In order for Social Security surpluses to be saved, taxes and spending in the non-Social Security portion of the budget must be set with the recognition that the special-issue government securities held by the trust fund represent liabilities that are every bit as real and important as debt held by the public. While the non-Social Security budget must ultimately redeem those special-issue securities in any case, it is only when they are recognized as equivalent to publicly held debt that the non-Social Security budget will plan in advance for their redemption by using Social Security surpluses to reduce public debt issuance. When used to lower publicly held debt today, the surpluses increase the government’s capacity to issue publicly held debt to pay for Social Security benefits in the future. Otherwise, those future benefits must be financed with lower non-Social Security spending or higher non-Social Security revenues.

then translates -

Oh my – those of us who have been allowed to pay less in income taxes over the past generation than what has been spent by the General Fund during this same period might actually have to pay more in income taxes in the future. What do we tell the children? Oh yea – get used to high employment taxes that were never intended for your retirement. I have to say – our Treasury Department has certainly come up with some fancy language for good old fashion grand larceny.

Since Reagan these ‘conservatives’ having been using the SS surplus to hide their deficit spending - the bonds are there but the money to pay for them must come from the general fund (where the actual $$$ went) meaning some major tax increases down the road in order to redeem these bonds and thus restore the SS trust fund to actual dollars that can be sent to SS recipients. Or perhaps the rethugs are seriously thinking of defaulting on the SS treasury bonds when they come due . Yikes.
One good thing about being 51 & a smoker, I will not live to see it!

That said, I appreciate the thought that homeowners losing their houses are a big issue of the day but both campaigns are mostly like minded.

The capital gains issue is interesting because that does speak to the issue of taxation fairness and it does seem extremely unfair that someone making their living trading stocks/hedge funds pays 15% on their income whereas the bulk of American’s pay over 30% on their wages.

Watching Obama equivocate and ultimately fail to step into the footprints that he had made earlier about a substantial increase on capital gains taxes was rather disappointing. I was glad to see that line of questioning myself.

WWJED (What Would John Edwards Do?)

Raise the tax rate on capital gains to 28 percent for the most fortunate taxpayers – taxing the investment income of the wealthiest Americans similarly to the wages of the middle class.

Hillary - a little less clear but committed to raising the capital gains tax…

# Restore fairness to the tax system. Hillary will return to the income tax rates for upper-income Americans that we had in the 1990s – rates that were consistent with a balanced budget and economic growth. She will level the playing field when it comes to taxing the income earned in investment partnerships. Right now, some Wall Street investment managers making $50 million a year could pay just 15% on their earned income – while someone making $50,000 a year pays 25%.

Obama - ??? - I simply couldn’t find any reference to ‘capital gains’ on his web site including the ObamaPolicy_Fiscal.pdf. Apparently Obama had a ‘Tax Fairness Plan’ last September but it seems to have vanished but it is referenced in the NYT here

I was uncomfortable with his waffling the question tonight and am uncomfortable with the fact that this seems to be one of those policies that may have gotten lost.

And if the networks won’t carry them, webcast ‘em.

You should be happy Susie. Clinton scored many points tonight.

Until this campaign I had no idea how much hostility there was toward baby boomers, like we generated ourselves out of nothing just to be a plague on the earth. Yet the “greatest generation” that produced us is lauded by Tom Brokaw and others. You go figure.