Posted on 07/22/2019 3:53:32 AM PDT by george76
Bernie Sanders .. wants to expand Social Security, even as the program will pass an omnious tipping point.
Some time next year, as the ranks of retirees swell, the Social Security system in the United States will pass an ominous tipping point and start the slide into insolvency.
For the first time in nearly four decades, the government program that provides retirement checks to older Americans will pay out more in benefits in 2020 than it takes in. That will force the program to dip into a rainy day fund that will be depleted in about 15 years.
And if the political dysfunction in Washington continues and lawmakers don’t fix the system, benefit cuts are in store for current and future retirees, most of whom haven’t socked away enough money in their personal retirement accounts.
...
most Americans are seriously unprepared for retirement, particularly the boomer generation.
...
Yet despite years of warnings from policy wonks and financial professionals, the looming crisis in Social Security has lacked urgency and barely enters the public debate. The funding shortfall, which policy makers have seen coming for years, didn’t merit a mention in the Democratic presidential debates in June.
...
While the issue has drawn little attention in the presidential campaign, most of the Democratic candidates have called for not only stabilizing the Social Security program but increasing benefits, offering varying degrees of detail on how to pay for it. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are part of an “Expand Social Security Caucus,” and both would finance the cost of additional benefits, in part, by increasing taxes
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Lurker you are correct. The money was “invested” in treasuries and the money spent in the general fund.
There is no lock box, there never was. One doesn’t exist.
I remember Gore promising to put SS in a lockbox and Bush said he would too. They were both lying there a** off.
Oh you could put cash in vault somewhere, but cash loses purchasing value every year. That’ would be crazy to do so.
They put the money in the most risk free investment there is. That’s US Treasury bonds and notes. They are considered risk free because they are backed by the US government. And people and the market made up by people still consider that safer than individual companies or foreign countries or foreign companies.
But that gets criticized because the debt issuer is also the Federal government. And the reason the government issues debt in the first place is to spend it.
So future SS recipients have a big IOU from the Federal Government. And that is the closest thing to a lock box that exists.
But your point about getting rid of illegal aliens and welfare freeloaders is well taken. A lot of people signed up on SS disability during and after the 2008 financial Crisis. Some of those are starting to come off of that since the job market has improved but many are still scared and have gotten used to the free money. Continuing to improve the economy will continue to move some of those out. We might need to provide incentives to get others to try the job market again.
There is no lock box, there never was. One doesn’t exist.
I remember Gore promising to put SS in a lockbox and Bush said he would too. They were both lying there a** off.
Oh you could put cash in vault somewhere, but cash loses purchasing value every year. That’ would be crazy to do so.
They put the money in the most risk free investment there is. That’s US Treasury bonds and notes. They are considered risk free because they are backed by the US government. And people and the market made up by people still consider that safer than individual companies or foreign countries or foreign companies.
But that gets criticized because the debt issuer is also the Federal government. And the reason the government issues debt in the first place is to spend it.
So future SS recipients have a big IOU from the Federal Government. And that is the closest thing to a lock box that exists.
But your point about getting rid of illegal aliens and welfare freeloaders is well taken. A lot of people signed up on SS disability during and after the 2008 financial Crisis. Some of those are starting to come off of that since the job market has improved but many are still scared and have gotten used to the free money. Continuing to improve the economy will continue to move some of those out. We might need to provide incentives to get others to try the job market again.
Wrong. i have a nanny. i pay her employer tax with money Ii have already paid a LOT of tax on. It is not a write off for me.
Purely academic. Liberals in Congress on both sides of the isle do nothing but insure they continue in their low IQ, do nothing jobs.
That means lowering the voting age so voters care nothing about SS, but care everything about socialism.
That also means open borders since the invaders will vote for socialists.
Meanwhile, the truly worthy in America, our most despised and perpetually neglected, the elderly, will continue to have to decide whether to pay their utilities or to eat an edible diet.
because there is no “lock box” for one. There is no “fund” out there that is backstopping SS. The “fund” is not cash in a money market account, equities, investments, or even fungible bonds. Instead it is “non marketable government securities” or a fancy word for IOUs. That paragon of fiscal responsibility (republicans and dems), the US Congress, spent every last dime and replaced it with promises.
If you are stupid enough to believe the promises of the government (ANY government) then you deserve the penury coming in your old age, and it IS coming, unless you are lucky enough to die before the game of musical chairs stops. You can tie up the border tight as a drum (and we should), expel every illegal immigrant AND kill every wasteful social spending wealth transfer program (and we should!) but that will change precisely ZERO in this equation.
The only things that can possibly fix this are poison to your average conservative. They are a full audit of the federal reserve (which will lead to its diestablishment), a return to honest currency, a repudiation of the ENTIRE premise of welfare (which includes the far far larger practice of corporate subsidies), and reject the idiotic flag waving interventionism of the pentagon gorged neocon John Bolton type war mongers who are braying for a war with Iran and Venezuela, Syria and a half dozen other African hotspots, and GET US OUT of the 150+ countries where we have military bases.
Till we have some sense of our own fiscal (and military, and moral) limitations, we will stagger drunkenly on towards fiscal collapse...., but that flag a wavin’ will sure look pretty!
The Federal Reserve is the problem who destroy the money supply. Social Security is not the Ponzi Scheme.
The Federal Reserve bad money is the Ponze Scheme. The Fed destroys all productive economic gain.
The question has always been, not can Social Security survive solvent, but can Social Security survive the corrupt Federal Reserve?
I have plaid into the system for over 40 year. If i had that money invested in a normal account over that period of time i would be retired already not still working and paying into the system. I will never get back the amount of money plus interest that I paid in. Please explain how this is welfare. Oh and i will have the privilege of paying tax on it again once i start getting some of my money back.
great example of letting someone acquire other peoples hard earned money. Pols produce no revenue they only accumulate taxes or in the case of SS money taken for “ security “. Making this available to a general fund should result in immediate disbarement from Congress for financial malfeasance.
Couple that with insurmountable debt and giving SS to people who don’t deserve it ensures a failure
That's incorrect.
There will not be a collapse but a period of inflation until all of us Baby Boomers are pushing up daisies. Then the system will correct. There is no use in trying to “fix” it now. Let age demographics take care of it. The whole SS insolvency thing is a hoax.
Gingrich tried to establish private SS accounts, but Bill Clinton dismissed it saying that Newt was trying to change Social Security as we know it, and started on the stories of how it would take money away from the program, etc., etc..
Gore and Bush were (are) both pretty much simpletons. Gore actually believed he DID create a ‘lock-box.’
The real criminal behind the whole thing was Robert ‘sheets’ Byrd. He figured out that the Government could just put IOUs into the lock-box, and then spend (squander) the money collected.
By the way, for those of us that do have a private pension, it's no better than Social Security thanks to old ‘sheets.’
In 1983 they passed a law (something like the ERISA Reclamation Act) to allow companies to take out excess funds in their retirement plans. As part of the act, good old ‘sheets’ added words that let companies make deposits of IOUs instead of cash (think not? How else could the government have had to bail out the GM retirement fund when the company went belly up?).
Between ‘sheets’ and ‘the bent one’ in the course of just over a decade they basically wrecked the future of millions of people in this country.
You need to read the annual report from the SS Trustees. SSis unsustainable. Taxes need to be raised and /or benefits reduced. We are an aging population. 10,000 baby boomers retire every day until 2030. The population over 65 will double by 2030.
SS is a pay as you go system. Today’s workers pay for today’s retirees. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree; today that number is 3 to one; and in 2030 it will be two to one.
bump
“Oh you could put cash in vault somewhere, but cash loses purchasing value every year.“
Or here’s a completely insane thought. Maybe, just maybe, Congress could have backed our money with some kind of solid, tangible asset. Maybe something that human beings have valued for the last several thousand years.
Maybe Congress could have built a big secure building and surrounded it with armed men backed up by tanks or something. Maybe, just maybe, Congress could have followed the plain words of the Constitution written down 200 years ago when they said “Congress shall have the power to COIN money....”
“They put the money in the most risk free investment there is.”
No investment is risk free. The bigger the investment the bigger the risk. That’s an immutable law of the Universe. And the “investment” that’s been made is mind bogglingly huge.
L
Folks the good news is the politicians have their retirement covered.
YOU pay for it!
SOCIAL SECURITY SOLUTION
“Social security is welfare.”
For those of you unskilled in the U.S. Constitition, it mentions a takings clause. Any “property” taken by the Government must be reimbursed. Property has been defined as more than just land assets.
Welfare cannot make the takings claim.
No, the problem with Social Security is, it is Democrat managed. Democrats will manage it into bankrupcy, ever fighting to separate it’s welfare burden, of those not contributing.
Republicans on the other hand will attack Social Security with a sledge hammer, another no win.
The cure for Social Security is simple.
THE SOLUTION
Slowly transition stock asset, personal ownership into Social Security.
Over time, the new assets increase in value, offsetting bankrupcy. This creates what it should be, forced contribution into stock assets.
Please hold your applause. Just get word to President Trump if he wants someone to implement true retirement reform.
Thanks.
JUSSST in time for my retirement. :-D
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