Posted on 04/10/2009 10:28:36 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Federal budget worrywarts (myself included) have been fretting for years about the arrival of the Dread Fiscal Year 2017, when Social Security was projected to start becoming a drag on federal finances.
Well, no need to worry about 2017 any more. Thanks to the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, the moment of reckoning is already almost here: According to both the budget proposed by the White House in February and projections issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March, Social Security benefits ($659 billion, according to the CBO) will exceed payroll taxes ($653 billion) in fiscal 2009 for the first time since 1984.
Payroll tax receipts generally hold up much better in recessions than income taxes, but job losses have been so severe that the CBO expects them to decline slightly from 2008, while benefits rise almost 9% because of cost-of-living adjustments and the beginnings of the baby boomer retirement wave. (See five reasons for economic optimism.)
If you count the $17 billion in income taxes expected to be paid on Social Security benefits, the system will still manage to provide a slight surplus for federal coffers in fiscal 2009. But from 2010 through 2012 there are small projected deficits, and after heading back into the black from 2013 to 2015 the program will become a growing drain on federal finances after that, projects the CBO.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What about the LOCKBOX!?
Oh? Is there a vault? A big room piled high with all that surplus money that we've been collecting over time? Hmmmmmmmmmm?
Well, it really doesn’t matter much if current receipts don’t quite cover the current expenses since we have all those billions locked away in the Social Security Trust Fund, aka the “lockbox”.
(pause for nervous laughter)
I’m not worried about this shortfall. It doesn’t apply to me. I have contributed my share for the last 45 years. I got a statement from the SS Admin detailing how much I have in the fund. This is someone else’s problem. //sarcasm off//
Silly marxists - there is no SS surplus, never has been. There isn’t even any money anywhere in SS. There are not even accounts for each person. SS makes Madoff look like a piker. It’s the biggest ponzi scheme in the entire history of Earth. They should put a picture of the SS emblem in the dictionary next to Ponzi.
They spend money from Social Security on everything but. How can it run out of money since it has been put into the General Fund?
The faster this welfare program goes broke the better. Like Medicare democrats only want a token of payroll taxes (wrt handouts) to make the recipients think they earned it. They really want the rich to support the poor, with the middle class addicted.
This is massive (massively bad) financial news.
I’m amazed it is getting such quite coverage.
Silly marxists - there is no SS surplus, never has been.
The only possible silver lining I see in any of this is that the system(s) will go broke. And then (maybe) America will say "Any politician who promises to use taxpayer funds to solve problems in my life is lying."
Government budgets should cover defense, courts, some transportation infrastructurre, and not much else. The budget should be far less than 50% of its current size -- if we go broke enough, maybe people will understand that.
Lockbox indeed! GWB was rhetorically crucified for trying to fix SS.
These people are so dumb thinking that there is a SS surplus. So dumb...
Really? Of course it will be kept quiet... Don't want to wake up the sheep, ya know...
It will never go broke because fed can create money and the public will not get upset about spending. I would like voters/taxpayers to understand what this program is, redistribution. Democrats want them to think it is a retirement program that they ‘earned’.
Back when Reagan cut the deal in 1980s with democrats it was a crime. To generate a off budget surplus to spend while telling public it was a self funding retirement program with a trust fund. I would NEVER support a tax increase in SS for this reason.
It sounded like GWB was willing to sign a bill raising the FICA tax-CAP on SS for savings accounts (will never know for sure fortunately)
The Government Has Two Options:
1. Cut Benefits
2. Increase Taxes
Expect both options to be exercised frequently.
My wife and I don’t plan on SS income for our retirement. It will be like winning the lottery if we get any...
I expect SS to pay my phone bill in retirement, if it even exists. I still have three decades to go.
A bunch of IOUs written from one arm of the government - the Treasury, to another arm of the government - Social Security trust fund, DO NOT A SURPLUS MAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!
The “surplus” in the Social Security Trust fund is nothing other than a promise we made to ourselves (whenever we collected more social security payroll taxes than we needed for paying benefits) to come back and tax ourselves later to pay back the payroll taxes we spent instead of saving and investing the excess we paid in.
The label of the IOUs we gave ourselves as a “surplus” is the biggest political fiction in modern American history.
A PONZI scheme, like Mr. Madoff ran, is when the promise is made that unrealistic earnings can be provided and are in fact only able to be provided as long as enough new investors and/or enough new investment can continually be brought in to pay off the earlier investors.
Social Security has always been a PONZI scheme.
It has always required some combination of legally required additional new classes of contributors or legally mandated higher contribution rates, or both, in order to be solvent for those reaching the age of claiming their due from it.
The financial and demographic math of pretending it is solvent have reached their end, and by 2013 that pretense will be shattered.
And that's the beauty of that statement the SS admin’s mail out each year. Most people don't notice the form never says “your money” anywhere on it. Just lists your contributions.
Yes, I did notice your //sarcasm off// I was just adding for the ones who might not have ever noticed.
What surplus? It is just a bunch of IOU’s. If there was money in the “surplus bank” how could this surplus be getting smaller unless someone is robbing the bank. And that is what is happening and has been happening for years. The money is “robbed” by Congress (government) to make it appear that the deficit is not as bad as it really is. The only way to replace this “robbed” money is through additional taxes. The shortage then has to be made up by us stupid taxpayers.
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