Social Security History Lesson

I'm near 53 now so I have a little experience with the ongoing battle republicans have carefully waged against Social Security. Now, at base here you have a program that since a few years after it's inception, has been accumulating more money than it pays off. In billions and then trillions. A little tweak here and there and the system does just fine.

And let's remember that SocSec money used to accumulate into a trust fund. It really was just money sitting around drawing interest while paying it's benefits. But then we had the phenomenon called "Supply side economics", the infamous Charles Laffer doodled on a napkin for Rumsfeld and Cheney and Ronnie Raygun went down in history as the guy who stimulated us out of our "malaise". Never mind that what he really did was the equivalent of feeding a supersized Butterfinger to an 8 year old at bedtime.

So St. Ronnie grants "The Great Tax Shift" and all is rosy, except, well...it's not. A few voices point out some inconvenient facts about St. Ronnie's programs. Like David Stockman, St. Ronnie's own Budget Director.

See, Mr. Stockman had the unfortunate habit of pointing out that giving tax cuts to everybody, especially those dramatic cuts at the top, combined with MORE government spending (not less government, like St. Ronnie promised) was kind of, you know, unsustainable.

So, St. Ronnie's brain trust says, "hey, we got all these monies accumulating to the SocSec Trust Fund, why don't we start just counting that as general revenues and then these huge fiscal gaps in government financing won't look so damn bad. So, they did and started issuing the SocSec Trust Fund I.O.U.'s and taking the fund's revenues away.

Flash Forward!!! Here we are today with all our old St. Ronnie legacies sitting around and telling us that NOW there is a problem with SocSec. See, they say, it's not really a trust fund, it's just a bunch of I.O.U.'s and the government has to borrow money now to pay off those I.O.U.'s and you know, we JUST ARE BORROWING TOO MUCH MONEY, so we're gonna have to cut those SocSec benefits and change eligibility and so forth. Because you know, IT'S a CRISIS!

So, there you are. The Great Tax Shift, financed by debt and other revenue streams, but not taxes at the top, oh no, those came down more under BUSH II, continues to haunt all facets of our current government financial schemes.

And the one thing that's never considered, the one thing that started the whole tower a tilting, is raising taxes on those who are paying a historical low as a percentage of income, who do not have to worry about paying more in the future because the narrative of the republicans and the tea partiers (what an unhistorical bunch) fits precisely their self-interest.

We, the proles, fight over the remnants of our middle class while the fat cats watch from the best seats.