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Social Security Is Running Out of Money (In deficit for 2010, 9 yrs earlier than predicted)
Real Clear Markets ^
| 03/30/2010
| Investors Business Daily.
Posted on 03/30/2010 7:03:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Social Security's chief actuary reports that the social safety net will run a deficit for 2010, nine years earlier than predicted. Put down that big gavel, Madam Speaker, we're about to hit the iceberg.
No sooner had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, carrying the gavel used when Medicare was enacted, taken a victory lap around the Capitol Building after passage of the health care bill than did the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration report that his part of the social safety net had a big hole in it and would run a deficit for all of 2010.
Stephen C. Goss said that payments rose "unexpectedly" during the economic downturn as jobs disappeared and people feeling no hope and seeing little change opted to apply for benefits sooner than planned. Revenues also shrank due to fewer paychecks to tax.
Failure of the stimulus to keep unemployment under 8%, as the administration promised, has taken its toll on the entitlement. According to Goss, the administration expected a quicker, stronger recovery from the financial crisis. Officials foresaw an average unemployment rate of 8.2% in 2009 and 8.8% this year, though unemployment is hovering near 10%.
The 2010 shortfall is expected to be $29 billion, but it's still early. It could get bigger as the economy collapses under the weight of increased debt and deficits spurred on by the new taxes and economic disincentives of newly passed ObamaCare. Then, looming ahead, is the angel of economic death known as cap-and-trade.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 111th; bhoeconomy; bhofascism; deficit; democrats; economy; hopeychangey; liberalfascism; obama; obamacare; pelosi; safetynet; socialism; socialsecurity; taxes
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As baby boomers have started retiring and the economy has collapsed, that day of reckoning is here, nine years earlier than expected. That's why we were so suspicious of projections that health care reform would produce surpluses two decades hence. Such estimates of costs are always wrong and always low.
To: SeekAndFind
Can you say Ten Trillion Dollars...? So this is just more of the same.
US meets wall.
2
posted on
03/30/2010 7:06:10 AM PDT
by
gathersnomoss
(General George Patton had it right.)
To: SeekAndFind
That’s ok, they’ll cover it with your tax sheltered private retirement accounts after they confiscate them.
3
posted on
03/30/2010 7:07:22 AM PDT
by
arealconservativeforachange
(Tell JD Hayworth to run for McCain's seat! http://www.jdhayworth.com/contact.php)
To: SeekAndFind
All the members of Congress who spent our money from the Social Security trust fund and replaced it with IOUs should have to pay it back personally.
4
posted on
03/30/2010 7:07:37 AM PDT
by
freespirited
(I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise. --Robert Frost)
To: SeekAndFind
bob dope 1996
helped spend the social security surpluses
in an act of “bipartisanship” with democrat congresses.
5
posted on
03/30/2010 7:10:51 AM PDT
by
ken21
(i am not voting for a rino-progressive.)
To: SeekAndFind
Hey, no problem! All SS has to do is cash in that huge stack of Treasury Bonds it has amassed over the years that Congress exchanged for SS surpluses.
6
posted on
03/30/2010 7:11:33 AM PDT
by
Yo-Yo
(Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
To: SeekAndFind
Misleading headline
Link to data
Balance as of 2007 $2 trillion +
Yes they are going to give out more in balances than they take in. But they aren't going to run out of funds any time soon.
7
posted on
03/30/2010 7:23:55 AM PDT
by
DannyTN
To: DannyTN
Misleading post. There is no trust fund.
8
posted on
03/30/2010 7:28:52 AM PDT
by
Atlas Sneezed
(Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly at first.)
To: DannyTN
Do much moling, perchance?
There is no trust fund. There is nothing more than a single treasury IOU - printed on real paper even - that cannot be negotiated or sold on the market and that therefore cannot be repaid
except from out of the general tax revenues. Since the government is already running annual trillion, plus dollar deficits, that means that there will have to be additional tax increases (or additional borrowings - but that doesn't change the underlying insolvency issue of the entire government) to pay off this IOU.
Since the government
cannot repay this phony IOU without raising taxes (or borrowing and creating even more debt elsewhere), it follows that it is not logically possible for there to be any sort of a "fund" - trusted or not - in any even half-assed sense to support future Social Security benefits payments.
In other words, there is no trust fund, and Social Security is now insolvent, period.
9
posted on
03/30/2010 7:34:36 AM PDT
by
Oceander
(The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance -- Thos. Jefferson)
To: Beelzebubba
"Misleading post. There is no trust fund."There is a trust fund. It is invested in U.S. Treasury Bills.
That the treasury doesn't have a room full of cash to pay off those bills doesn't matter. They will pay them off.
If you owned $1,000,000 in U.S. Treasury Bills, you would say you had a million dollars. You wouldn't say, I had a million dollars but it's worthless now, because they U.S. won't make good on those bills. They will and you know they will.
10
posted on
03/30/2010 7:34:44 AM PDT
by
DannyTN
To: DannyTN
That the treasury doesn't have a room full of cash to pay off those bills doesn't matter. They will pay them off.
What makes you so confident that they WILL ?
Are you 100% certain that the USA will not go the way of Greece in the future ?
To: SeekAndFind
Drug addicts can collect social security because they’re “disabled”... just one of a million deadbeat groups that dems support bankrupting the system.
12
posted on
03/30/2010 7:38:59 AM PDT
by
GOPJ
(Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!)
To: freespirited
But, but, but...LBJ took the money to fight the View Nam War!
Now it is being used to fight the war on Seniors and Obama has raised this to new depths by taking our Medicare and giving it away!
Since this war seems unending I deem that we pay the congress critters $1 per year minus $.99 tax on stupidity which then have mucho stuffo!
13
posted on
03/30/2010 7:39:55 AM PDT
by
Young Werther
("Quar cum ita sunt" Since these things are so!)
To: SeekAndFind
I thought our government had raised taxes back in 1989 and that saved social security???
My God we are being lied to !!!
/sarcasm -off
14
posted on
03/30/2010 7:42:02 AM PDT
by
ColdSteelTalon
(Light is fading to shadow, and casting its shroud over all we have known...)
To: GOPJ
Drug addicts can collect social security because theyre disabled... just one of a million deadbeat groups that dems support bankrupting the system.
I know one. Nice house, nice car, and we are taking care of her.
15
posted on
03/30/2010 7:42:25 AM PDT
by
MarkeyD
(Obama is a victim of Affirmative Action)
To: DannyTN
The net effect is that Social Security now becomes a budget liability rather than an asset. Future outlays will now contribute to deficit spending, meaning that new Treasury bills will have to be sold to satisfy the demands of those being cashed in by the Social Security Administration. And currently, we aren't finding buyers for those new T-bills since the Social Security Administration is no longer buying.
Weimar Republic - Yes We Can!
16
posted on
03/30/2010 7:43:51 AM PDT
by
Hoodat
(For the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.)
To: MarkeyD
Dems will fight for that drug addict to receive funds for 50 years - while turning to a American worker and telling them to stay on the job until they’re 70 years old. If dems could force conservatives to work until they drop dead at their desk, they would... and all so dem victim groups can vacation on the public dime their whole lives.
17
posted on
03/30/2010 7:45:57 AM PDT
by
GOPJ
(Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!)
To: gathersnomoss
Dont worry. There is no fund and no real money put aside. Its just an accounting scheme funded with ious.
18
posted on
03/30/2010 7:49:55 AM PDT
by
mono
To: SeekAndFind
19
posted on
03/30/2010 7:54:31 AM PDT
by
Uncle Miltie
(REPEAL 0BAMACARE NOW!)
To: SeekAndFind
Stephen C. Goss said that payments rose "unexpectedly" "Unexpectedly" Alert!
20
posted on
03/30/2010 7:55:39 AM PDT
by
Uncle Miltie
(REPEAL 0BAMACARE NOW!)
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