How Congress 'Extends the Life' of Social Security

American Thinker ^ | 05/08/2019 | Jon Hall

[SeekAndFind]

On April 22, the trustees for Social Security issued their annual reports, and the situation for the huge transfer program is unsustainable, the same as it’s been for years. The government tells us yet again that the program is running out of money. The danger here is that Americans have been hearing these dire predictions for so long now that they’ll no longer take them seriously.

April 23 on Fox News’ Special Report, Bret Baier reported on the trustees’ reports and discussed them with his panel. Panelist Charles Hurt opined that the financial difficulties of the big transfer programs are a “slow-rolling catastrophe,” and added this: “The fact remains that they're going insolvent.” If Social Security were a private sector enterprise, it’d long ago have been declared insolvent.

Although no link was provided, Baier surely got his information from the Social Security Administration’s A Summary of the 2019 Annual Reports or from Treasury’s April 22 press release, both of which say: “Social Security’s total cost is projected to exceed its total income (including interest) in 2020 for the first time since 1982, and to remain higher throughout the projection period.” What we should note here is the parenthetical “including interest.”

What the quote is referring to is OASDI, i.e. the combined trust fund operations of both Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI). But the program for old timers (OASI) is already under water in that income from its dedicated tax, the payroll tax, isn’t enough to pay benefits.

To confirm that refer to Table II.B1. -- Summary of 2018 Trust Fund Financial Operations

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Investing in market returns is a lot more plausible in a small country than a big one. When the fund has to turn around and start selling, Chile is not going to move the global market, but Social Security would have.

Value of the SS trust funds: $2.8 trillion

Let's compare:

Value of World Stock Markets: $73 Trillion

Value of World Bond Markets: $53 Trillion (at least)

Value of World Oil Reserves: $105 Trillion

Value of World Currency: $80 Trillion

Value of World Real Estate: $217 Trillion

(I'm not going to chase down the vast array of alternative assets, nor futures contracts, nor commodities.

No problem!

[Vaduz]

The big transfer programs are a “slow-rolling catastrophe another gift form CONGRESS for tapping into for so long.
The box is locked because nothing is in it and don’t want anyone to see it.
Congress act more like a half assed Mafia.

[oldtech]

I am curious to see just what effect these 2 changes mentioned would have on the problem. Certainly should be obvious to almost anyone that the 2 aforementioned changes should have been made a long time ago. Any questions why the average person would have such a low opinion of Congress?

[utax]

“Government workers have been paying into social security since 1982.”

Depends on which “Government workers” you are referring to. Feds under CSRS didn’t pay SS on their Fed salaries. Many of them get other jobs to accumulate the 40 quarters needed to qualify for some SS.

[oldtech]

“The FICA tax is flat, but the benefits are very progressive. Lower income people get a much better return on their FICA “contributions” than higher income people do.”.......This is certainly true,but I hope everyone is also aware that a lot of the lower income folks never had a decent opportunity to provide anything for their retirement years on their own, while the higher income folks may not even need Social Security in addition to their own individual plans. A lot of ordinary working peoples incomes barely met their needs while working & at the end there was no pension either. Some may have had pensions that were hardly sufficient for even groceries,in addition to their S.S. payments.

[babble-on]

I agree with all of that. I’m not saying that the progressivity is a bad thing, but I believe most people don’t even know it’s a thing at all.

[oldtech]

Having a family member on military retirement shows me one thing. Many could not live on it as their only income(if that were the case) & others could live quite well on it. Obviously, these were were the higher-ranking retirees.

[antidemoncrat]

Unlike workers in the private sector, not all state and local employees are covered by Social Security. Some only have their public pension coverage, some only have Social Security coverage, and other government employees have both a public pension and Social Security coverage.(Social Security.gov).

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Um, no. There is an obvious way that does not involve either raising taxes or cutting benefits to balance SS. I don’t advocate for it, but it is the one political creatures always choose.

The National Debt went up $10 trillion under Obama. At some point, the cowards in Congress will just start putting the SS deficit on the National Debt. They are too cowardly to do either raising taxes or lower benefits. Of course, there will be some minor reduced benefits like some minor means testing or raising the ages to collect again. But that is just nibbling around the edges.

At the end of the day, they will just “balance” SS by housing the deficit on the National Debt, until our eventual financial collapse.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

You are right that illegal aliens cannot collect SS. But they do collect SSI and SSDI.

[OIFVeteran]

True. However anyone hired in 81-82 under CSRC is probably retired or close to it, so they are a very small portion of the federal workforce.

[OIFVeteran]

No, they can’t. Illegal aliens do not have a social security number which you need to file for any of those programs. I know this because my buddy works for SS.

Now what does happen is these illegals aliens hook up with some American woman and have kids. One of those kids is disabled. They then file for Supplemental Security Income which is a needs based or welfare disability program for those Americans that did not pay enough into the system to be eligible for Social Security Disabilty and for children whose parents fall under certain income levels.

From what my buddy tells me it’s a huge pain in the ass when one of these cases comes in. He had a case where the child had cerebral palsy and the dad was an illegal. The SS computer system has to have a social security number for the parents to record their income. He says they have to do some sort of work around when this happens and it is a headache and takes a lot of time.

In case your wondering, no they are not allowed to call ICE in those cases. Pisses my buddy off to no end.

[OIFVeteran]

We need to stop adding to the debt. I’m sick of both parties doing this. If Americans want these programs then we should pay for them. We are leaving our children and grandchildren with a huge bill and no one seems to care.

[rhombus10]

I think the program would be more successful with a private component which guarantees a portion to the individual as well as the collective. Too many have no faith in a unionized deep-state government bureaucracy that constantly spews lies, damn lies and statistics.

[hanamizu]

When I went to the Social Security office to apply for my ‘old age benefits’ I was struck by the lack of grey hair in the waiting room. I was the only one there who wasn’t there to collect ‘disability’ benefits. I know that the ‘boomer’ cohort’s retirement is a problem for SS that has been foreseen (and ignored) for decades, but there were a lot of healthy looking folks in that waiting room.

[OIFVeteran]

Well there is a lot of truth to that, but do you trust Wall Street either? The Social Security program has a very low administrative cost(don’t remember the exact numbers but I was surprised by it).

The problem with adding a private component is how do you pay for it? If you divert money from current social security taxes you then have to make up the shortfall to cover current SS payments.

I’m tired of us going deeper and deeper into debt. We need to start paying for the programs Americans want instead of mortgaging our children and grandchildren’s future.

I voted for Trump, even worked the phone banks on Election Day for him. However, as far as his efforts on the budget and deficit I would give him an F. Of course from Reagan on they would all get F’s. Except for Clinton, I’d give him a B+.

I really dislike tax and spend liberals, but I hate cut taxes and spend conservatives.

[OIFVeteran]

A lot of people have to go there to get social security cards if they lose theirs, or woman changing their name after getting married or divorced. Not everyone thst goes there is applying for retirement or disability.

[American in Israel]

Interesting thread, I love FReeperville.

[rhombus10]

You grant Clinton a B+? Shouldn’t Gingrich and the GOP Congress get part of your 90s economic praise? Last I checked, budgets come from Congress, and Presidents who shut down the government in protest receive the scorn of the media and those sheep who seem to think Presidents do all the spending.

P.S. SS is a great program if you insist people are stupid and must be taken care of by a dependency-building government. You may say, people have proven themselves stupid and I’ll still maintain that the less responsibility you give people, the less responsibility they’ll take. Where does personal responsibility end?

[central_va]

Of course from Reagan on they would all get F’s.

Really? Under Reagan Federal revenue almost double in 8 years. That is a pretty good track record.