Entitlements & The Social Security Trust Fund

Let's start off with what "entitlement" is not. It's not "welfare", i.e. payments to people who are not working for it. (The fact that there is no program called "welfare" and that most people who receive government financial assistance and are not disabled work is not the subject of this blog post).

An entitlement in the jargon of government is "a federal program, or provision of law that requires payments [to anyone] who meets the criteria". Under this definition Social Security, government pensions and veterans benefits are all entitlements. Other programs that require a specific Congressional appropriation of funds are called "discretionary". With discretionary programs a perfectly legal program can be effectively nullified if Congress defunds it, not so with entitlements.

So all those Facebook memes that you see raging about how your Social Security isn't an entitlement are not accurate. "Entitlement" isn't a slur. It means, by law, if you meet the criteria, the government has to give it to you.

The other misconception that many people harbor is that Social Security is "their" money and that they "paid into it" for their whole working life. That there is a "Trust Fund" that holds all of your accumulated "payments".

It's true that the more that you earn in your working life, the more that you will be able to receive in Social Security benefits, but you are no means guaranteed to receive everything that you "paid in" nor are you limited by that amount. You could conceivably die before reaching retirement age, or you could live for another 35 years after retiring. You are guaranteed, upon retirement, a certain monthly benefit until you die. But it will be limited according to how much outside income you earn or when you retire; neither of these have any connection to what you "paid in".

The Social Security Trust Fund does not exist like a giant bank account for all present and future Social Security recipients. Social Security is, and always has been, a pay-as-you-go program. The payroll taxes that current workers have deducted from their paychecks are used to pay the current retirees. Notice that I used the term "taxes". It's not your money, it's a tax that you pay that is used to fund the current expenses (retiree benefits). Tomorrow's workers will pay for tomorrow's retirees. So what is the Social Security Trust Fund? Every year (until 2018) the total of all payroll taxes exceeded the total of all benefits paid out. The surplus was by law, invested in Treasury Securities, not kept as cash in a government bank account.

(Why not a cash account? Several reasons. One, if the general fund budget is running a deficit, it will have to borrow money from somewhere to make up the difference. Better to borrow from itself, then have our debt held by foreign banks. Second, due to inflation, the value of the dollars in the trust fund, if they remained as cash, would decrease. The general fund pays into the trust fund interest on the treasury securities. )

This may be the source of the myth that various administrations "raided" or stole money from the trust fund. This is not true. The decision to run a deficit is unconnected to the availability of a "loan" from the Social Security Trust Fund. This shortfall would have been made up by issuing bonds or securities in any event.

A few paragraphs up I mentioned that until 2018 more was coming in than going out. So what's happening now? In the short term, the interest payments make up the difference, but each year the deficit between income and benefits will get wider. At some point, if the payroll tax and benefits both remain the same, the general fund will need to allocate funds to redeem the Treasury Securities held by the trust fund. It is estimated that by 2034 even the trust fund will be depleted. At that point it is further estimated that, if nothing else changes, the income from payroll taxes will be able to cover about 70% of benefits.

Nothing about what I have explained precludes the government from making changes to Social Security. In order to forestall the depletion of the trust fund they could scale back cost-of-living increases, they could raise the cap (income over around $130,000 is not subject to payroll tax), or raise the retirement age. They could lower the threshold upon which you start paying taxes on Social Security benefits, or lower the amount of outside income that you can earn before having your benefits lowered. In all likelihood any changes will affect future beneficiaries, not current ones.

Whatever happens, do some research and stop getting your information from Facebook memes

Why Do I Even Bother?

It has been a daily frustration listening to and reading comments from Trump supporters. How many times have we thought that he'd crossed some kind of line, only to experience the world stage equivalent of "hold my beer"?

There is certainly room for disagreement on the best way to run the country: nation-building vs. minding-our-own-business; multinational trade agreements vs. bilateral agreements; ignoring despotic regimes' abuses vs. taking action against them; the extent of the government safety net; eliminate regulations vs. more regulations; more or less immigration...and the list goes on. Many of these subjects can be negotiated and compromises can be reached. But that's not the way things are being done now, everything is a battle for the soul of our nation. The other side hates America. I put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of the Republican leadership.

Politics has always been a dirty game, full of betrayals and back-stabbing. But the partisan nastiness came to a head, not during Trump's mosh pit of an administration, but during Obama's. Whether or not you believe racism played a part (I do), once the Republicans took back first one house of Congress, then the other, their whole plan was to obstruct everything that President Obama tried to do. Not just the things where they were ideologically opposed to, but everything. In addition to that, they stood by while the Tea Party fanatics painted President Obama as not American or as a terrorist sympathizer when they weren't describing his policies a communism. They stood by while the future president  Donald Trump stoked the "birther" nonsense. They refused to even hold a hearing on Obama's Supreme Court nominee and McConnell was quoted as saying that if Clinton were elected, they would refuse to confirm any of her nominees. They tied up Secretary Clinton in hearing after hearing about the deaths in Benghazi and stayed silent as she was tarred with the accusation that she was running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor! They were willing participants in the demonization of the Democrats.

Then came Donald Trump, insulting his way to the top of the heap.

Trump tapped into the gullibility of much of America, Americans who were primed by years of conspiracy theories and character assassination to listen to the hatred and raw demagoguery that he spewed.

Although I was in no mood after Trump was elected to forgive or forget his misogyny, xenophobia and bigotry on the campaign trail, I thought for a brief moment that the immensity of the job would humble him. One of the first things that he said was that being president of all the people was very, very, important to him. But that humility didn't last long. And his supporters, despite frothing at the mouth in their frenzy to cheer on their new leader's hatred of the "other", were simultaneously in denial that he was spouting hatred. "It's the media" they would say, parroting Trump, despite virtually everything being readily accessible on video. Very little would turn out to be "anonymous sources".

Trump supporters excuse or rationalize his hatred, but they also brush aside his lies, either credulously believing them, even though they are easily disproved or debunked, sometimes by his own government, or decide that they don't matter because "it makes the liberals heads explode".

There's plenty to dislike about Trump, from his mocking of, well, just about everyone, to his cozying up to dictators while at the same time insulting our allies; from his threats to destroy some countries (North Korea, Iran) and invade others (Venezuela) while pledging to stay out of the internal affairs of others (Russia, Saudi Arabia); to his excusing the dismembering of a journalist who, while not a US citizen, was working for a US newspaper and a legal resident.

But lately, it's the lies.

Trump has always lied. He lied about where he got his money, about his success as a businessman, he lied about contacts with Russians. Trump lies even when he doesn't have to lie, when it's easily checkable. Lately though his lies seem to be targeted toward scaring his base into getting out and voting. He lied about nonexistent riots in California; he's lying about the Democrats wanting to cut Social Security when it's actually the Republicans who are talking about it. He's lying about an upcoming middle-class tax cut that can't exist because Congress is not in session, especially since it's supposedly ready to go before election day (oh yeah, he's studying it...hard). He lies so often and so outrageously that the safe bet is to just assume that he's lying until evidence to the contrary is presented.

So how can you trust someone like that? Even if he says something that you support, like tax cuts, how can you have any confidence that he's telling you the truth? The short answer is that you can't. He's untrustworthy. Yet millions of Americans think that the serial liar, who has screwed working Americans in business for years, is one of them.

A lot of Americans are stupid, a lot of them don't want to listen to reason, to logic, to the facts.

But some do.

I guess that's why I bother

Elizabeth Warren's DNA Test

Okay, so Elizabeth Warren's family lore included a non-specific Native American ancestor, Cherokee, if I remember correctly. If I had a nickel for every white person who claimed, without evidence or specifics that they were "part Cherokee", well, I'd have a lot of nickels! (And it always seems to be Cherokee for some reason). But what harm did it do? It was apparently a story that her mother & grandmother told...it was harmless. Warren never used her tenuously claimed minority status to gain any advantage, and she never claimed to be an official, enrolled member of any tribe of nation. Probably the only thing that can be laid at her feet was when, after being hired at Harvard, she listed herself as a minority in the faculty guide and allowed the Harvard administration to use her as an example of diversity within the faculty. It was something that wouldn't have drawn notice from anyone if her election opponent hadn't made it a ploy to undermine her. (He lost, she won).

However I believe that Warren erred in getting down in the muck with Donnie Two-Scoops. Her DNA test, even if it is legitimate, (which I am skeptical of) indicates that her Native ancestor is 6-10 generations back. The tiny percentage of her ancestry that this test claims as Native American apparently is less than the percentage that the average American white person can claim as Native ancestry. So what did she accomplish? She jumped through a hoop for a president who will undoubtedly use this information to further mock her. In fact, today, Trump babbled about his million dollar pledge to charity if she took the DNA test was only if she was a presidential nominee and in a decidedly creepy moment, said that he would administer the test himself (whatever that means), adding with a smirk that he "would not enjoy it". If you're going to try to appease this, as Rex Tillerson called him, fucking moron, you'll just dig yourself in deeper.

Not Surpised

The events of the last week culminating in the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court shouldn't surprise anyone. Horrified us? Yes. Disgusted us? Yes. But surprised? Don't make me laugh.

As for Trump appointing conservative ideologues to the Supreme Court, that was kind of the point. There are areas where Trump does his own thing in opposition to conservative Republicans, like trade;  and areas where he allows the conservative Republicans to get what they want, like judicial appointments. And despite all the talk from the Republicans about appointing originalist judges who merely "call balls & strikes" rather than being activists on the bench, what they really want are judges (and Supreme Court Justices) who will advance a conservative agenda and continue to advance that agenda even when Democrats are the majority in Congress or are in The White House.

Television favorites such as Senator Ben Sasse suggest that Trump could have avoided the problems with Kavanaugh if he had nominated a different judge, particularly a woman. But Trump and the Republicans didn't just want a qualified jurist, they wanted someone who would be loyal, the benchmark by which all Trump appointees are appraised. So it is hardly shocking that Trump and his allies in the Senate would dig in their heels against any and all opposition, no matter what came up;  that they would hide 90% of documentation regarding his political activities behind presidential executive privilege; that even a credible accusation of sexual assault would not deter them.

Sure, some of them gave the appearance of believing Dr. Ford, but even if she were believed 100%, there was no way that this key appointee would be voted down, there is no way that the Republicans, and more importantly Trump, would suffer defeat at the hands of "the Left". It's not that some of them didn't believe, but it's that they didn't care. Getting Kavanaugh confirmed outweighed all other considerations.

And why is anyone surprised at the backlash against Dr. Ford? Trump has never shied away from insulting and demeaning those who stand against them. He started off attempting to sound even-handed, but quickly moved to his usual mode, mocking her at a rally and calling her testimony a Democratic hit job. And of course Republican Senators started piling on as well, including the implausible explanation by Senator Collins that she believed that Dr. Ford had been assaulted, just not by Justice Kavanaugh. They all quickly moved from skepticism about Dr. Ford's account to being unalterably convinced that she was lying. Is anyone surprised at that? Once the deal was struck, every opponent must be demonized.

Is anyone surprised that Trump got laughs and applause when he mocked Dr. Ford? That a percentage of Americans are more worried about false accusations, which are statistically insignificant, than actual sexual assault? And finally, is any surprised that some of us are outraged? That we have taken to accosting elected officials in airports and restaurants, blocking streets and disrupting Congressional hearings?

What are you going to do about it? Be outraged, accost, block, protest, yell, disrupt...do all those things, but don't forget to do one thing:

Vote.