If only this were true.
The national discussion on the viability of Social Security would recieve an upgrade if the short-fused, arrogant, statistics-challenged co-chair of President's Obama's deficit reduction commission would walk away, back to his native Wyoming and spend his time enjoying the spectacular beauty that state has in abundance.
Simpson had a hissy fit over Huffpo's Ryan Grim asking intelligent questions:
When HuffPost suggested that this statistic was misleading due to the higher childhood mortality rate, Simpson responded, "I know all the stuff [Ryan Grim] goes through. Its like gymnastics! Yes and we've done distributional analysis. Ask him if he knows what that is! Ask the wizard if he knows what distributional analysis is! We did that. And then ask him what we did for the seniors, for the older old and the people who are in poverty. Ask the wizard all that and then get back to me."
He then shouted, "I'm through!" and walked away
Former US Senator Alan Simpson again showed why he is not be taken seriously regarding any discussion of Social Security.
Simpson Babbles
He is apparently incapable of understanding basic arithmetic regarding life expectancy and Social Security:
Can't someone draw him a picture or something? Or just direct him to the social security administration web site? Here's the explanation of the life expectancy question:
If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.
Always the funny guy, Simpson makes a joke about Torture and the numbers.
"Now the great sharpshooters are out there and the cat food commission cats and all those guys using these distorted figures," Simpson told the crowd. "And I always say, look, if you torture statistics long enough, eventually they'll confess."
Frank Clemente of http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/
"Repeating a false claim over and over again does not make it true," said Frank Clemente of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition over 270 national and state organizations dedicated to protecting Social Security from benefit cuts. "Those who continue to use this canard show they are more interested in tearing down Social Security rather than making it stronger. Social Security has a huge surplus today but a long-range gap in 25 years that can be closed relatively painlessly if the richest two percent of
If we do nothing, Social Security will be paying full benefits through 2037:
Social Security Doing Fine
The trustees’ projections show that if nothing is ever done, then Social Security would pay full benefits through the year 2037. At this point, even if Congress does nothing there still would be substantial money flowing into the program, allowing the program to pay just under 80 percent of benefits. In the case of your youngest son, he would receive $29,700 from 2037 on (in today’s dollars), if his lifetime earnings path is similar to your own (i.e. he is a maximum wage earner).
By the way, Simpson recommends
Senior Proplan