I went to CNN.com and saw a link on the right hand side that blared "Social Security fund may run out sooner", near the top of the page. It made me wonder, so I clicked on the link and read the article.
Not until I got to the third and fourth paragraphs of the article, after seeing the blazing headline again and reading about how the shortfalls have been adjusted upward, did I read that the trust fund exhaustion estimate date had been moved up by one year -- from 2042 to 2041.
Whoopty-freaking-do.
So now the estimate is that the trust fund will have problems 36 years from now, as opposed to 37. Somebody sound the crisis alarm!
Here's the link in all its glory. It should still be available on the front page after awhile, somewhere among the Schiavo and Michael Jackson stories.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Social Security trustees, in their 2005 report released Wednesday, offered an earlier date for trust fund exhaustion and revised upward estimates of the shortfalls facing the system over the next 75 years.
They also revised upward the shortfall facing the system over what's known as the infinite time horizon, a measure often used by the Bush administration to emphasize the system's troubles but which the American Academy of Actuaries deems "less reliable."
Based on revised assumptions, the trustees now estimate that by 2041 the system's trust fund will be exhausted, meaning the system will only be able to pay out a percentage of the benefits currently promised.
That date is 1 year earlier than the 2042 date the trustees estimated in their 2004 report.
They also now estimate that by 2017 the system will not be taking in enough in payroll taxes to pay all benefits promised and will need to tap the special-issue bonds that make up its trust fund. That date was moved up from 2018.
The amount of the shortfall facing the system over the next 75 years was revised upward to $4 trillion from $3.7 trillion.
If I had been someone who had just seen the article, I could see myself thinking "Wow, guess they were wrong, maybe there is a crisis after all." It's sad and disgusting the measures these people will go to to kowtow to Bush and friends. Whoever thinks CNN isn't in bed with the neo-cons just isn't paying attention.