Posted on 08/12/2012 12:04:16 PM PDT by Olog-hai
As millions of baby boomers flood Social Security with applications for benefits, the program's $2.7 trillion surplus is starting to look small.
For nearly three decades Social Security produced big surpluses, collecting more in taxes from workers than it paid in benefits to retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children. The surpluses also helped mask the size of the budget deficit being generated by the rest of the federal government.
Those days are over.
Since 2010, Social Security has been paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes, adding to the urgency for Congress to address the program's long-term finances. …
President Barack Obama created a deficit-reduction commission in 2010 but didn't embrace its plan for Social Security: raising the retirement age, reducing benefits for medium- and high-income workers and raising the cap on the amount of wages subject to the payroll tax, all very gradually. …
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
2.7 trillion in special treasury bonds (a.k.a. IOUs) is not a surplus.
Those days are over.
CHANGE
That should not happen with a "surplus". Ah, but here is no surplus. Apparently the old lie of a "trust fund" has outlived its usefulness so they now have to use a new lie.
CHANGE- its verb. Like "We, you overlords, command you to change".
The SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT (HR 2889) was introduced in September, 2011, by then Michigan Cong. Thaddeus McCotter. Crafted along with Peter Ferrara, it saved Social Security without increasing the retirement age, without increasing the withholding tax, without decreasing payouts, without affecting anyone 55 or over, and without privatization. It was scored by the Social Security Actuary as being the largest spending reduction in Government History. You know where it went? NOWHERE! The third rail of American Politics.
Basically.. they cash in a portion the treasury bonds (you know the “surplus”) to get reimbursed needed SS outlays back from the general fund.
The best part is if you go to the SS website they basically say there has never been a change in the way SS functions. If that’s true SS has always been this way.
When I read the Forgotten Man it said SS was upheld by the Supreme Court as “a tax”.
Sound familiar?
That does sound familiar. I wonder who played the role of traitor Roberts that time? I wonder if they also promised to restrain overuse of the Commerce Clause.
Yeah, not only does it look small, its already been spent. Also, its increasingly used for disability payments vs. actual retirees.
Many hacks are going to feel the sting of the third rail of American Politics election time.
Their lack of action will prove to be futile for them.
DRAWF a problem with an even bigger one is caused by NOT making a CHANGE to Obama&Co rulings.
Fail = absence of action
I wonder how much Zer0’s payroll tax “holiday” will lower the benefits of future retirees...especially boomers.
How long that can be sustained is anyone's guess, but it sure looks like the classic hyperinflationary spiral (ie: the snake is eating it's tail!)
Prep. PT. Propagate truth. Repeat.
I LOVE these Friday Silliness threads!
Since 2010, Obama has done absolutely nothing to address this issue. He needs to be called out on this - and not be allowed to get away with his pat “soak the rich” solution.
Does anyone remember during the debt ceiling debacle last Summer, Obama said he couldn't guarantee SS checks would go out if agreement wasn't reached?
If the SS surplus is real, why would he have said that? (rhetorical Q)
The Crooks in Washington spent it all...Could have bought Government bonds and we would have the money plus interest....now we have zero..
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