Into every generation

The paper today ran an item in the national briefs about a new White House report on Social Security:

The Bush administration said in a new report Monday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall in coming years and that delaying reforms is not fair to younger workers.

The full-length AP report doesn't provide much in the way of supporting evidence for that claim of a "$13.6 trillion shortfall," except to say this number was arrived at by calculating a cumulative deficit into "the indefinite future." Apparenty, in order to come up with a sufficiently scary-sounding large number, they projected the deficit expected to arise in 2042 over the next several centuries, extending a demographic bubble (the Baby Boom) into a permanent, never-ending trend.

The Treasury report also seems to be based on the assumption that, over the next few centuries, America's population will not grow but, rather, contract.

Scary thought: What if the Bush administration knows something the rest of us don't about the next 300 years of America's future? Maybe they have some kind of top-secret, ultra-classified advance warning about a Children of Men-type plague. If the human race suddenly and mysteriously became unable to reproduce, there would be no new generation of workers to fulfill the intergenerational compact of Social Security. That might account for this $13.6 trillion figure.

It's got to be something like that, because barring some such cataclysmic event producing a massive decrease in the size of future (but not present) generations, this kind of centuries-long deficit in Social Security just isn't mathematically possible.

The Rapture, for instance. That would do it. Or a radical increase in human lifespan (110 is the new 40!). Otherwise, in a non-Rapture scenario, population growth will continue apace, demographic bubbles will work their way through the system, requiring trust funds to be established and depleted, and everlasting deficits of the sort the Treasury report describes could never occur.

But then I turned to the Health section of the paper, and suddenly it all made sense. "Transplant technologies aid aging boomers" the headline said, and the article went on to describe a somewhat disturbing array of "allografts" and "xenotransplants."

This could help to explain why the Bush administration report contradicts the trustees of the Social Security Administration, who say that the system will more than pay for itself at least through the year 2042. The trustees are operating on the assumption that eventually the baby boomers will die. The Treasury report, on the other hand, seems to be operating on the assumption (or secret government knowledge) that the boomers will never die.

That would account for a "$13.6 trillion shortfall" ever-expanding into the "indefinite future" -- a generation of retirees who continue collecting benefits forever.

But as impressive as the advance in implants and transplants might be, these still don't seem like quite enough to produce an Eternal Generation capable of bankrupting the system to the tune of $13.6 trillion. No mere medical advance could hope to do that.

So, obviously, what we're left with is vampirism.

We can only conclude, based on the figures they provide, that the Treasury Department has secret classified knowledge of a coming scourge of baby boomer vampires. This generation of Americans will begin retiring in three years and, instead of moving to Florida to play golf, or volunteering with the local library, they will become bloodsucking immortal creatures of the night, an army of the soulless undead, hiding from the sun, preying on the weak, and cashing their monthly checks throughout the unending centuries until the system racks up a deficit of $13.6 trillion.

Either that or the Bush administration is just lying about the numbers. Again.

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

Anon: One of the options obviously is to just start paying the extra now, it's only a small shortfall, so you could just raise taxes to pay for it. A modest tax raise would pay for all this, the problem would go away.

I believe this has already been tried, under a Democratic President. That is, Clinton saved the money: Bush has now spent it all.

Given that the US seems to cycle between provident Democratic presidents and profligate Republican presidents, I guess the only hope is that between now and the 2040s, you have nothing but provident Democratic presidents... or else, that y'all become vampires. Then you'd have a real stakeholders' society.

[Hopea]

Of course, since there really is no such thing as a social security trust fund except as an accounting fiction, the ability of the US to pay the promised pensions depends only on two things: government debt and the size of the economy when the bill is due. Since it is really inconceivable, baring a climate catastrophe or similar event, that the US would be unable to pay the full pensions, it is merely a question of spending priorities in 2040 demagogued into something else. Why those priorities would need to be decided now is beyond me.

[cjmr's husband]

A Little Known Fact:

The Social Security Fund is separate from the General Fund; it is separate from the war money, ending the war spending would do nothing for this issue. (it's a good idea in it's own right, but would have no affect here)

(Yes it's a little fact, and it should be known)

Correct me if I'm wrong: The SS fund was not 'spent' so much as 'lent' to the general fund (effectively buying US Govt Bonds) and will (theoretically) be paid back with interest.

That said, the only two possible solutions to the so-called crisis are to:

1. Cut benefits
(either by reducing payments or raising the retirement age)

2. Increase taxes
(The SS tax only, possibly by raising the income cutoff so that rich people pay more)

[Hopea]

Yep, that would be the accounting fiction I was talking about. The federal government collects money in various ways and spends them in other ways. What the taxes or expenditure is called is not really relevant. Current production pays current pensions and the production in 2040 pays the pensions in 2040. Government debt especially that held by foreigners is a little different, though that too can in emergency be simply inflated away….

“ending the war spending would do nothing for this issue”

Yes, I could have been clearer about that. It would not be enough to reduce spending on any other area (such as defense), you would also have to transfer this saving into the Social Security fund. Congress could certainly do that if it wanted to, but it probably won't.

[McJulie]

I liked most of your post, anon, but Fred doesn't seem to have any facts here either, just eye rolling. seems excessively uncharitable.

Fred's eye-rolling seems caused by exactly what you, and a few others have talked about -- sure, there will be a crisis if nothing whatsoever is done. And then, once there is a crisis, if we do something stupid rather than something sensible, we exacerbate the crisis.

I roll my eyes too when the Republicans try to first scare me with the coming SS shortfall, then claim that their ridiculous economic policies are somehow the solution to this problem.

(And, had I been debating Bush in 2000, I'm pretty sure I would have rolled my eyes then. That's just for a start. I probably would have gone on to exaggerated gagging noises and finger scare quotes. But then, I'm immature.)

What the war spending does is reduce economic resources for other, presumably more productive uses, lowering the US economy’s growth potential. This in turn limits the ability to pay pensions further down the road. Not mention killing or maiming otherwise productive citizens.

[Hopea]

Something wrong with typepad? It does not post the name.

[Hopea]

Conservatives have successfully framed the social security issue as something automatic because of the way the trust fund works. Yes, if the money runs out and nothing is done, benefits will automatically be lowered, breaking the implicit promise government has made to pensioners. But if the economy has not gone down the toilet, congress can easily fix this by raising taxes or cutting other expenditure. The US can’t magically transfer resources from today to 2040. It can however lower or increase the claims of foreigners on US domestic production by managing its debt levels. It might even be able to influence long term growth rates by investing in things like education and infrastructure.

[Geds]

(And, had I been debating Bush in 2000, I'm pretty sure I would have rolled my eyes then. That's just for a start. I probably would have gone on to exaggerated gagging noises and finger scare quotes. But then, I'm immature.)

Y'know, there's something inherently likeable about you, McJulie.

“I roll my eyes too when the Republicans try to first scare me with the coming SS shortfall, then claim that their ridiculous economic policies are somehow the solution to this problem.”

Privately, rolling your eyes is probably a very sensible response. But it doesn't advance the debate. Fred might as well post "My neighbour, Florence, has just told me she believes in Ghosts. Pffft." In contrast cjmr's husband has cut to the question that your politicians don't want to answer, which is what I'd have hoped for from Fred. For example instead of making some ridiculous assumptions and prefixing them with "apparently", Fred could have done some research. But on economic issues Fred always seems to have trouble with his figures. Maybe it's too much theology clouding his brain...

To the Lord a trillion dollars is like a peso, and a peso is like a trillion dollars.

[Kevin]

As someone in my late twenties looking back on the boomers' accomplishments during my lifetime, I have always worried the generation will never die. At least two "silent generations" have suffered through the boomers' navel-gazing control of news and culture. I couldn't believe that with so much going on, they still spent most of 2004 election arguing about f'ing Vietnam. Vampirism explains a lot, actually.

[mds]

Fred Clark, Compassionate Evangelic Vampire Slayer.

The Musical!

Tie it in explicitly with Left Behind Fridays, and you could call it, "Once More with Phoning".

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