
September 17, 1999
A Small Non-Social Security Deficit In Fiscal Year 2000
Would Not Adversely Affect Social Security
by Robert Greenstein and James Horney
....Many Americans — and more than a few policymakers — appear to believe that using a portion of the Social Security surplus to cover a deficit in the non-Social Security budget would constitute a "raid" on Social Security — reducing Social Security's assets and impairing its ability to pay benefits in the future. Indeed, polls indicate there is a widespread view that a primary reason Social Security faces long-term financing problems is that Social Security reserves needed to help finance the benefits of future retirees have been depleted by the past use of these resources to cover deficits in the rest of the budget.
These beliefs are not correct and appear to be rooted in a misunderstanding of how Social Security finances work. Whether or not the non-Social Security budget runs a modest deficit in fiscal year 2000 would have no appreciable effect on either the Social Security trust funds or Social Security solvency. The significance of such a deficit is not in its effect on Social Security but rather in its effect on the government's contribution to national saving through paying down the debt. (The fact that a deficit is likely in 2000 because the Congress has not been able to hold appropriated spending to the level allowed for 2000 also demonstrates that the assumption in the budget resolution that deep cuts will be made in appropriated spending over the next 10 years — an assumption that forms the basis for the claim that a large tax cut is affordable — is not realistic. A tax cut of the magnitude of $792 billion would be likely to result in much larger non-Social Security deficits on a sustained basis.)...
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Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...otu-text_N.htm
Full text of Bush's State of the Union address
Posted 45m
....We have other work to do on taxes. Unless the Congress acts, most of the tax relief we have delivered over the past 7 years will be taken away. Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase. Try explaining that to 116 million American taxpayers who would see their taxes rise by an average of $1,800. Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders.
Most Americans think their taxes are high enough. With all the other pressures on their finances, American families should not have to worry about the Federal Government taking a bigger bite out of their paychecks. There is only one way to eliminate this uncertainty: make the tax relief permanent. And Members of Congress should know: If any bill raising taxes reaches my desk, I will veto it....
....There are two other pressing challenges that I have raised repeatedly before this body, and that this body has failed to address: entitlement spending and immigration.
<h3>Every Member in this chamber knows that spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is growing faster than we can afford.</h3> And we all know the painful choices ahead if America stays on this path: massive tax increases, sudden and drastic cuts in benefits, or crippling deficits. I have laid out proposals to reform these programs. Now I ask Members of Congress to offer your proposals and come up with a bipartisan solution to save these vital programs for our children and grandchildren........
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