Social Security

What the next president should have front and center on the agenda is Social Security. And because expectations are a big part of SS’s problem, perhaps what’s most necessary is a re-education of citizens about what SS is and isn’t. 

Following is a statement from a 45-year-old Boca Raton man about SS: 

“By the time I’m eligible to receive my social security benefits the entire program will be gone and done with. It’s predicted the program will end within 20years.  I’m basically being taxed to pay for the benefits of my parent’s generation.”

Exactly.  That’s how Social Security was established:  current workers pay for current retirees - the theory being that this helped the economy by giving current workers the incentive to keep the economy strong so that when reaching retirement, then current workers would keep the system going.

That hasn’t exactly worked out as well as intended, but the man’s statement clearly shows there’s much misinformation and mythology about SS in circulation and growing.

And while looking at SS, the next president also needs to look seriously at the larger problem of Medicare.  Medicare’s drain on the system over the next 50 years will make talk about SS woes look insignificant by comparison. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration In 2004, 4,008 motorcyclists were killed and an additional 76,000 were injured in traffic crashes in the United States - eight percent more than the 3,714 motorcyclist fatalities and 14 percent more than the 67,000 motorcyclist injuries reported in 2003.
 
Motorcycles made up more than two percent of all registered vehicles in the United States in 2003 and accounted for only 0.3 percent of all vehicle miles traveled.
 
In 2004, motorcyclists accounted for nine percent of total traffic fatalities, 11 percent of all occupant fatalities, and three percent of all occupants injured.
 
Motorcycles are more likely to be involved in a fatal collision with a fixed object than are other vehicles. In 2004, 26 percent of the motorcycles involved in fatal crashes collided with a fixed object, compared to 18 percent for passenger cars, 12 percent for light trucks, and four percent for large trucks 0.9 percent.

And your kid wants you to buy one.  Think about it.

The Palm Beach County School Board has received the Workforce Housing Achievement Award for outstanding innovation and leadership. The Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County presented the award at a recent “State of Workforce Housing” workshop.

“The School District’s participation in workforce housing initiatives demonstrates our commitment to retaining good teachers that our staff works so diligently to recruit,” said School Board Chair Bill Graham.  “We all know that homeownership is still the biggest and most tangible evidence of achieving the “American Dream”.  The award is one more example of the value of community partnerships…accomplishing goals through collaboration.”

The Housing Achievement award was given for the school board’s commitment to assist teachers at Title 1 schools in purchasing a home.  The board successfully partnered with MerryPlace Development in West Palm Beach on a state grant application and was awarded a $5 million dollar grant.  The board has now partnered with Hammon Place in Lake Worth and the Villages in Delray Beach on this year’s state grant applications.

Are you taking notes cities?

All of the pontificating and posturing by both the House and Senate with questioning of insurance industry executives about why some, at least, have failed to pass along rate cuts to consumers couldn’t be more filled with the proverbial BS than if the House and Senate came to work with shovels in hand.

Had the original legislation been properly (as opposed to politically) drafted and passed, there’d now be no need for all this posturing.