Social Security

Whitehouse’s Social Security Blinders

By Justin Katz | November 23, 2012 |

Everybody should print out this snippet of a John Mulligan interview with U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, RI) as a cheat sheet on Democrat talking points about Social Security. It’s all there. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…

It’s a Ponzi Scheme

By Carroll Andrew Morse | September 13, 2011 |

Ramesh Ponnuru is wrong in the New York Times discussion where he claims that one reason that Social Security shouldn’t be considered a full-blown Ponzi scheme is because it is involuntary. Think of it this way: Suppose Bernie Madoff requested that he be allowed to do community service as part of his prison sentence, in…

A PolitiFact Social Security Stretch

By Justin Katz | August 9, 2011 |

One can only wonder whether the Providence Journal‘s PolitiFact team reads their own newspaper. The other day, they did what they love most to do (whacking Republican candidates) and graded Senatorial candidate Barry Hinckley “false” for saying that “there’s no money in Social Security.” Theirs is not a new argument — it’s one that partisan…

Froma Harrop Says Don’t Believe that Spending More on Social Security Than it Takes In Drives Up Deficits. And Then it Gets Worse.

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 22, 2011 |

Undeterred by fiscal or economic realities, Projo op-ed columnist Froma Harrop continues to argue that there is an actual “trust fund” backing the Social Security system. Here is the analogy made in her Sunday column, where she criticizes Ohio Congressman Rob Portman for expressing concern that Social Security now pays out more money than it…

Another Problem With Entitlements Is That People Feel Entitled to Raises, Too

By Justin Katz | October 27, 2010 |

I’ve been meaning to comment on this casting of the non-increasing Social Security payments for a couple of weeks: As if voters don’t have enough to be angry about this election year, the government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through another year without an…

Can We Trust David Cicilline’s Style of Budgeting To Work For Social Security?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 5, 2010 |

Social Security is a pay-as-you go program disguised by conceptual accounting gimmicks. Reporter Mary Williams Walsh of the New York Times described the primary gimmick this past March…Although Social Security is often said to have a “trust fund,” the term really serves as an accounting device, to track the pay-as-you-go program’s revenue and outlays over…

Unless It’s in a Trust Fund that has Magic Powers, You Can’t Spend the Same Dollar Twice

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 26, 2010 |

In Wednesday’s Projo, op-ed columnist Froma Harrop defended (well, more like asserted) the idea that Social Security is our collective national trust fund…Republicans have never loved Social Security, but they know that plans to privatize the program remain deeply unpopular. A few holdouts still carry the privatization flag, but most others prefer another tack: undermining…

What Now? Social Security Debt Due

By Justin Katz | March 16, 2010 |

So, the federal government has deficits as far as the eye can see and higher than the Statue of Liberty. What could we layer on top of that? How about the Social Security “trust fund” debt that’s now coming due? … This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social…

Mark Zaccaria: “If the laws governing Social Security benefits provide inadequately for the needs of retirees, the answer is to revise the law, not to paper over the problem with a one-time payment that puts us all farther into the hole.”

By Engaged Citizen | October 22, 2009 |

On Friday, October 16th, 2009, the Providence Journal and other news outlets highlighted a story with great impact on senior citizens. Due to negative economic growth over the last 18 months recipients of Social Security retirement benefits will not receive a Cost of Living Allowance, or COLA increase, in their monthly checks during 2010. This…

Not Broke… Just Without Money

By Justin Katz | September 20, 2009 |

Wow. It’s been awhile since we’ve had an opportunity to use the “Social Security” tag for a post, so for that much we should thank Bryant Math Professor Robert Muksian. However, once he moves beyond the calculation of benefits, into the reality of the program, his declaration that “Social Security is far from ‘broke’” should…