re: Clinton Legacy
moon
45 Posts
To All:
It is true that I had been away for more than 3 weeks. It is true I did not know that LivinDonSouth had been banned from this forum. At my age I need not shy away from anyone and I have no need to strut. I am not bucking for promotion and I am not running for any office. When time permits I respond to any post that is blatanly false. This was the case when LivinDon stated that Social Security and FUTA funds were looted during the Clinton administration. Nothing could be further from the truth and for the life of me cannot comprehend why any HR Professional would throw out such a charge without having facts to substantiate.
Moon, LA
It is true that I had been away for more than 3 weeks. It is true I did not know that LivinDonSouth had been banned from this forum. At my age I need not shy away from anyone and I have no need to strut. I am not bucking for promotion and I am not running for any office. When time permits I respond to any post that is blatanly false. This was the case when LivinDon stated that Social Security and FUTA funds were looted during the Clinton administration. Nothing could be further from the truth and for the life of me cannot comprehend why any HR Professional would throw out such a charge without having facts to substantiate.
Moon, LA
Comments
BTW, if it takes you three weeks to come up with a reply, everyone is going to move on. Hurry it up a little.
I see you have been invited to visit the new forum. Let's see if you have the testicular fortitude to do so.
Of course, you can always be the big man on campus here.
I am also not much of a politician, but I do remember a bit about the Clinton years in the White House.
Lots of folks give Clinton credit for creating surpluses, but close examination of his methods reveal some facts that we are still burdened with today.
The Congressional Budget Office reported a deficit for fiscal year '99 of $200 billion, and a close examination of the the president's budget for 1999 reveals a projected deficit of $194.5 billion. What's going on here? What's the truth?
It is well documented that Clinton created his "surpluses" by borrowing from surplus pension funds.
These dollars were spent on anything but Social Security - they were used for food stamps, foregin aid, etc. This also happened with gasoline taxes, intended for highways.
This spending of the trust funds was accomplished by a gimmick called unified budgeting. This created huge deficits in the trust funds. As of FY 99 (Clinton's time), Social Security deficit was $845 billion, Medicare was $148 billion, Military Retirement was $140 billion, Civilian Retirement was $490 billion, Unemployment Compensation $81 billion, Highways $35 billion, Airports $15 billion, Railroad Retirement $21 billion and all others $58 billion.
I don't know if this was what Don was talking about or not. Congress seems to have no purpose in life except to spend money. They cannot bring dollars back to their states unless they do so, and they cannot create all the Pork Barrel projects unless they do so. These are very creative people, so are those in the Executive Branch - spend, spend, spend. None of it is free and lots of it is done by not telling hwo they are accomplishing it.
I can see why Don said what he did.
Good Night and Good Luck
Moon, LA
By the way, you cannot prove a negative - you say he did not loot those dollars. The facts are that he did - it is well known he used the budgeting method I described and "borrowed" dollars from all those trust funds listed. He was not alone in this, it has been happening for a while, but to assert that he did not do it is a pipe dream.
Nice try on the Will Rogers quote. It does not fit you.
AT THE CLOSE OF 2004.
Gross public debt was $7.4 TRILLION.
Debt held by private investors was $4.3 TRILLION.
Debt held by government accounts, $3.1 TRILLION.
Debt held by SOCIAL SECURITY WAS 1.5 TRILLION.
This debt held by SS is the trust fund. It is in Government Bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Govt., just like the trillions held by private investors like Japan, Taiwan, China etc. So anyone who is telling you that social security has been looted is in error. The SS plan proposed by the current administration is to lengthy to discuss on this board but one provision in that plan would have required the private portion of an individual retires savings to be annutized at retirement. Just suppose that this plan had been in effect after 9-11-01 and someone reached retirement age after the market had cratered. What a financial disaster!!!! Anyone that talks about a CURRENT deficit in SS is running it through some kind of spin machine or they are projecting way into the future and making assumptions that no changes will be made.
I don't want and I don't need to debate anyone but it is my desire that professionals posting on this board should not sling out totally incorrect statements based on some political agenda or lack of knowledge or whatever.
Thank You and goodnight.
Moon, LA
FMLA
Don't forget we also have to live with what the meaning of the word is is.
BTW Moon, if you really want to debate someone who is no longer in the room you have to meet up with them where they currently reside thehrforum.net I have not observed you in the new room so I surmise you really don't want to get into a serious debate.
Moon, you trumpet the word truth as though it becomes real when the words leave your mouth. You accuse others of spinning when that is all you are doing. As a professional, you should be ashamed. You are the one introducing a political agenda. While I don't like labels, I am an independent and can throw rocks aplenty at either side of the aisle.
Clinton's much ballyhooed surplus came from that unifed budget theory which I mentioned in an earlier post. I did not make up those words or that practice.
Here is a link to a Congressional Budget Office memo - perhaps you will consider the words from that source?
[url]http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3650&sequence=0[/url]
Here is a piece of that memo:
"By law, the Social Security program is treated as an "off-budget" entity, and its financial figures are displayed separately from the rest of the budget. The separate display, along with the use of trust funds as an accounting device, is a means of distinguishing the program's finances from those of other government activities. However, the distinction can be confusing when it leads people to think of Social Security as an independent financial entity. Social Security is a federal program, and as such, all of its taxes are received by and its outlays dispensed from the U.S. Treasury.
Focusing on an accumulating balance in the Social Security trust funds can also be misleading. The only economically significant way that the government has a surplus is if there is a unified budget surplus--when total receipts are greater than total outlays. Although separate taxes are collected for Social Security, the money left over after benefits are paid is used to fund other government programs or to pay down the debt held by the public. Moreover, in the future, those separate tax receipts will become insufficient to maintain the program once the post-World War II baby-boom generation begins drawing federal entitlement benefits. Social Security and other entitlement programs will then be dependent on the federal government to cover their costs--at the same time that the government must pay for its many other functions.
Regardless of how any federal program is financed and accounted for--and whether it is presented as on- or off-budget--a full understanding of the government's looming fiscal strains and the potential economic impact of its fiscal condition requires that all government functions be considered together. It is the federal government's total claims on the nation's resources that affect the economy—not the individual components that make up those claims."
While you have now derailed the conversation into something about the solvency of SS - that was not the topic - it had to do with clinton utilizing the proceeds from all trust funds to create the idea of a surplus. That surplus is a bunch of BS - much like the sophistic arguements you attempt to forward.
Your post just proved my point. My posts have always indicated that Social Security was part of the total Government just like any other Department or agency. Some of these Departments and/or agencies are an outright expense, others have revenue and expense and are within themselves solvent or insolvent. It just happens that SS as an entity is currently solvent and will remain so for many more years. They are not in the red some 900+ billion as stated in one of your previous posts. They in fact hold $1.5 TRILLION in Government Bonds and other Treasury instruments just like other investors in the U.S. Government -- why is it so difficult to understand that. The fact that we had some yearly surpluses under Clinton was not due to looting SS and FUTA. It was simply due to TOTAL Government Revenues exceeding TOTAL Government Expenses. That is not what is happening under the current administration. Even with surpluses in SS and other Government programs under Unified budget accounting we are running HORRENDOUS deficits. Again your information only confirmed the information in my earlier posts. So it again proves correct my statement that "to say Clinton looted SS and FUTA funds is totally incorrect".There is nothing political about this it is just fact.
Moon, LA
I said I was an independent and can throw rocks at either side - so here is your surprise, the deficits being run up by the current members of congress and our President are a continued trend of wasted dollars. Setting the war aside, the tremendous amount of dollars being funneled into the black hole called New Orleans is a brain numbing waste. I don't think my tax dollars should be thrown into the eye of this new hurricane.
And we are just seeing the beginning. The next crisis in the gulf coast region will be painfully evident when the colder weather hits and all the tent cities will be seen as inadequate. All the trailers that are sitting in parking lots not being hooked up will suddenly be a priority and the hook ups will cost 50 times what they should, and still it is not adequate.
Folks living in motels, using room service at our expense, or taking their FEMA money and buying drugs - all the horror stories are true and more that we don't even see.
Then we will rebuild a city that is in a hole, just waiting for one or more of next years 25 hurricanes to do it all over again. I will not defend this largesse --------but neither will I look the other way and say clinton wasn't just another tax and spend, spend, spend democrat.
Play all the spin you want to with social security - hardly anyone thinks the funds are adequate to meet the demands. This is a disaster waiting to happen. When the boomers retire in droves and the next level of middle class cannot meet the demands - all the promises made to the future recipients will become just so much meaningless hogwash. If my generation is depending on SS (yes, I am a boomer)we will starve and live in refrigerator boxes under the freeway overpasses, then your "truth" will be known even to you.
Your first paragraph indicates that I have yet to make my point clear to you. To say the "looting" comes from excessive borrowing of those funds to create the illusion of surplus makes no sense.
The SS funds receives Millions upon Millions in funds from payroll deductions and in turn they invest it in Government obligations - IT IS THAT SIMPLE. If they hid the money under a humongus mattress or buried it, it would none the less still be part of the TOTAL GOVERNMENT REVENUES and under Unified Budget accounting the amount hidden or buried would be part of total government and would offset deficit spending without any action by any President.
Moon, LA
>"looting" comes from excessive borrowing of
>those funds to create the illusion of surplus
>makes no sense.
I'm sorry, I can't help myself.
Moon just because you can't understand it doesn't mean it is false.
This is not a fair fight and I shouldn't get in the middle of it, but this is like looking at a car wreck. I know I shouldn't watch but I can't help it.
And moon, don't forget Marc is an accountant.
Moon, LA
Edit: Ok Moon - let's both shout out our points about this arguement one last time and see if the other finally caves in. Ready?
One....Two....Three....
If it wasn't for all our veterans we would not have the ability to have these types of discussions.
Freedom of Speech we all(well most of us) have the right to say what we feel in this case write what we feel in an open forum.
No matter who is right or wrong it is the discussions that get us thinking and contemplating our objectives/goals/whatever.