Ok, I'm going to pick on your comment Mr. Happy, nothing personal except this is basically the same arguments I hear over, and over, and over again by those who don't seem to understand why social security doesn't work. Yes, as mayhem pointed out, it was not designed to be this system that it is now, but that's not even the source of the major problems.
'[Bill Clinton] did the best of any president in the last 100 years to balance the budget.'
Quoted from Craig Steiner: 'Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intragovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intragovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.'
Bill Clinton did NOT balance the budget in any way, shape or form. It is nothing more then a neat magic trick pulled off infront of the media. This was done by taking money from social security, and using it to pay off the debts the government had to the people. The end result was that it seemed as if money coming from taxes was at a surplus and was therefore being used to pay off debts. This was NOT the case at all. Clinton did not balance the budget. He made the debt a lot worse with the worst fiscal year being his last year, 2001 where spending took the country another $133.3 Billiion into debt. $199.3B was used to lower the public debt by $66B with the rest being used to fund other government activities. Note, before you say it, this was NOT Bush. The deficit created by the 2001 budget was created by Clinton, as the Bush administration was not in power until after that years budget proposal. The closest Clinton came to balancing the books was a $17 billion deficit, but Clinton never came close to balancing the books. The reason the debt ceiling wasn't raised that much, was because instead he moved where the debt was being made. Despite how the media reports it, national, government and public debts, are NOT the same thing.
Before I begin flawing your social security statements, I need to explain some principle's concerning government control.
Social security is at it's core supposed to be an investment system for old age. The idea is you put money in and when you retire you get access to your investments and as a result you are ensured a good retirement. The question is, why the hell do you want government involved in this? Government has proved itself incapable of doing just about everything right, the constant consistent debt being an example of this. What if I want to invest my money as I want to invest it? I can't say, invest my money in a solar panel manfacturers company shares that I then sell in old age if the government has my money. Instead, they get to decide how to invest my money for me? Why do they think they know what's best for me? Why can't I decide how to spend my money? What if I'm going to die in a year from now because I've got cancer or some terrible disease? Why can't I have my money as I want to blow it over this last year of my existance, instead of putting it into a fund I'll never see. Or what if I want to put my money into a better, private investment plan that offers greater returns that the social security is offering? Again, I can't, because government thinks it automatically knows whats best for me.
To your points.
'Social security has always been the most balanced part of the budget.'
Are you insane!? Social security as we just discussed and you said yourself, is CONSTANTLY raided by governments as a big pot of money to take from to spend as it will. It has near enough constantly, both in the UK and the US been in the red. This isn't JUST because of governments raiding it, it's because it's also, as I originally said a Ponzi scheme. If you want, go to wikipedia where they have an excellent summary of how it works. Here is how the US SS defended itself:
'There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go insurance programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a simple pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system, and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.'
Despite what they say, THIS IS THE EXACT FUCKING DESCRIPTION OF A PONZI SCHEME! The neccesities for social security to keep going forever require either of the following:
1. A constantly, scalably growing human race with the new generation constantly paying for the social security of the previous generation.
OR
2. Continuously increasing taxation to pay for the previous investors.
If we locked out 12% of the people currently using the system, amounting to millions of people and stated that they are simply not going to have access to SS, but they are still going to pay for it (Doesn't sound fair, but anyways...) it would just about balance out. However, it would still require rises in taxes.
The reason SS is in trouble is because number 1 is not happening, and 2 is not being adequately done, thankfully.
Social security is double speak. People are going to continue to live longer lives and social security cannot ever match this without taxing the fuck out of everyone.
I haven't got time atm to delve into the other topics, but here are two videos I think you should watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-lpslBef1chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuaG-A6ezMQ