If nothing changes, trustees project a shortfall of about $11 trillion in what the government needs to pay promised benefits to the coming waves of retiring baby boomers and beyond, into what trustees called "the infinite future." The system will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2018.
The way it looks now, welfare may surpass Sosha Security on the success scale. Nevada Senator Harry Reid is in WAY over his head - and the 109th Congress doesn't even convene until January 4th...
"most successful social(ist) program in the history of the world"
Social Security is a throwback to the Depression Era. It should be phased out. To say it is a success is to say bureaucracy and inefficiency is a success.
It's true -- SS has succeeded in achieving the goals of its initiators -- creating a permanent polticial constituency, shoddy economics be damned!
Might have been if every drunk, druggie, and supposedly ADD kid in the country wasn't collecting social security benefits.
Read my tag.
More like a Ponzi scheme, I'd say.
Harry Reid is an embarrassment to the Senate and his opinions are not well thought out. Of course, my Senator, Ron Wyden, is even worse.
Drop social security. Evil ponzi scheme! The founders never intended socialism, knew it was an evil to be avoided at any cost.
While at it, drop welfare, medicare, get the government of the business of business, and out of my wallet!
Top sends
If our SS is the most successful social program, how come members of congress have their own system which is "more" successful?
It is the most successful program.
FOR THOSE BORN BEFORE 1950
Who is this guy kidding? If he means the most succesful scam game which the politicians can steal from; he is right.
But that's only been possible in retrospect through the base support program of "socialistic senility".
This is a highly inacurate transcript. In every instance, Reid called the program SoSecurity. The SOB's don't even know the name of their damned program.
I've been putting money into SS for 30 years.
They can keep every dime of it, if they let me out.
AARP grannies are incredibly selfish.
Unless you count the plan put in by the city of Galveston, TX, when they opted out of S.S. Now their retirees are getting an average of $4000+ a month for the same amount they'd have put into the black-hole of S.S. Of course, they don't have to pay off old foreigners who come feed at the SS trough, or the deadbeats who claim disablity, etc. Talk about delusional!
But it has been a success until now...
First off, the amount of money coming in through FICA taxes has been far more than the government needs to pay the current benefits. So, our congress-critters have had a windfall of funds that are not counted in the official budget to spend in any way they see fit, i.e. to buy votes.
The only problem, Harry, is that things on the horizon simply aren't that rosey. When SS was first implemented, very few, if any, recipients actually received more money back in benefits than they put into the system. The simple fact is that people generally wern't expected to live much past the age you began to start receiving benefits.
Couple that with the expectation that there was always going to be growth in the number of employees paying into the system.
The problem is that there are now fewer people paying into the system, and that number is expected to continue dropping for the forseeable future. People are also living longer, which means they are collecting more, for a longer period of time.
So, Harry, here's a quick primer on economics... You've got an expanding base of people who will be demanding benefits. This base will be collecting benefits for a greater period of time. And there will be fewer people paying into the system, financing those payments. Oh, and by the way... The "trust fund," that holds all those excess funds that SS has collected over the years? Well, it's full of IOUs that the government has deposited, in order to spend the excess funds.
I guess I'm not suprised that you believe that SS is the most successful program in history.
Mark
created his own politican scandal = created his own political scandal
It will continue to be the most sucessful program right until the day the money runs out.
Got news for Harry we are looking at a $43 Trillion shortfall and it's the biggest ongoing Ponzi scheme in history.