It is important that Social Security NEVER become needs based - ever.  Once you turn it into a "needs based system" in any way, it will turn into the new "bogeyman".  Like welfare reform.  Reagan and Clinton sure showed them babies a thing or two, but they didn't touch a dime of the corporate welfare.  

I think he's simply an invention of the right wing!

Except... well, I've met him.  Several times.  And he's a pretty good guy.

Okay, never mind.   :)

And if you doubt the non-existence of the Social Security Crises, just read the introduction to the excellent book, Social Security: The Phony Crisis by Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot, including this choice paragraph:

This is the situation facing Social Security, and it is well known to those who have looked at the numbers. The program will take in enough revenue to keep all of its promises for over 30 years, without any changes at all. Thirty years is a long time--it's hard to think of any other program that can claim to be secure for that long. Furthermore, the forecast of a shortfall in 2034 is based on the economy limping along at less than a 1.7 percent annual rate of growth--about half the rate of the previous three decades. If the economy were to grow at 1998's rate, for example, the system would never run short of money.

Remember what happened the last time BushCo tried this, in December of 2004?  It's what started him back on the long road downward and erased the remnants of his once-phenomenal 9/11 boost.

People like their Social Security and they don't like people messing with it.  (Especially Bush, and especially now, when it has become apparent to all but the most self-deluded that Bush and his minions cannot be trusted on anything, ever.)  And we all still have a passel of links and materials to start shoving down the Republicans' throats should they try it.

This comment gets to the truly significant point, which is the crippled, staggered, irrelevant Bush White House having the gall to initiate anything.

We'll give them a couple of deck chairs to rearrange when we're feeling charitable someday. Until then break rocks in the political prison they've built for themselves.

And whenever there is mention of "Bush" and "legacy" in one sentence, we all better be talking about the wounded and the dead.

B/t/w How do you get to be a "fiscal conservative" by favoring giveaways that balloon the federal budget deficit?

He wrote "one of the most successful," so there's plenty of room for four or five others... if that many can be found.

Now the "human history" part definitely is overstated, because (a) American's are typically ignorant of what others have done and (b) European retirement and disability systems are generally far superior to ours.

But in the US, do you have any concept of how much good it has done?

Here's just a "side-benefit" that most people don't even think of when they talk about Social Security, from a 2005 press release from the The Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Social Security Is Very Important Anti-Poverty Program for Children: More Poor Children Benefit from Social Security Than TANF":

Social Security is an important source of income support for the low income families who receive it, accounting for nearly half of the income for families with children living below 150 percent of the poverty level and receiving a Social Security check.

The GI Bill was a tremendous acheivement.  But it lasted only until 1956. It paid for the training of 7.8 million "including 2,230,000 in college, 3,480,000 in other schools, 1,400,000 in on-job training, and 690,000 in farm training."  It also paid for 2,360,603 home loans before the Korean War GI Bill was passed.  That's no small potatoes.

OTOH, from a table on the Social Security websitethe Social Security beneficiaries in 1970 totaled 23,035,295 for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, and 2,665,629 for Disability Insurance.  In 2005, the figures were 40,120,122 and 8,314,314, respectively. In short, the size of Social Security, which has lasted seven decades so far, utterly dwarfs that of the GI Bill, which lasted just over a decade.

So, no, the GI Bill was not "better" than Social Security, just in terms of how much good it did.  Social Security reached more people by at least an order of magnitude.

The Homestead Act is much more comparable.  But, of course, there's the genocide on which it depended to be considered. The Manahattan Project?  Surely you jest! Aside from killing roughly 200,000 Japanese civilians, what exactly did it accomplish?  No less an expert than General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "The Japanese were ready to surender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

NATO?  Well, it's only "pretty hot shit" on a similar level with Social Security if you buy the myth that the Soviets were planning to invade Western Europe, and that NATO is what stopped them, while nothing less would have.

The Marshall Plan--it was certainly timely. But again, it lasted only a relatively short period of time.  It's like comparing any of the 7 different school teams who've won NCAA basketball championships since 2000 to the UCLA dynasty under John Wooden, which won 10 chapionships in 12 years.  Each of the teams that's won since 2000 was successful, no doubt about it.  But they simply can't be compared to the UCLA dynasty. No one can.

So, in short, your "off the top of my head" list does nothing to diminish the standing of Social Security as one of the most successful programs in American history. To the contrary, it illuminates the strength of that claim.

She's probably laughing her ass off right now as she reads this piece in the Moonie Times, thinking "Oh, PLEASE, Dim Son, PLEASE make my day and try this!  We shoved this down your throat two years ago and we'll do even harder now."

1) Why should the Democrats deal, when they beat Bush into the ground in December of 2004 and January of 2005 on this -- and this right after he came off an election "win"?   And Bush's credibility hasn't exactly improved over the last two years.

2) The WashTimes exists solely to prop up and propagandize the GOP and other right-wing outfits.  That's why Sun Myung Moon is cheerfully willing to lose $100 million a year on it, as he has for the past quarter of a century:  He makes far more than enough from his forced-labor enterprises (pardon me, his "church") to cover his losses.

Medicare is what needs to be dealt with, particularly the ability of the program to negotiate lower prices on drugs. Let's hope Dems stick to their promise and focus on that.

The Bureau of Public Debt put up a new webpage giving actual month end statements for each Trust Fund. If you want to know to the penny how much is in the OAS (Old Age Survivors) Trust Fund and the DI (Disability) Trust Fund as of the end of the most recent report month and compare that to the estimates of the last Annual Report you can see if we are on track. The October 31 report went up Dec 1 so we can expect the December report to go up February 1.

While they can screw around with the projections going forward they really can't do a lot with the actual balances. Are we on course to beat (fully funded) Low Cost?

You tell me.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/dfi/dfit rustfundreport.htm