Third-Rail Shocker (Social Security Going Bankrupt Sooner)

Investors.com ^ | January 8, 2009 | Investor's business Daily staff

[raptor22]

Entitlements: While a massive health care entitlement is fashioned in secret, another one, Social Security, is running deficits decades earlier than expected. We've been kicking the can down the road. We're out of road.

As Bernie Madoff found out, any Ponzi scheme depends on a continuous inflow of new cash and new customers or the ever-expanding pyramid will totter and collapse. Social Security, dependent as it was on new workers paying the expanding benefits of retirees, is about to, much sooner than expected.

As Ed Morrissey over at HotAir.com reminds us, Peter Orszag, now director of the Office of Management and Budget, predicted as director of the Congressional Budget Office in August 2008 that no one needed to worry about Social Security. "CBO projects that outlays will first exceed revenues in 2019 and that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2049," we were told.

As the baby boomers have started retiring and the economy has collapsed, that day of reckoning is here. The Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary finally got around to posting detailed November numbers, and they aren't pretty.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Yep, George W. Bush definitely married up with Laura!

[unixfox]

Scrimp and save your own retirement funds. 401(k), Roth, whatever.

What good will that do when the dollar is worth nothing?

I'm hedging my bets on guns, ammo, liquor and anything I can trade.

You're gonna need em all when it's all said and done.

[Safrguns]

ummm.... seems to me that Social security going down the tubes is precisely why they have been so crazy about passing the health care bill.... cause it pretty much re-defines social security into a much larger program.

[Wicket]

Now there’s a big surprise. I heard talk about the increasingly difficult demographics of social security when I was doing adult foster care 30 years ago - and we and our elected officials have done nothing since.

[Surfscoter]

That’s why the Repubs should let the Dems fix it. It’s their mess. And the Repubs should not be dumb enough to join a “commission” or “panel” to “fix” federal spending because it’s only a cover to raise taxes and claim a “bipartisan solution.” In other words, deprive the Repubs of one of their most powerful reasons for being elected in lieu of Dems.

[Frantzie]

Hey baby boomers and seniors who voted for Obama - Atlas shrugged - enjoy.

You voted for a Kenyan muslim marxist and anyone with an IQ above 70 who has some money or a business - shrugged, laid people off and hunkered down.

You reap what you sew.

[rustyboots]

I agree!! For the last 16 months I have been buying ammo and some other basics that I think we will need. Gold and silver sound fine, but they can’t feed you or house you. If you aren’t careful gold makes you a target.
With what I have we can get food, we can protect our house and maybe if I was a A****le, I could take some gold and silver from others. Copper, brass, and lead are the heavy metals you need for survival.

[okie01]

Hopefully, government will get rid of the FICA tax at that time, but I’m probably hoping for too much.

Not a chance. They'll need FICA to pay for health care.

[Dayman]

Social security needs to be abolished immediatly. It’s unfortunate for those who contributed and won’t get it or are currently collecting and will loose it overnight, but it’s a bad program that never should have existed in the first place.

In 20 years nobody will miss it and the country will be better off.

[Vendome]

What? When did this happen? /s

[Just A Nobody]

[PRESIDENT] Bush tried to fix social security and Democrats and the corrupt MSM screamed like stuck pigs.

You got that right!

Call It Socialism Security February 22, 2005

The problems of Social Security are mammoth, and these problems stretch over into future generations. Something must be done, and it must be done now. Enter President Bush.

Bush has begun to open a dialogue that Washington passed over for many years. Bush has laid a few markers down for Social Security personal accounts, but remains open to ideas.

Democrats--whose solution to the runaway train wreck of Social Security was to gather around the FDR Memorial in the National Mall in staged solidarity for media consumption--have exhibited much heavy-breathing and unvarnished hostility towards Bush’s idea of personal accounts.

Demagoguery Unleashed April 26, 2005
The Democrats put on a sad spectacle at the Capitol today, rallying their armies of the ignorant to oppose any reform in the Social Security system:
[see photo in article]

Awwww, but it wasn't just the demonrats! Nooooo, here is one of the "esteemed" republicans in 2005!
[You may remember 2005...one of only 2 years out of 8 that President Bush supposedly had a decent majority in both Houses.]

Grassley: no Social Security reform now November 8, 2005:
Iowa Senator says Bush's overhaul is off the table until after the next presidential election.

.

[randita]

Was going to wait 4 years (to age 66) before taking SS, but I wonder if it’s going to be there at all in 4 years.

[sergeantdave]

Well, crap. All you useless bureaucrats who worked in government and are collecting your golden parachutes - that’s ending real soon. Prepare to move into cardboard boxes under the bridge. And yeh, we have more guns than you do and we’re better shots. Bye-bye.

[ForGod'sSake]

Articles like this one, as insightful as it is, should help give the Dims cover to propose “Retirement Reform™”. I can hardly wait to see what that 2,000+ page monstrosity will look like. At least Bush’s attempt to fix the problem leaned towards a private solution. The Dims obviously have something else in mind...

[ansel12]

Hey baby boomers and seniors who voted for Obama - Atlas shrugged - enjoy.

You do know that those are the two most republican age groups, right?

[Frantzie]

Seniors yes but tons of baby boomers voted for Obama. I know seniors who voted for him like fools. Let em eat cake.

They foolishly did not see this massive wealth redistribution, reparations and wiping out the middle class coming? Well they will see it now. Return to the depression is where we are headed. I was saying all along that this guy was Mugabe 2. Most seniors and baby boomers are clueless as to what is going on. The younger people are even dumber.

[ansel12]

So why attack the two age groups that most voted against Obama, why not attack the 18 to 29 year olds that most voted for Obama with 66%, or the 30-44 year olds and their 52% for Obama, instead you want to focus on the two most anti Obama age groups.

Why not jump on Catholics for choosing Obama by 54% while Protestants chose McCain by 54%, or the Jews with their 78% Obama, or the blacks and their 97% Obama? Why not separate the Hispanics by Catholic/Protestant and get two different votes, one overwhelmingly Obama and the other barely Obama?