I have a report coming up on social security/medicare. I am concentrating on the pros/cons of each and the original intentions of the bills and how they have strayed. Also, I would like to put in a little info about the "lockbox" fallacy.

If anyone has any info/site/opinions on the matter with some references for back up I would greatly appreciate it.

Just puttin her back up for the day folks. Any info you guys have is welcome.

Thanks

Well, I'm on social security and have some strong opinions on it. (In fact it is one of my greatest pet peeves as you may imagine.)

To begin congress votes each year on the percent of increase that social security resipients will recieve for he coming year. Last year we received a three percent increase. For the previous five years our increase was a whopping 1.2% per year. This, obiviously, does not even account for the cost of living increase.
Most recipients are already living well below the poverty level prior to receiving increases that do not even cover cost of living increases. The avergage social secuirty income is something in the neighborhhod of $1100 a month. However, those figures are deceiving. Most people receive well under $1000 a month, which is, of course, less than minimum wage. I know people whom have worked all their life that are receiving less than $500 a month. The $1100 figure is derived from people that were CEO's and such that are drawing over $3K a month, which skews the averages. Those people, for the most part, are also receiving a substantial retirement from their execuative position.
Ironically the year the congress voted themselves a 50% raise they also voted in the same session to increase social security 1.2%. Evidently their cost of living increases more than peons that are eating dog food to live.
Congress, by the way are not part of the social security system. They continue to draw their same wages, paid for with tax dollars, after they leave office regardless of the time they have served or the number of years.
Social security is probably the most abused "bank roll" in government. An example of that is the recent announcement that the government was going to use money from social security to stimulate the economy. The money that is being tossed around is coming directly from that system.

Now because of the disproportionate number of people coming of retirement age and those that are about to within the next few years compared to the number of working people contributing to the fund the system will be even more burdenned than before. As it currenly stands social security funds reserves draw simple interest only.
The program that Bush proposed during the campaign would have invested the reserves into markets that would bear greater interest. However, like all ventures there would be a certain risk involved. That is when Gore cried he wanted to put it in a "lock box" and not tamper with it. A lot of people, especially seniors, took that to mean that the reserves would not be used for other projects......like stimulating the economy. That was not what Gore boy meant. Gore would have used the reserves the same as Bush and every other politician before him for whatever cause that came down the pike. But with the Bush plan the money would have been invested into something to draw some real interest. Gore's "lock box" plan would still have used it for bullshit but it would be locked in a box of drawing nothing more than simple interest.

Now, if you will excuse me, since I need to go eat lunch. Since I'm on social security I'm have Tender Vittles cat food today. I trust that our politicians are enjoying their lobster for their lunch. After all their cost of living is much more than mine.

Thanks Gunslinger, thats the kind of stuff I'm looking for. just a couple more pages to write.