The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated to provide official news, instructions and information.
The March 2010 Drinking Right will commence in 24 hours over at the usual place (Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W. Burleigh in Milwaukee). You are hereby instructed to be there. Failure is not an option.
Now, repeat after the EBS – “I will be at Drinking Right Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 7 pm.”
This has been the Emergency Blogging System.
Revisions/extensions part 2 (10:16 am 3/8/2010) – I originally posted this on February 22 using estimates from the January 2010 Monthly Treasury Report to fill in the numbers for January 2010. The Social Security Office of the Chief Actuary has now released the final numbers for that month, and the news is worse. The original post is below the fold (unless you’re reading just this post, in which case it’s below the update). I decided to append to this and bump it up to today’s date.
Between February 2009 and January 2010, the combined OASDI Social Security “Trust Funds” spent $112 million more than it took in in taxes. As noted in the original post (below), the 12-month primary (or cash) deficit is the first since monthly records were kept in 1987, and likely the first since the “forever” fix of 1983.
The estimate using the Treasury’s numbers was a $91 million primary deficit, which instead of proving too pessimistic based on recent analysis of the difference between the Treasury Monthly Statements and the OACT final numbers, proved to be too optimistic.
To contrast, just last year, the Obama administration expected the FY2010 primary surplus in the combined “Trust Funds” to be $21,028 million (or $21.028 billion – I will use a single base to make sure the numbers hit home) as part of its FY2010 budget. Now, it’s estimated to be a $33,754 million deficit, a shift of $54,782 million to the red. That’s $54,782 million that, thanks to the well-over $1,000,000 million (or $1 trillion) deficit that was already planned for this year, needs to be borrowed by the Treasury on the open market.
The situation is not yet as dire as it was between 1975 and 1981, when the combined funds ran overall yearly deficits, or 1982, when the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance fund borrowed from the Hospital Insurance (Medicare Part A) fund to stay fully-capitalized. However, raising the withholding tax 14% and the self-employment tax 64% isn’t exactly going to play well, and like the previous time, it will only slow the inevitable.
Rep. Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha) tipped me to this little power freeze, known as AB 787 introduced into the Assembly to keep control of the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance for another three years after losing the governor’s office. To wit, it changes the appointment from an “at the pleasure of the governor” appointment to a fixed 4-year appointment ending in the third year of the governor’s term.
Why is this so noxious? The OCI pretty much has free hand in regulating the entire insurance industry. Given every driver in the state has to have auto insurance, and if PlaceboCare gets put into law, every person would have to have health insurance, the philosophy of the operation of that power is something that should not be divorced by three years from the expression of will by the public.
Oh, and before you Democrats scream that it was a partisan Tommy Thompson that got the term changed from a fixed term to one of the governor’s discretion, it was done by a Democratic Legislature.
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