So Allen Greenspan opened his big, fat partisan yap today and as TBogg says, stuck his tongue right on the old Third Rail of politics. Yeehaw. He got the social security jolt...

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress on Wednesday to deal with the country’s escalating budget deficit by cutting benefits for future Social Security retirees. Without action, he warned, long-term interest rates would rise, seriously harming the economy.
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Greenspan did not rule out using tax increases to deal with the looming crisis in Social Security, but he said that tax hikes should only be considered after every effort had been made to trim benefits.(emphasis added)

“I am just basically saying that we are overcommitted at this stage,” Greenspan said in response to committee questions. “It is important that we tell people who are about to retire what it is they will have.” He warned that the government should not “promise more than we are able to deliver.”

Let's assume that we have a guy, BH who rabidly favors the tax-cuts of Fearless Leader, let's assume he gets an $1100 dollar tax cut every year for the next 27 years he works, starting next year and if that money had stayed in Social Security it would have earned 2%, not very good, but something. As the refund checks roll in, let's assume BH does not reinvest but spends all of it so all $1100 goes toward that bass boat and maintenance for 27 years (ok, so it's just my argument here...), well BH would have lost $30,352.53 in his social security account (assuming of course that the government took the money from there to pay for the tax cut, which is sort of what's happening, right?).

Now let's give BH a different scenario, he reinvests a little more than half ($650) and blows the rest, on a hot Corvette and keeps it to become a classic 27 years down the road (so to speak). If he can get 6% on his investment over the same 27 year period he still loses out, the tax cut gives him a loss of about $11612.79, because he blew the money as most folks would do handed a check like that. His argument will be that it "helped the economy" at the time he got the check, but I guarantee you that if BH needs to buy meds after retirement, he'll be wishing that the additional benefits were there for him to use. Well, he's got a pretty 'Vette he can alway sell. Had BH elected to keep the entire amount of $1100 and invested it all at 6%, he would have made a whopping $1360.88 more than if he had left the money in his Social Security account. But if the point of the tax cuts is to stimulate through spending, as a dogmatic follower of Fearless Leader he would already feel guilty about stuffing $650 in his bank account, so I doubt that the $1100 would ever make it in there...that would be un-'Murikan.

I may be all wet here, my calculations may be off...but still are we not robbing Peter to pay Paul? I think that Greenspan was saying exactly that, in the gussied up language of the Beltway. It's too bad that as the 1600 Crew rob the Treasury to fatten their wealthy friends more folks don't stop to think about the bankrupting of the system, and the dependance of the least-able to survive into what should be their "golden years", yes, even BH deserves that much.