Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year

NYTimes ^

[quesney]

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

[cranked]

They will be blaming Bush when this nation goes bankrupt or defualts....bet.

But then again, these are the same idiots who would blame Bush for the actual return of Jesus Christ too....go figure.

[Thane_Banquo]

In this case, Bush is at least partly to blame. He had four years with a Republican Congress, in a good economy where people would accept spending cuts, and all he did was push more and more socialism and encouraged out-of-control spending.

[Syncro]

There would be trillions of dollars in the fund if it wasn't all stolen for decades

Pols take the money and give it to the welfare programs and leave “IOU’s” in the place of the $’s with no intention of ever paying it back

The government is the grasshopper, and they have pretty much done in the ant

[Wolfhound77]

“The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned.”

Ummm..no. The problem is that our pathetic congress critters have used it as their personal cookie jar and left IOUs in place of the money. Never fear though, they have created their next Ponzi scheme to rob the taxpayers with the Health care bill.

[lawnguy]

Not to mention that Bush tried like heck to work on Social Security, and got no help at all.

[cranked]

You want to run “partial” blame....run it past Bush and far further, k?

In fact, how we all blame those who should rightly be blamed for sacking the SS lock box: Congress.

[AlexW]

I have great concern about what will happen to us Expats.
I now get my SS by direct deposit into a Philippine bank
on the 4th of each month, like clockwork.

I have nightmares of Obambie deciding that recipients
have to be in the states to continue receiving SS funds.

[kabar]

Mr. Goss, the actuary, emphasized that even the $29 billion shortfall projected for this year was small, relative to the roughly $700 billion that would flow in and out of the system. The system, he added, has a balance of about $2.5 trillion that will take decades to deplete. Mr. Goss said that large cushion could start to grow again if the economy recovers briskly.

More BS from the NYT. The SSTF is part of the national debt. It is under "Intragovernmental Holdings." SS is a pay as you go system. The non-market T-bills must be redeemed by the General Fund when SS pays out more than it is taking in. It will add to our annual budget deficit, which is now $1.5 trillion. Also, 10,000 people a day are reaching retirement age and will continue to do so for the next 20 years.

[Thane_Banquo]

SS is not a lock box and never has been. It is a ponzi scheme that, were it done by anyone other than the U.S. government, would be brought up on RICO charges.

[kabar]

Bush actually tried to do something about SS, but the Dems prevented it.

[cranked]

And to think they persecuted and jailed Madoff and the folks at Enron, huh?

The Pied Piper is calling and it looks more and more daily that this house of cards is going to collapse. I am partially looking forward to it, to be quite frank and honest.

[Let's Roll]

It’s LBJ’s fault for diverting ss funds to pay for his Great Society.

[jospehm20]

Bingo! The ‘Rats pulled out all stops the shoot Bush down on this issue. They own it now. I will not let anybody within my hearing get away with blaming Bush for this or other problems the ‘Rats have caused.

[Conscience of a Conservative]

Of course it’s Bush’s fault. Just like everything that went wrong between 1992 and 2000 was G.H.W. Bush’s fault (or even Reagan’s fault). And just like everything will immediately become President Palin’s fault on Jan 21 (?), 2013.

[Bernard]

program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax

Ahh, the New York Times. The problem is not fewer paychecks, but smaller paychecks. Social Security is not a flat tax per check... Reporters and those number thingies. It's like watching them report on automatic weapons or married heterosexuals or Christians or ...

The NYT should stick to reporting what it knows. At least its intended audience would not know the difference.

And try explaining the impact of Earned Income Credits on the SS trust fund. Or the disconnect between reported federal decifits and changes in the national debt. Or ...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

There would be trillions of dollars in the fund if it wasn't all stolen for decades

. . . except for the inconvenient reality that it is impossible for the government to save dollars. The government actually has printed the money - in the form of government debt, which is all in the world that a paper dollar is - and put it in a secure vault. The only trouble is that that system amounts to nothing more than a scorecard of money that government already spent and replaced with an IOU to itself.

There is no trick to writing an IOU for a trillion, or even a quadrillion, dollars - any competent tenth grader could do it. The trick is to maintain a credit rating that will support the value of your IOU. In the case of the schoolboy, his IOU for anything more than a few dollars would be considered worthless. In the case of the Federal government, OTOH, the entire economy is anchored on nothing more substantial than the credit worthiness of the the government and we have very little choice about trusting it. But not no choice, and when the government undertakes to take the IOUs it wrote to itself and put them on the open market (which it must do when it's already running a deficit and the cash flow of Social Security is turning negative) it will be interesting to see how the credit worthiness of the government (i.e., the value of the dollar) holds up. Interesting, as in, "we will be living in interesting times."

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"He had four years with a Republican Congress, in a good economy where people would accept spending cuts, and all he did was push more and more socialism and encouraged out-of-control spending."

Sadly true. One slight mitigation of that charge is that he was elected with no mandate and actual charges of illegitimacy by the Disloyal Opposition. He had to cut a whole lot of unsavory deals to gain support for mounting the War on Terror.

[hattend]

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

CBO: Are these the same bozos who project Obamacare to come in under a trillion dollars over 10 years?

Geez.

[Syncro]

The impossibility can change

By changing government

That being the ones in Washington, out damn spot