There should be no surprise by the trustees who report that the Social Security surplus will be gone by 2033. Some believe that the $2.7 Trillion paper surplus will evaporate even sooner as the baby boomers retire. One trustee, Chuck Blahous, said, ″To me, urgent doesn′t begin to describe it.″ He adds, ″I would say we′re somewhere between critical and too late to deal with it.″ Gee, how did that happen?
Barack Obama, alleged champion of ′The Little People′, has been too busy robbing MediCare of $716 Billion dollars to pay for Obama-Care to worry about Social Security. Maybe his slashing of the Pay Roll Tax hasn′t helped matters, either. Nor has Obama′s spending spree with adding $4 Billion per day to the National Debt. Never mind that Obama has been too busy playing golf or fund raising to do any real work as president.
Perhaps now that Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan to be his running mate we can now have an honest discussion about the role and size of government. Forget about being distracted with silly issues like Romney′s taxes or his underwear. America is going broke! Some of us think it already is broke and too late. Either way the numbers paint a grim future. At some point down the road, our two primary entitlement programs, Social Security and MediCare will consume 100% of all federal revenues. We won′t even have the cash to make interest payments on our ever growing debt.
And people wonder why our credit rating was downgraded. Obama took a bad situation and made it even worse. Instead of behaving like an adult, let alone a leader, Obama has blindly ignored the fundamental problems facing our nation. He has become the master of kicking cans down the road. Not only does Obama shirk any responsibility for our current dilemma, but most of his agenda items that have become law do not become fully implemented until after he leaves office. Obama is the nation′s vandal.
So the Social Security surplus is gone by 2033 or sooner and if trustee Chuck Blahous is correct, it may already be too late to do anything about it. If you believe that the alleged $2.7 Trillion in remaining surplus even exists, then bless your heart! Some of us realize that the I.O.U.s that the federal government have been using to raid the surplus are ′Non-Negotiable′ Treasury bonds. Which means that only the U.S. Treasury can honor them. But that′s okay, since I doubt if even the Chinese would be crazy enough to buy them anyway.
August 13th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Unfortunately many people have difficulty measuring presidents from a historical perspective until long after they have shafted future generations for the sake of a few votes in their last election. One things is clear though. When that next generation rolls around in 2030, they will be spitting on the image of Barack Obama, not unlike Saddam Hussein’s egotistical statue was ripped down by the people.
August 14th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
And when the “surplus” disappears? Then….
Answer: The oldsters will keep on collecting benefits paid out of the 15% regressive tax (including employer contribution) on wages & salaries that will be available year-after-year till the crack of doom. The money will keep pouring in and the benefits will be greater than people get today, but only requiring a “cut” to the over-generaous escalation built into the system. And that is if we DO NOTHING to prevent a “cut”. (Only in politics is a decline in future increases considered a “cut”.)
Next question: Why do conservatives always shut their brains off when it comes to social security? Possible answer: their minds cannot come to terms with extremely successful, popular, liberal programs.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:16 am
Wrong, ‘best-thinker’!
What will happen is that the surplus will be ‘papered’ over with freshly printed cash, causing hyper-inflation.
August 15th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
“Next question: Why do conservatives always shut their brains off when it comes to social security? Possible answer: their minds cannot come to terms with extremely successful, popular, liberal programs.”
First of all, anyone who thinks they can predict success in any government run program 20 years from now, is questionable and not to be taken seriously.
What you’re parroting is the exact recipe that caused welfare, unemployment, medicare/medicaid are hundreds of times over 1930s to 1960s predicted budgets.
Theres no shutting off of any brains except for those who believe the path leading to over 20 trillion in debt can sustain a peaceful and safe country.
“(Only in politics is a decline in future increases considered a “cut”.)”
Future increase in services or revenues ?
It matters.
Not commensurating costs with inflation and a growing population increase is an act of reduction. A cut.
Then what you call the decrease intended for committed spending ?
Its simply an initiative I’ve had little faith in when the assurance comes from the Fed.
If and when it happens, its a cut, like it or not.
Considering to not assimilate to inflation is by all means is considered a cut from that moment if you refuse to pay any increase for any product or service.
To be wiser, if I were you, I’d look up “deficit spending” and the inevitable chaos it brings if left unchecked to any economy. Then you’d be more incline to know what you’re talking about rather than resort to semantics and math based on your crystal balls
August 19th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Hi Micky,
Social Security is not tied to inflation or “cost of living” as you call it. It is tied to real income growth, which is why it is over generous. The most obvious “cut” to the program would be to tie it to the Consumer Price Index.
Predicting future taxes available to pay benefits is easy: just 15% of all wages and salaries.
Hi Andy,
Hyperinflation? How do you get that from my scenario, where Social Security merely spends the MASSIVE amount that will be available in annual taxes under the existing system.
Again, conservatives need to turn their brains on when it comes to Social Security.
August 21st, 2012 at 5:18 am
Actually, ‘Worst Thinking Thinker’, Social Security is tied to COLA/inflation rate, though unless the inflation rate is 3% or more, no increase is given to our seniors.
As for hyperinflation, do you really think we can keep Social Security going with just the 15% payroll tax? Obama has not even been collecting that for the last couple of years.
By the next decade, the whole Ponzi scheme will crash and burn unless some genuine reforms are instituted immediately.
August 23rd, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Hi Andy,
If you would look up “National Average Wage Index” you would better understand the relation between wage growth and social security benefits. Your future pension is scaled to average wage growth.
But back to the future: when the trust fund runs out, SS can operate hand-to-mouth on the MASSIVE annual haul from the SS tax on wages, salaries, and self-employed income. (What Obama collected last year is not relevant to this fundamental hard fact.) This would involve a 15% “cut” to scheduled payments, still leaving future retirees with higher payments that current retires. Or they can escape this modest “cut” with very affordable tax increases. Or they can compromise and split the difference.
So, no “crash” no “burn” no “hyperinflation”. Really not much of a problem at all the more you think about it (an activity that I recommend).
August 23rd, 2012 at 11:29 pm
Yes indeed, liberals and their math facts. 2 times 2 equals infinity if you really want it to.
August 24th, 2012 at 11:09 am
“Best thinking thinker”
Too much
August 24th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Thunker;
“Hi Micky,
Social Security is not tied to inflation or “cost of living” as you call it.”
Thunker;
“If you would look up “National Average Wage Index” you would better understand the relation between wage growth and social security benefits. Your future pension is scaled to average wage growth.”
Yeah. My future pension is not dependent on SS as theres no way in hell SS will give the returns I get in the private sector.
I’ll be lucky if the Fed gives me sht when the time comes.
Wage growth is tied to quite a few things, if not more things.
One being inflation, artificial inflation, mandated minimum wages that cause inflation, government regulations and ridiculous union packages.
And then theres that one ingredient, that one word y’all in chains hate so much.
Profit.
I’ve managed several restaurants and am well aware of the reasons costs have risen over the decades in just about every market and their effects on wage deductions vs future returns on SS.
You’re talking out of your rump
August 24th, 2012 at 11:36 am
@ Thunker
Anyway, with that rant out of the way.
I’ve worked for 40 years.
By your logic, looking at wage increases over that period, I should be receiving SS returns 200% or more over what I invested.
Fck me. What a deal. I should of given em my whole check
August 24th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
The discussion is about whether people will get “zippo” after the trust fund runs out. Conservatives imagine they sound sophisticated when they say things like this, but “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
McCain mocks “2+2=infinity”. But 12% of wages, collected in taxes year after year “till the crack of doom” is pretty simple to comprehend. It is just business as usual. Surely you don’t need to be a liberal to comprehend this fundamental idea.
Micky is an expert on wages, so if he applied himself to the matter he would quickly realize that if wages double, then SSI tax revenues (12% of wages) will double also. It just means more money available for future retirees.
So, the system will never collapse, and worst case involves modest reductions in scheduled benefits (to levels that are still higher than what current retirees get). Or maybe affordable tax increases to make up the shortfall. Either way it is far from “zippo”.
So your SS retirement benefits are secure! Start telling all the youngsters that you know, so they can be happy.
August 24th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
“Surely you don’t need to be a liberal to comprehend this fundamental idea.”
This should be a caption for a cartoon.
ROFL
August 25th, 2012 at 4:53 am
“The discussion is about whether people will get “zippo” after the trust fund runs out.”
I did not say people will get “zippo” once Social Security goes bust. I’m sure Uncle Sugar will send them their checks regardless. Of course, the value or spending power of those checks will be greatly diminished. May as well use them for toilet paper.
August 25th, 2012 at 6:19 am
” It just means more money available for future retirees.”
Hows that working out so far ?
Your argument is so flawed, so ridiculous, its borderline insanity to a point where honest conversation with you seems irrelevant.
If SS is so secure then why the mounting concern among all ideologies ?
Congress enacted COLA provision as part of 1972 Social Security Amendments, and automatic annual COLAs began in 1975. Before that, benefits were increased only when Congress enacted special legislation. Got it ?
I’ll simplify it for you.
They’re giving out more than they’re taking in.
It is unsustainable at present revenues.
Ask Bernie Madoff.
Change your handle
August 25th, 2012 at 6:49 am
“Surely you don’t need to be a liberal to comprehend this fundamental idea.”
Right back at you bro
You’re sharp, only because your head comes to a point.
August 25th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Micky and Andy want to change the subject to whether payments exceed costs. Nice try! That’s just another way of saying the trust fund will run out eventually under the current trajectory.
The subject at hand is the hard fact of what happens afterwards, and it turns out that the worst case is that retirees will get 12% of all the wages and salaries in the country. That is real and substantial value that will be there every year forever (and you will note that this assumes no change to the current system). It is even higher than what current retirees get.
Andy worries about hyperinflation (payments will be worth “toilet paper” in his formulation). But I advise him to spend time thinking: Suppose with hyperinflation wages rise 10,000 times their current level. But in that case SSI taxes (12% of aggregate wages) will be 10,000 times higher too, and the available funds to retirees will be the same in real inflation-adjusted terms. Sorry, but you cannot find a way to cut benefits below the proceeds of the 12% tax on wages no matter how hard you try.
(And keep in mind that your hyperinflation would need to come from some source external to Social Security, since the worst case scenario under discussion here just involves paying out the MASSIVE funds available from the 12% tax.)
Micky, apparently stumped by the fundamental hard logic of the 12% annual tax on all wages, wonders why he keeps hearing people say that social security will give “zippo” in the future. I invite him to think about it for himself rather than listen to fools. But short of that, he might revisit Mitt Romney’s gutting of Gov. Perry on this very question in their first debate.
In short, Romney was right and the peddlers of “zippo” are fools. Gargantuan funds will be there forever. Please tell your children of the happy news!
August 27th, 2012 at 6:13 am
@Best-Stinking-Tinker,
You keep babbling about the MASSIVE revenues for SSI, but you ignore an important fact. The demographics are completely against you. We’re currently at about 1 SSI recipient for every 3.2 workers. With about 1,000 Baby Boomers retiring daily, and higher numbers expected for the next decade or so, we’ll soon be at a 2:1 ratio of workers to retirees.
So there is no way that just a 12%, or even a 15% payroll tax is going to cover that. The CBO and every rational economist points to entitlements consuming all federal revenues by about 2024, if not sooner. Especially if we get four more years of weak GDP growth with a second term for Obama.
You also ignore the realities that currently, we are financing our debt with super-cheap money. The average Fed interest rate during the Bush years was about 4%. For Obama it’s been 0.5%. You also ignore the whole ‘Commitments and Contingencies part of our National Debt, which estimates put anywhere between $60 Trillion to $210 Trillion dollars.
Bad enough the average American is shackled to more than $51,000 just with the ‘On-Budget’ National Debt of $16 Trillion dollars. What do you think will happen if interest rates go up or we have to start honoring that mountain of hidden debt?
August 27th, 2012 at 8:33 am
“Micky and Andy want to change the subject to whether payments exceed costs. Nice try! That’s just another way of saying the trust fund will run out eventually under the current trajectory.”
Gee, ya think ?
No one is changing subjects.
Available revenues is as applicable as your being immersed in Obamaesque promises that have no history supporting any of your ridiculous guarantees.
You already lost the inflation application to SS argument and its you whos diverting to irrelevant sideline bs about a future thats clearly defined by the CBO and economists as bleak and not Unicorns shtting gold.
Go ahead, place your faith where you like and when you show up at foodbank I’ll slip you an extra can of Spam.
August 27th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Guys, no liberal in human history has ever taken an economics class. Their understanding of science is what they read in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Move on!
August 27th, 2012 at 10:23 pm
The funniest part of this discussion is that Micky still thinks he is winning.
Andy has retreated from claiming that retirees will get “zippo” (or “toilet paper”) and finally concedes that they will have available (under the current program!) 12% of the SS taxable base of wages and salaries, but he suggests there is “no way” these hulking sums will “cover that” (without explaining: “cover” what?). He alludes to population ratios but surely (?) is not blaming Social Security for the existence of baby boomers. And he changes the subject to Medicare, and then to the national debt. Nice try!
Micky now argues that “available revenues” are somehow not “applicable” to a discussion of the resources available to Social Security. But with a little thought, he would come to agree with Andy’s new understanding that MASSIVE amounts will be available to future retirees until the crack of doom.
(Micky can look up “National Average Wage Index” if he is curious about how SS benefits are calculated, but then he also may apply his mind to contemplating whether the benefit formula is relevant in any way to the issue under discussion: whether retirees will get “zippo” after the trust fund runs out, or whether there will always be MASSIVE resources available to support future retirees under SS’s current funding structure.)
August 28th, 2012 at 4:35 am
Yes, there is little reason to continue arguing with this fool. He thinks that a wheel-barrel full of worthless paper is somehow better than “zippo” and thinks that its okay to tax away at the private sector to obtain the MASSIVE amounts that will be needed to fund entitlements in the next few years.
August 28th, 2012 at 6:00 am
“The funniest part of this discussion is that Micky still thinks he is winning.”
Whats really funny was how you insisted SS was not subjected to inflation and you totally ignored documented COLA legislation that proved you out to be uninformed, at best
“Andy has retreated from claiming that retirees will get “zippo” (or “toilet paper”)”
He never said any such thing.
” and finally concedes that they will have available (under the current program!) 12% of the SS taxable base of wages and salaries,”
YEAH, an availability of nada.
” but he suggests there is “no way” these hulking sums will “cover that” (without explaining: “cover” what?).”
“COST OF LIVING” was explained by Andy and myself very clearly.
You just love to pull meandering crap out your ass, dont you ?
” He alludes to population ratios but surely (?) is not blaming Social Security for the existence of baby boomers.”
Why should he ?
“And he changes the subject to Medicare, and then to the national debt. Nice try!”
Its called ‘relative example’
“Micky now argues that “available revenues” are somehow not “applicable” to a discussion of the resources available to Social Security.”
Theres no way present revenues at 40% going to China for decades could be relevant to or support your stupid assertion”
” But with a little thought, he would come to agree with Andy’s new understanding that MASSIVE amounts will be available to future retirees until the crack of doom.”
Massive amounts of paper.
“(Micky can look up “National Average Wage Index” if he is curious about how SS benefits are calculated, but then he also may apply his mind to contemplating whether the benefit formula is relevant in any way to the issue under discussion:”
You mean COLA CALCULATIONS ? Bite me.
” whether retirees will get “zippo” after the trust fund runs out, or whether there will always be MASSIVE resources available to support future retirees under SS’s current funding structure.)”
This puts your asinine dreams of Cornucopia in the shtter;
“The Social Security Amendments of 1983 (H.R. 1900, Public Law 98-21) contained two provisions which may have an impact on when an individual decides to retire. The two provisions are an increase in the retirement age that can first affect individuals retiring in 2000 and an increase in the delayed retirement credit for those who work beyond full retirement age.
Increase in Retirement Age
For persons born in 1938 or later, their Social Security benefit may be affected by a provision that raises the age at which full Social Security benefits are payable.
The age for collecting full Social Security retirement benefits will gradually increase from 65 to 67 over a 22-year period beginning in 2000 for those retiring at 62.”
You’re an immersed idiot who thinks astute snobbishness along with subliminal attacks on ones intellect and persona somehow reinforces your wrong and defeated bs. (Yeah,”bullsht” would” be accurate, using “argument” would be giving you too much credit)
“Thinking Thinker” is not only a redundant but shows you dont think before you type.
As George Carlin would say;
“Jumbo Shrimp” ?
“Hot Water Heater” ?
I’m movin on Miho.
You can m@sturbate your head by hearing yourself talk without me around.
But please, go back and clean up all your droppings when you’re done