Committee to F@#$%*! The Middle Class Suggests .... You Guessed It .... Increasing FICA Taxes, To "Balance Fiat"

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

I don't know how these evil or deranged idiots keep a straight face anymore. Pete Peterson may be paying them a bundle for their collusion.

For those who don't yet know, "Fix the Debt" is a euphemism for "Neuter the Fiat"

We must neuter fiat, to balance fiat?  Do any of these dimwits ever stop and ask themselves what "fiat" means?

from: Campaign to Fix the Debt <info@fixthedebt.org>
For Immediate Release
July 22, 2015 

Fix the Debt Reacts to the Social Security Trustees Report 

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports today showing that despite modest improvements in their projections, both programs are in financial jeopardy. The Trustees project the Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance program to exhaust its reserves by 2035, the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund to be depleted by 2030, and the Social Security Disability Insurance to become insolvent by late 2016. On a combined basis, the Trustees project the Social Security program to run out of reserve funds by 2034, which is a year later than previous projections but less than two decades from today. At that point, all beneficiaries would face an immediate 21 percent benefit cut, which would grow over time to a 27 percent cut. 

“How many times do the Trustees need to warn us about this before we take their concerns seriously?” said former Sen. Judd Gregg, co-chair of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. “2034 is not that far away – it means today’s 60-year-olds will be 79, and today’s 48-year-olds are just reaching the normal retirement age. And the cost of waiting will only make the fixes harder. We don’t need to shore up this program just for our children; we need to do it for ourselves as well.” 

According to the Social Security Trustees, the combined programs face a shortfall of 2.68 percent of payroll – meaning the 12.4 percent payroll tax would need to be increased by just over one-fifth or benefits cut immediately for all current and future beneficiaries by about one-sixth to make the program solvent for 75 years. By the 75th year, the Trustees project the combined shortfall will grow to 4.7 percent of payroll. 

“The message the Trustees delivered today should resonate all over the country and especially in the presidential campaign,” said Fix the Debt Co-Chair and former Gov. Ed Rendell. “The disability program is only a year from insolvency and the other programs aren’t far behind. If we don’t fix these programs soon, it’s the most vulnerable who will pay the price. We need a sense of urgency in Washington to fix these programs so they are sound and secure now and in the future.”

For more information, contact Press Secretary Jack Deutsch at deutsch@fixthedebt.org.

For more information about the [Committee to F@#$%*! The Middle Class], please visit www.fixthedebt.org.

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So "both programs are in financial jeopardy." Right. Anyone ever felt that national fiat was in jeopardy? That means that every other national policy, heck, even the will of the people, is in financial jeopardy. What, exactly, does it mean to say that our public will is in financial jeopardy? It seems that the Farce can have a strong effect on small minds. That's all I sense.

This is right out of a perverted version of an old fairy tale used to manipulate the gullible. In the original version, Chicken-Shit-Little tried to convince all the neighbors that they were running out of fiat [Public Initiative]. Why? Various versions have been cleaned up for nursery rhymes, but they all involve some aspect of a crook crying wolf, to see how many dimwits step forward to be voluntarily fleeced.

A foolish population and their Public Initiative are soon parted.

Our SEC & NSA seem more worried about Nigerian scammers, when far greater sums are extracted from honest citizens by our own Committee to Neuter the Fiat, aka, Control Frauds, aka Committee to F@#$%*! The Middle Class.

Why?  Ask the people you voted for, from county commissioners to POTUS, and EVERYONE in between.

Is the Committee To Neuter Fiat In League With Kotlikoff?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson.)





Is the CNF smart enough to co-hatch a feeble conspiracy? This particular fixation on nominal threats may be just brain-dead enough to be within their reach. :(

If you restate their words with accurate, context-relevant semantics, their entire panic is deflated:

"On Highways and VA, Congress Continues Piling up [Real Assets] and [Private Financial Savings]."

That doesn't sound so bad. Other people call that "Nation Building."

Nevertheless, Maya MacGuineas, president of the [Committee to Neuter Fiat], said the following:

"Congress has passed and the President is about to sign two bills that increase the national debt for no other reason than lawmakers seem utterly unwilling to pay the nation's bills. The highway bill pays for 60 percent of its $11 billion trust fund deposit through a budget gimmick known as pension smoothing, which temporarily reduces companies' pension obligations. It raises revenue in the first six years but costs money after that. While the Senate originally wisely rejected this gimmick, the final bill falls back on it.

Congress dawdled for months knowing that a deadline was approaching and instead of addressing the chronic highway funding shortfall, it waited until the last minute, rejected the responsible gimmick-free approach suggested in the Senate, and passed an easy fix so it could leave town.

On top of that, Congress passed a VA reform bill that would add an additional $10 billion to the national debt. Taking care of our veterans should be a top national priority, and the recently passed legislation is a tremendous improvement over the hugely expensive blank-check approach previously supported. But there is no good reason Congress could not have identified the pay-fors to make sure the legislation was fiscally responsible.

Things that are worth doing, are worth paying for. Unfortunately, Congress seems more comfortable making dumb decisions on a deadline - so they can go home and campaign - than smart decisions in a timely fashion."

Huh? 

Wouldn't it be easier & shorter to simply say that Congress is deciding what the country needs to, and appropriating the currency that allows everyone to contribute their part ... with adequate tempo and agility?

Maybe Maya ought to look up the definition of dumb, and relate it to the context she's speaking within? Can someone ask her how a democracy able to invent and create things ... also manages to invent & create the currency notation that denominates all the endless static and dynamic assets that all its citizens exchange? If necessary, break that up into small, "Dick & Jane" sentences, and give her 8 years to work through them.

Walter Shewhart is probably turning over in his grave. Not to mention Ben Franklin, Marriner Eccles & Beardsley Ruml.

Coming Full Circular Logic - Nobel Foundation Seeks Cash Boost With Hedge Funds

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Why have a Central Planning Committee hand out cash prizes for innovation?

Werks fer mi!

No wonder everything the Nobel Committees do seems more orthogonal to emerging reality, every year. Reality bubble anyone? They don't seem to even know what one is.

No amount of statistics applied to flawed concepts helps predict adjustments to unpredictable reality?

You'd think they'd get around to analyzing methods for how we adjust and evolve, instead of still deluding themselves with nonsense about prediction.

Zero predictive power, but (so far) unlimited adaptive power? So how come we're still fascinated with the alchemy of prediction? Forget Al Qada, it's our own Al Chemists that are morphing into new sects.