Thanks for pulling together all these links and information as I've read only small print scattered pieces about all this. Infuriating, dangerous and clearly requires a lot of publicity and action to prevent this railroading job.

It is very upsetting what they are doing and when you hear right wing bloggers talk about the problem with entitlements, you ask if they mean Social Security and Medicare, and they don't answer. The undefined entitlements is being done trying to keep it from revealing what it will mean to old people. It's so ironic that Republicans talk about the damage to grandma of being able to go to a doctor and discuss end of life options and how people will die if they have access to doctors; and yet they want to do this. It's rather like their rah rah for veterans while they cut their benefits.

Already they have cut SS just by limiting its increase which will soon make it worthless for living costs. They tie it to a cost of living index that is rigged against showing the true cost of inflation on real living expenses.

This whole thing is an ongoing battle where they seem to support corporate interests and the people are just in the way of what is 'best' for the nation.

I think to change any of this and get leaders we can trust, it's going to take getting rid of the lobbying system that weights all reforms and ideas toward the ones with the money. That won't be easy. It might take electing an all new Congress made up of people with that belief (if they don't get there and immediately change their minds).

In addition to being an attack on the Social Security and Medicare (as if it needed even more to be utterly wrong!), the drumbeat that Peterson et al. are raising about "the federal deficit" is just stupid in current conditions. When the people can't spend, the government has to or we'll really be mired in a Depression. Government spending in such a time keeps people in jobs and thus makes future growth that will get us out of deficit possible. We aren't going to have inflation when people don't have the money to buy things!!

These people, the social security cutters and deficit hawks, are just selfish millionaires. They got theirs --screw the rest of us.

Thanks Ronni.

I'm dumbfounded as to what to do about this, but not shocked. Thanks, Ronni for, once again, bringing a very important issue to our attention.

I think we just have to keep reminding ourselves, we ARE entitled to this money---we paid in advance, remember? It's ours to collect. It's no hand out!

I remember watching those privatization SS hearing on TV. Bush and his boys sent some guy from the Cato Institute to do their bidding, as I remember. He was up against credible experts on the other side. I wasn't even close.
The Cato guy made no sense. It was just an attempt to destroy SS. And, in many ways, it put President Bush out to dry. It was an awful thing to do. Either he was too dumb to know what he was doing, or he was just being told what to do at that time. Either way, it was an awful period to experience.
I still remember the cry, "Don't mess with Social Security." I hope that cry continues to ring true. Remember that the SS Trust Fund is due $2.5 trillion, as part of the Intergovernmental national debt. That is ton of excess money deposited so that it can be used when needed.
THERE IS ABSOULTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT WITH SOCIAL SECURITY. IF IT FAILS, THE U.S. ECONOMY HAS FAILED.

The attempt to privatize Social Security and Medicare, this after destroying the private pension system and retiree health plans, is the most perfidious scam ever attempted against a nation. It began with Milton Friedman in 1962, who got his chance to privatize Social Security in Chile when Nixon and Kissinger had General Pinochet overthrow (and murder) the democratically elected President of Chile, and was followed up in the 80's by Reagan's Chief of Staff and then Treasury Secretary, Don Regan, formerly head of Merrill Lynch, who saw in it a chance for his former company to make billions in unnecessary commissions, fees and transaction costs. In Chile those costs amounted to some 18% of every contribution.

The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation and other political operative extreme right-wing groups are arms of the top leadership of the Republican Party, as scurrilous and harmful a group as ever took over a national political party.
The proper way to fix Social Security is to make it real defined benefit pension system instead of the fake Potemkin Village one it is now.

You do this by (1) changing the PayGo way we finance it with Actuarial Advance Funding, and (2) adding strong laws with teeth that protect the assets and the past service accrued benefits from being cut back.

In 1762 British actuaries invented Actuarial Advance Funding and in 1912 it was adapted to defined benefit pension plans in America by the very first independent pension-consulting actuary, George Buck, whose firm is still in existence. He placed many large pension plans on a sound long term financial and actuarial basis, such as NY City’s municipal employees pension plan and Bell Labs.

It is impossible, mathematically and actuarially, to ever have a decent, affordable, pension plan, retiree medical plan, Social Security, Medicare, or medical care system, unless monies are set aside, long in advance of their being needed, with part of that money invested collectively in private securities by experts, with the key asset class being common stock. The investment returns compounded over time will pay for the bulk of the promised benefits.

This is done through an annual actuarial valuation using an Actuarial Cost Method called The Entry Age Normal Cost method. It is a systematic, mathematically rigorous, highly disciplined, and self-correcting system that also stabilizes the cost as a percent of pay and develops the right cost--the Entry Age Normal Cost, level as a percent of pay---without which you can never know if the system is affordable in the long term once the initial unfunded past service liability has been calculated and amortized, just as you would a home mortgage.

This methodology is also necessary, but not sufficient, to fix Medicare and medical care, the latter once we get around to having a universal national health care system, that is.

I know it works because I did it for most of my career as an actuary.

Of course it has to be done by an experienced independent pension-consulting actuary, one that places the public interest above private interests whenever there is a conflict.

Alas, there are only a handful of us out there any more, many actuaries having sold the nation and it's people down the river for money.