Free Republic

Some new media critics really need to make up their minds. It’s either a Do Nothing Congress or a Do Something Awful Congress. If you ask the folks at Talking Points Memo, we’ll be leaning toward the latter because the House was getting busy taking care of business before half of the new members had located the bathrooms. A minor rules change was put in place which modifies the way tax revenues are occasionally shuffled between the Social Security trust fund and the Social Security disability program. There’s a reason for this, as we’ll get to below, but to...

For 32 years I’ve been advocating a major tax on petroleum. I’ve got as much chance this time around as did Don Quixote with windmills. But I shall tilt my lance once more. The only time you can even think of proposing a gas-tax increase is when oil prices are at rock bottom. When I last suggested the idea six years ago, oil was selling at $40 a barrel. It eventually rose back to $110. It’s now around $48. Correspondingly, the price at the pump has fallen in the last three months by more than a dollar to about $2.20...

When that old man in a long white beard turns over the New Year to a robust round baby in diapers, they share framed edges of life, one at the end and one just beginning. With the help of science, an old man today passing the baton has a greater life expectancy than his predecessor did in 1840 when data began to show steady increases. The baby this year is lively and bouncing, and need not worry as much about infant mortality. At the beginning of the 20th century, a baby born in America was expected to reach the ripe...

To those nattering nabobs of negativity who don’t trust government to do the right thing, or even to stop doing the wrong thing once discovered, I just want to say: “You’re right.” Again. Last April, a Washington Post exposé about a bizarrely tyrannical debt collection program caused the Social Security Administration (SAA) to publicly promise it would cease and desist from said program. The Social Security bureaucracy had been snatching the income tax refund checks of grown children whose parents, many decades ago, had allegedly been sent excess money intended for the care and feeding of these then-youngsters by this...

Just got my annual 1.7% increase notice and with it the statement ;

The Social Security Administration, which announced in April that it would stop trying to collect debts from the children of people who were allegedly overpaid benefits decades ago, has continued to demand such payments and now defends that practice in court documents. After The Washington Post reported in April that the Treasury Department had confiscated $75 million in tax refunds due to about 400,000 Americans whose ancestors owed money to Social Security, the agency’s acting commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, said efforts to collect on those old debts would cease immediately. But although some people whose refunds were seized were reimbursed in...

This so-called insurance meant from the beginning not merely compulsory insurance it also meant compulsory membership in a unitary system controlled and enforced by the state. The concept of a social safety net is well accepted throughout the Western World. The idea that some provision should be made for those who through no fault of their own are unable to provide for themselves first appeared as a state policy in Germany in the 19th century as the Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, sought to co-opt the popular appeal of socialism and strengthen the newly founded German Imperial state. The idea struck a...

Under President Obama’s new program to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, many of those affected will be eligible to receive Social Security, Medicare and a wide array of other federal benefits, a White House official said Tuesday. In his speech Thursday night, the president touted his plan as a means of bringing accountability to a broken immigration system, under which 11 million or more people are estimated to be living in this country illegally. “We’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve with been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens...

One of the issues that killed the Senate’s hated “Gang of Eight” amnesty for illegal aliens bill was that it allowed the amnestied illegal aliens to immediately access public benefits reserved for citizens and legal immigrants. House conservatives correctly argued that the “Gang of Eight” bill and its various House companion bills would allow illegal aliens immediate access to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and various other welfare programs, such as food stamps. While the proponents of the “Gang of Eight” bill tried to finesse the issue the bottom line was and is that once the government gives a Social Security...

Dear Editor, Considering all of the craziness that we’ve all had to deal with when it comes to this past election, I figured that I would hold off on anything politically related for a while. Plus for me, I tend to note things more on a national level anyway, and I’m not wanting to write anything national for a local paper. However, considering the opinion piece that was put into Sunday’s issue, I felt that this basically gave me the entrance that I need to get a few things clear for the people in the first place. Now, considering that...

Millions of older Americans who rely on federal benefits will get a 1.7 percent increase in their monthly payments next year, the government announced Wednesday. It's the third year in a row the increase will be less than 2 percent. The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, affects payments to more than 70 million Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees.

OSIJEK, Croatia — Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger lived the American dream. His plastics company in the Rust Belt town of Akron, Ohio, thrived. By the late 1980s, he had acquired the trappings of success: a Cadillac DeVille and a Lincoln Town Car, a lakefront home, investments in oil and real estate. Then the Nazi hunters showed up. In 1989, as the U.S. government prepared to strip him of his citizenship, Denzinger packed a pair of suitcases and fled to Germany. He later settled in this pleasant town on the Drava River, where he lives comfortably, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers....

In an obscure corner of the federal bureaucracy, there is an office that is 990,399 cases behind. That is Washington’s backlog of backlogs — a queue of waiting Americans larger than the populations of six different states. It is bigger even than the infamous backups at Veterans Affairs, where 526,000 people are waiting in line, and the patent office, where 606,000 applications are pending. All of these people are waiting on a single office at the Social Security Administration. Social Security is best-known for sending benefits to seniors. But it also pays out disability benefits to people who can’t work...

At the Americans United rally “Hands Off Social Security & Medicare” at the Capitol on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blamed Republicans for the economic recession of 2007-09, saying their "lack of regulation and supervision took our country to the brink, and so when President Obama won the election, he took us out of that brink.” “I know you've heard from many members of the House and Senate about the importance of the three pillars of security for America’s seniors: about Social Security, about Medicare and about Medicaid,” she said. “And I’m here to add my support to...

There was an open call-in on the radio this morning on Social Security. It got my blood boiling. On a whim, I went looking for 1933 news on the reality of Social Security before it was passed and the current meme posited by libs & the media. First, I found this:George Will says Social Security was created in the 1930s 'as a way of getting people to quit working' The pundits at Politifact wrote, "We’d always believed Social Security stemmed from a desire help keep the elderly out of poverty... George Will asserted:"People forget Social Security was advocated ... in...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)TRANSCRIPT JUDY WOODRUFF: A quick look at the calendar reminds us that today is just seven weeks away from this year’s midterm elections, when voters across the country will be deciding ballot issues and choosing state and local officeholders and members of Congress. With control of the U.S. Senate up for grabs, I headed to Iowa this past weekend, the site of one of the closest contests in the nation. If you love college football, the place to be in Iowa this past weekend was Iowa City, the home of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, as they hosted the Iowa...

Stop the flood of illegal aliens into our country who claim bogus refugee status I spent three hours yesterday at the Romanian Embassy trying to obtain a passport renewal for my 82-year-old mother who wants to travel to visit her sister and brother she has not seen since 1996. It may be her last trip.

This citizen story came to my attention on Facebook on September 9,2014, it had been filmed a few weeks prior. Stop the Magnet is here to assist in getting this valuable insight out to the grassroots activists and beyond. I will simply post Mike Morrison's narrative of the event. The three videos are available for your perusal. Please note also recent headlines illustrating Obama's "Memorandum Agreements" with Mexico. It appears the free traders are blowing off sovereignty full stop.

(Memphis, TN) Monday, September 8, Mike Morrison of Memphis, Tennessee, did a video interview of Mexican nationals bused into the city’s Social Security Administration office, potentially to receive Social Security cards, Mexican passports in hand along with letters from our federal government (photos shown below). As Morrison also attests, leaving the scene in his vehicle, he was pulled over by a police officer, not for any traffic violation, but to be issued a vague and ominous threat for what he had just done. His entire video is posted below with the comments he attached to them in Facebook and YouTube....

<p>Now that Labor Day has passed, the 2014 campaign season is officially underway. By any measure, the Republicans seem to have the advantage and are poised to take control of the Senate in the midterm elections. The Democrats are struggling on just about every front. They do not have a credible economic agenda, and under President Obama, our country’s foreign policy has gone from bewildering to frightening.</p>

Summary When should I start Social Security? How will I receive the highest annual income? How will I receive the highest cumulative income? When will I be able to retire? Every year, more than 2 million people turn 62. Many of those people will wonder, "When should I start receiving Social Security benefits?" The earliest age of eligibility is 62. The benefit increases each year you delay starting, until age 70, after which point there is no additional increase. When should I start - age 62 or age 70? [...]

Illegal aliens have more rights and benefits than American citizens, personal property is fair game because it was not earnedJohn Q Taxpayer wrote in a commentary on the web: “I woke up this morning and the whole world was backwards. Right is now wrong, illegal immigration is an act of love, self-defense is not permitted, the rich are evil, God is banned, the government of the people is out to get the people, the truth is forbidden, the ignorant are in charge of the intelligent, communism is good, robbery is overlooked, free speech is regulated, money is evil.”

The "recovery" news in Spain keeps piling up. Via translation from El Economista, Government has already taken 37% of the total 'pensions piggy bank'. If extractions continue at the current rate, the fund would be exhausted in 4 years. The Government of Mariano Rajoy has released 24.65 billion euros of the Social Security Reserve Fund in less than two years. Such amount represents nearly 37% of the total 66.815 billion fund accumulation. That figure marks the highest cumulative piggy bank draw-down in history, following its commissioning in 2000 and after eleven years in which successive governments did not need to...

Screening older patients for cancer provided minimal benefit at considerable cost and increased use of invasive procedures, reported investigators in two separate studies. "It is particularly important to question screening strategies for older persons," Gross continued. "Patients with a shorter life expectancy have less time to develop clinically significant cancers after a screening test and are more likely to die from noncancer health problems after a cancer diagnosis."

The government wants to recoup benefits paid to the daughters of a man who was declared legally dead and then turned up alive years later. Donald Miller Jr. disappeared in the 1980s, and a death ruling in 1994 allowed his family to get Social Security benefits. […] Now the Social Security Administration wants his two daughters to return more than $47,000 to cover benefits they received as teenagers, plus interest, his ex-wife, Robin Miller, told The Courier in Findlay. …

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a "patriotic" act. Roosevelt had taken the helm of the country in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression, the nation's worst economic crisis. The Social Security Act (SSA) was in keeping with his other "New Deal" programs, including the establishment of the Works Progress Administration and...

Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal’s signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries. On average, retired workers and spouses receive $1,839 a month — money vital to the well-being of millions. Roosevelt would surely be proud of this, and yet he might also have reservations. Social Security has evolved into something he never intended and actively opposed. It has become what was then called “the dole” and is now known as “welfare.” This forgotten history clarifies...

With all the controversy over the failed and costly Obamacare program, it’s understandable that other entitlements aren’t getting much attention. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t serious problems with Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Indeed, the annual Social Security Trustees Report was released a few days ago and the updated numbers for the government-run retirement program are rather sobering. Thanks in part to sloppy journalism, many people only vaguely realize that Social Security is actuarially unsound. In reality, the level of projected red ink is shocking. If you look at the report’s annual projections and then adjust them for inflation...

In early 1989, grime-covered coal miners, leading troglodytic lives filled with dust and danger, gathered one morning by their lockers, changed into their work gear, and, with helmets in place and headlamps lighted, refused to decamp into the their underground workplace. At issue wasn’t mine safety; nor was it wages, but rather things more mundane: soap and toothpaste. Neither was available to miners and their families in the isolated mining town. Like coal mining towns in West Virginia, Ohio and Virginia, this town was bent to the exigencies of industry and commerce—the quality of life for miners often suffered as...

Social Security is insolvent,” Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff told the House Subcommittee on Social Security at a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “And it’s not bankrupt in 30 years, or 20 years, or 10 years. It’s bankrupt today.” “This is not my opinion. This is the only conclusion one can draw from Table IVB6 of the 2013 Social Security Trustee’s Report." The economist also accused the system’s trustees of a “disinformation” campaign to keep Americans from finding out that “Social Security is in dire financial shape.” “To their great credit, Social Security’s actuaries have been reporting the system’s...

America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. But as we become bogged down in our many problems, I see, unfortunately, a mentality in which we are becoming increasingly a nation of the unfree – the victim – and the timid, in how we’re approaching these challenges. Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman wrote a column this week drawing attention to the latest dire projections from the Congressional Budget Office. CBO projects the nation sinking deeper and deeper into an ocean of red ink. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the Senator notes, we’ll pile...

In the early-1990s, political Washington moved to change the nature of the CPI. The contention was that the CPI overstated inflation (it did not allow substitution of less-expensive hamburger for more-expensive steak). Both sides of the aisle and the financial media touted the benefits of a “more-accurate” CPI, one that would allow the substitution of goods and services. The plan was to reduce cost of living adjustments for government payments to Social Security recipients, etc. The cuts in reported inflation were an effort to reduce the federal deficit without anyone in Congress having to do the politically impossible: to vote...

If the amount of press ink used to report a study is any indicator of its contribution to public understanding, the National Institute on Retirement Security's (NIRS) 2013 report, "The Retirement Savings Crisis: Is It Worse than We Think?" might be the gold standard on the subject of retirement security. The report concludes that 84% of Americans are falling short of reasonable retirement savings targets and, even when total net worth is considered, two-thirds are at risk of an inadequate retirement income. The total "retirement savings gap," NIRS claims, may reach $14 trillion. According to New York Times writer Nancy...

The stock market reached a record high last week, closing over 17,000 for the first time. Good news, of course. As President John F. Kennedy famously said, "A rising tide lifts all boats." But it sure helps if you own a boat. In this case, the "boat" would be the dynamic American stock market. But investors in the stock market disproportionately come from the top 1 percent, and they hold about 35 percent of all stocks and mutual funds. The next-richest 9 percent control about 45 percent. The remaining 90 percent have less than 20 percent. While nearly half of...

Two U.S. Senators have introduced the Retirement and Income Security (RAISE) Act. The bill would increase Social Security payments for divorced spouses, enhance benefits for widows and widowers, and extend eligibility for children of retired, disabled or deceased workers. The additional benefits included in the RAISE Act would be offset by the application of a 2% payroll tax rate on annual earnings over $400,000—an offset that means Social Security will continue to be fully funded, according to a news release by Senator Mark Begich (D-Arkansas), who introduced the bill along with Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington). “The RAISE Act would ensure...

Even as millions of baby boomers approach retirement, the Social Security Administration has been closing dozens of field offices, forcing more and more seniors to seek help online instead of in person, according to a congressional report being released Wednesday. The agency blames budget constraints. As a result, seniors seeking information and help from the agency are facing increasingly long waits, in person and on the phone, the report said. Social Security has closed 64 field offices since 2010, the largest number of closures in a five-year period in the agency’s history, according to a report by the bipartisan staff...

For years, the Social Security Administration has warned lawmakers that unless they do something soon, the entitlement program for disabled workers will run out of cash by 2016. Still, as the program’s funds dry up and its insolvency hovers less than two years away, Congress remains quiet on the issue.

The funny thing about third rails in politics is that there are many of them. Senator Marco Rubio seized two important ones on Tuesday. If the quality of his ideas this week are any indication, we believe he’ll live to do so again. His comprehensive speech addressed how the federal government ought to support the elderly, laying out a plan to shore up Social Security and explaining and endorsing Paul Ryan’s approach to Medicare reform. The two key planks to Rubio’s Social Security proposal are a gradual increase in the retirement age, tied to increases in American life expectancy,...

No English? No problem! A little known Social Security policy considers a person’s ability to learn English when determining disability eligibility. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) sent a letter to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin last week to express concerns about a disability policy that may fast-track Americans who can’t speak English. The policy allows people to qualify for benefits more quickly if “they are incapable of communicating in English.” […] Disability applications have gone up 230 percent in the last decade, according to a report. …

Full Title: Harrington Discusses Story on Non-English Speakers Getting Fast-Tracked for Disability Approval Washington Free Beacon reporter Elizabeth Harrington appeared on Fox and Friends Saturday to discuss her story on non-English speakers being fast-tracked for federal disability approval. Harrington reported: Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) sent a letter obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin on Thursday, raising concerns regarding revelations that individuals who cannot speak English are fast-tracked for disability approval. “I write to express my concerns about the expanding number of individuals now...

Dear Carrie: Several of my friends and I (all in our early 60s) are understandably thinking about Social Security. Everyone seems to have different ideas -- and different information -- about when to apply for benefits, how to apply, and how much we can expect to get. Can you give us a straightforward answer on what we should know? -- A ReaderDear Reader: Since Social Security plays such a big part in people's lives, you'd think we'd have a better idea about how it all works. But on the contrary, a lot of folks don't fully understand their benefits or,...

If you simultaneously accept estimates published by the Census Bureau and the Chief Actuary of Social Security, then illegal aliens who misused Social Security numbers to work illegally in the United States in 2010 earned more on average than American women did. The Office of the Chief Actuary published an analysis in April 2013 entitled, "Effects of Unauthorized Immigration on the Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds." It included this question and answer: "Question: Of the unauthorized workers paying OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) taxes, what is the average level of earnings upon which the taxes are...

"Some think Social Security is going bankrupt, but since the program uses taxes from current workers to pay current retirees, it is impossible for it to go bankrupt. The program also doesn’t contribute to the national debt or the deficit as some have suggested. All taxes and spending for the program happen independently of the federal budget." "Social Security took in more money than it paid out in benefits until 2010, which created an enormous trust fund, but since 2010, the program has paid out more in benefits than it has received in taxes. Should this trend continue, the trust...

A former U.S. Postal Service employee in Anchorage was arraigned Friday on charges he accepted at least $334,000 in disability and worker's comp payments while he spent his summers fishing. The U.S. attorney's office says in a Friday release that 56-year-old Amacio Zamora Agcaoili Jr. was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts, including theft of government funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux also claims Agcaoli lied about not working when he was paid for preparing tax returns and immigration paperwork. Authorities also claim he failed to tell the Social Security Administration about his worker's comp payments, to...

The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago. Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds. The move to stop the program came after many of the recipients and members of Congress complained to the federal agency.

When I say “debts,” I don’t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parents’ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The “debts” here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSA’s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have. And now, somehow, it’s junior’s problem. But wait. It gets worse. When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960,...

The Social Security Disability Insurance program is in big trouble. In 2016, the program's trust fund is expected to run out of money. When that happens, there will be "large across-the-board cuts for all beneficiaries," warn James Lankford, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees entitlements, and Jackie Speier, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat. Those cuts will be painful for the "truly disabled," whom the system originally was designed to serve. Washington has a choice to make: provide for the truly disabled or the newly disabled. The definition of disability was expanded to include mental disorders, such as anxiety...

The Washington Post reports that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who are expecting refunds this month are instead getting letters informing them that because of a debt they never knew about — often a debt incurred by their parents — the government has confiscated their check. http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/social-security-treasury-target-hundreds-of-thousands-of-taxpayers-for-parents-old-debts/2014/04/10/74ac8eae-bf4d-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html?tid=HP_more

When I say “debts,� I don’t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parents’ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The “debts� here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSA’s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have. And now, somehow, it’s junior’s problem.But wait. It gets worse. When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960, her...

After years of lefty rhetoric about how even the smallest ID requirement at the polls is some sort of pogrom against minority voters and the poor, I … did not see this coming.But maybe I should have. Per some polls, support for voter ID reaches 80+ percent. Maybe Bill’s already thinking about purple states in 2016. With 34 states now requiring some form of identification at the polls, former president Bill Clinton and civil rights leader Andrew Young on Wednesday endorsed the idea of adding photos to Social Security cards as a way to prevent voter suppression…Clinton and Young, a...