Posted on 10/30/2011 4:58:03 AM PDT by Stajack
Now, Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury. This year, it will add a projected $46 billion to the nation’s budget problems, according to projections by system trustees. Replacing cash lost to a one-year payroll tax holiday will require an additional $105 billion. If the payroll tax break is expanded next year, as President Obama has proposed, Social Security will need an extra $267 billion to pay promised benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Fundamentally, we are both correct. According to the article there are two trust funds, the money paid out is borrowed, but keep in mind with my simple x / y graph argument that there is way more being paid out than coming in.
So either they would need to cut benefits, drastically increase the amount taken from paychecks towards social security or what is likely to happen in typical government fashion. They print more money and the US becomes Greece, because the politicians don't want to cut the hand outs.
Your point is arguable. Unemployment insurance payments are also taxable. I’d happily exchange my SS account for a private annuity fund worth half as much as current promised SS payment, since even Rep. Ryan wants to means test Social Security, - of course, only for people much younger than me, but he doesn’t get to pick and choose and once the liberals get the redistribution bit in their mouth, all bets are off.
It won’t be the Congress critters screaming for it. It will be those who have retired.
Look at some of the threads where it has been discussed cutting SS. Other conservative people suddenly start talking about how they are “owed”.
Do you have a source for this because I honestly never heard of this.
DuncanWaring is right. There's a building in Parkersburg, West Virginia, with a file cabinet that holds two notebooks. The notebooks contain paperwork reflecting the government's PROMISE to pay the funds owed to SS recipients. Essentially, this paperwork is IOUs. USA Today and PBS News Hour have done news stories on this. For details, just Google "Social Security Trust Fund - Parkersburg, WV"
The biggest problem is how do you tell someone who has paid into this system (against their will) that they don't get paid? That is a bait and switch, I'd be angry as hell.
And indeed it is the medicaid and medicare that is crushing everything. Obamacare makes things ten times worse.
Have you ever heard the term "recreational doctor visits"?
I had to pull out my Economics book from Grad School because this is an amazing story that many people aren't aware of. When I use the term "recreational doctor visits" I'm called anti-elderly. I'll try and be short and sweet.
Here is the quote from the text book, "As a case in point, one Medicaid experiment in California required some beneficiaries to pay $1 per visit for their first two office visits per month (after two visits, the price of additional visits reverted to zero). A control group continued to receive free medical care. The $1 charge reduced office visits by 8 percent compared to the control group."
Now this was only a dollar co-pay yet in the group that had to pay the fee it reduced visits by 8%. Can you imagine if that fee was raised to say $5 or $10 for the first two visits? I bet that 8% would increase and not because granny can't afford it.
Amen, brother.
Social Security is not heritable.
Remember to compute that into the model where you compare payoffs versus costs.
The fact that people are discussing it with concern alone shows that we are working for government more than government is working for us.
Sad state of affairs in a "free" society.
DuncanWaring hit the nail on the head though regarding Medicaid which caused me to remember the whole sham of "recreational doctor visits", and the case study from California.
People like free stuff, and take advantage of it. But here in this case study a simple dollar bill cut 8% of the visits! Now call me Heartless as Rick Perry did but just raise that fee to maybe 5 or 10 dollars and I guarantee the recreational visits are cut dramatically and will save the taxpayer billions of dollars a year.
my former wife was a claims rep for SSA...just about every night of her working days of our marriage for 14 years, she came home with one of those "million stories"..and just about always something new and different...one of the most memorable for me was when social security reps had to honor birthday pics of young kids in "birthdays this week" columns of newspapers as proof of id for an SSN...you know sweet little Jamal, son of Leroy Washington and Denise Jones celebrates his 4th birthday this week..three months later in the same column, Jamal's pic was now a pic of some other name, celebrating his 5th birthday, son of Joe and Tamika...and of course, once that ssn is established, then comes the ssi....millions of stories of fraud....millions..
I Paid In and I'm Entitled To My Money!!
but...but...but....The Government Stole My Money and they have to cut NASA....or pork belly subsidies....or aid to Madagascar....or Something...so they can Pay Me Back My Money!!!
but...but...but...The Government PROMISED ME!!!
/sarc
Great, just when I am about to start collecting Social Security they run out of money.
What is killing Social Security is SSI and disability payments. Neither requires a work history. It is true that SSI isn’t strictly a SS account category, it is administered by SSA. These payments amount to a full quarter of all SSA payments.
Another Obama first. Thanks to the hard work of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats, Social Security became insolvent six years ahead of schedule.
Here's the problem. Social Security is still self financing. Alas, the US government borrowed all the funds and wasted them on EPA, Labor Department, Education Department, loans to bankrupt solar power companies, building more federal buildings, community development block grants, foreign aid, ....... a gazillion other things that should have been paid out of the general revenues raised by taxes rather than by borrowing money from enemy aliens.
Other way around ~ Social Security is solvent but the Obama Regime isn’t.
Sunday morning! Wake up, get some coffee, scan the headlines.... and find a FR post about SS that’s already had 74 replies in two hours.
Your tale is a variation on an old theme.
What you do have is refugee relief which is administered by State Department (although I think the disbursements are actually managed by Social Security Administration).
We have several neighbors who received something near $100 a month while they were in temporary US refugee camps, and then some rent money while they found jobs in a destination city. It's not a whole lot ~ not something you could start a business with, or even buy a junk car.
Great question. If I find out, I'll holler back.
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