[lbo-talk] question for doug: bush's remark about IOUs and the SS surplus

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon May 2 14:53:46 PDT 2005


ravi wrote:


>in your interview in hugh hamilton's show (btw, what's up with his
>accent? where is he from?),

One of those islands in the Caribbean - can't remember which one.


> you mentioned that bush is correct in a way
>i.e., the money to pay the SS borrowing (treasury bonds?) has to come
>from somewhere -- potentially tax increase, etc. however, what you
>failed to mention was that in a way this was a clever transfer of the SS
>surplus i.e., bush would not be in the situation he is if he hadn't used
>the SS surplus, reincarnated as govt bonds inflow, to hand out tax cuts
>to the wealthy and fund the iraq war, etc. isn't that true?

Yup. If they didn't have the SS surplus to play with, the Treasury would have to borrow lots more now. But, hey, now it's somone else's problem!

Doug



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