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To: upchuck
bray: It is patently obvious you DO NOT understand the workings of Social Security. It is NOT a hand out like AFDC or FI or Medicaid. Rather, it is a repayment of taxes that were involuntarily taken from us our entire working lives.

Actually, you do not understand how SS functions. It is a pay as you go system. i.e., today's workers pay for today's retirees. SS has been running in the red since 2010 and will continue to do so unless reformed. The shortfall is made up by cashing in the IOUs in the SSTF, which means that it must come from the General Fund where 40 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. The vast majority of people on SS now have received more in benefits than they ever paid into the system.

Source: CBO "Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline" 26 Jan 2011. Note: See "Primary Surplus" line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)

Matters are even worse than this chart shows. In December, Congress passed a Social Security tax reduction. Workers are temporarily paying 2 percentage points less, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, in Social Security payroll taxes this calendar year. Since the government is making up the shortfall out of general revenues, CBO’s deficit projections for the trust funds do not include that. But CBO’s figures predict that the "payroll tax holiday" will cost the government’s general fund $85 billion in this fiscal year and $29 billion in fiscal year 2012 (which starts Oct.1, 2011.) Since every dollar of that will have to be borrowed, the combined effect of the " tax holiday" and the annual deficits will amount to a $130 billion addition to the federal deficit in the current fiscal year, and $59 billion in fiscal 2012.

Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.

Medicare is in even worse shape. In January of this year, C. Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute published an update to their earlier work "Social Security and Medicare Taxes and Benefits over a Lifetime." The chart below illustrates their findings and shows the huge discrepancy between lifetime Medicare taxes paid and Medicare benefits received.

This graph shows that the average man and woman (average defined in the study as average income over their working lives and living to the average life expectancy) who start receiving benefits in 2010 get over 3 times more in benefits than they pay in to the system! Of importance, the study accounts for inflation by calculating all past taxes and future payments in 2010 dollars to provide an accurate comparison.

If the notion that Medicare recipients are simply "getting back what they paid in" is false then where is the money coming from? Simply, the excess received is being borrowed from younger generations and the cost is more than we can bear.

Medicare Part A has been running in the red since 2008. And by law the General Fund pays for 75% of the costs for Medicare Parts B and D. The premiums collected only pay for 25% of the costs. In FY 2011 the General Fund paid $222 billion to fund Medicare Parts B and D.

11 posted on 10/20/2012 7:43:27 AM PDT by kabar
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To: kabar

I guess in your eagerness to post your blather and fancy chart you missed the part of my post where I agreed Social Security needs to be reformed. Severely and soon.


14 posted on 10/20/2012 7:58:59 AM PDT by upchuck (Porn, cheaper than dating.)
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