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In a message to its members, MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, hailed the Social Security “expansion movement” launched by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). In a speech on the Senate floor, and in television interviews, Warren recently declared, “The era of fighting about cutting Social Security is over, and now it is time to talk about expanding Social Security.” According to MoveOn.org, “Our progressive champ (Warren) isn’t alone—more than 150,000 MoveOn members have already backed Senate and House plans for increasing Social Security benefits, not cutting them.” …

Goldilocks wrote: The statement is quoted out of context. NY Times Musters Hillary Defense Of O’Care “What Difference Does It Make?” Dear Comrade Locks, Ok, so let me put it in context for you. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Tyrone S. Woods, Glen Anthony Doherty and Sean Smith died on or shortly after September 11th, 2012 in a terrorist attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya by supposed allies of the Obama administration. The administration was supposedly acting on behalf of the American people. But yet, no one really knows why this terrorist attack happened. Still. At the time Obama said that...

Submitted by Gary Galles of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,“We paid our Social Security and Medicare taxes; we earned our benefits.” It is that belief among senior citizens that President Obama was pandering to when, in his second inaugural address, he claimed that those programs “strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers.”If Social Security and Medicare both involved people voluntarily financing their own benefits, an argument could be made for seniors’ “earned benefits” view. But they have not. They have redistributed tens of trillions of dollars of wealth to themselves from those younger.Social Security and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Juan, fasten your seat belt. The federal government should stay within the confines of the constitution. The constitution does not authorize the federal government to have anything whatsoever to do with healthcare. So, Obamacare should be abolished along with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, but the people who are on those programs should be grandfathered in because they paid money to be in there and they've ordered their lives to stay there. The states should regulate healthcare because the states retain that power under the constitution. So, if you want if you want mandatory healthcare, go...

There’s more to the deceit and dishonesty about Social Security and Medicare discussed in my recent columns. Congress tells us that one-half (6.2 percent) of the Social Security tax is paid by employees and that the other half is paid by employers, for a total of 12.4 percent. Similarly, we are told that a Medicare tax of 1.45 percent is levied on employees and that another 1.45 percent is levied on employers. The truth of the matter is that the burden of both taxes is borne by employees. In other words, we pay both the employee and the so-called employer...

Throw-away track phones bought at a nearby dollar store. Private investigator hired to trail working mom. Massive document shredding days. Bashing of hard drives. Office Chaos. Wow. Is this the latest fiction novel on a crime themed best seller list? No. These are actual references in US House of Representatives hearings on the massive Social Security Disability Fraud Scandal. Honest and dedicated federal employees, sickened and disgusted over the theft of money and services of US taxpayer dollars filed a whistleblower lawsuit to blow the lid off of a scandal that looks to bankrupt a federal agency founded for the...

Throw-away track phones bought at a nearby dollar store. Private investigator hired to trail working mom. Massive document shredding days. Bashing of hard drives. Office Chaos. Wow. Is this the latest fiction novel on a crime themed best seller list? No. These are actual references in US House of Representatives hearings on the massive Social Security Disability Fraud Scandal. Honest and dedicated federal employees, sickened and disgusted over the theft of money and services of US taxpayer dollars filed a whistleblower lawsuit to blow the lid off of a scandal that looks to bankrupt a federal agency founded for the...

According to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), different generations have paid and will continue to pay disparate amounts of Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, and they will also receive dissimilar amounts of Medicare and...

Can anybody cite the law that exempts people (Sellers) from divulging their SS#s during real estate transactions? I know this can be done (at least in NH) because I was at a closing 8.5 years ago, where the Seller was refusing to release his. The in-house lawyer was then called upon and, when he came out, he and the Seller had a bit of a back-and-forth about it in front of everyone. The Seller then told the lawyer that he could prove it to him if he'd just come with him outside the room (presumably out to a telephone?). When...

Stan Druckenmiller makes an unlikely class warrior. He's a member of the 1%—make that the 0.001%—one of the most successful money managers of all time, and 60 years old to boot. But lately he has been touring college campuses promoting a message of income redistribution you don't hear out of Washington. It's how federal entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are letting Mr. Druckenmiller's generation rip off all those doting Barack Obama voters in Generation X, Y and Z. "I have been shocked at the reception. I had planned to only visit Bowdoin, " his alma mater in Maine, he...

How do you solve a problem if you refuse to admit you have one — or if you delude yourself into thinking it's not as bad as it actually is? The answer: You don't. You might minimize symptoms and make some progress. But unless you address the root cause, you will not find a real long-term solution. Unfortunately, far too many politicians in Washington refuse to acknowledge — and as a result, never accurately describe — the challenges currently facing America. I'm not sure why so many choose to keep their heads in the sand, but their state of denial...

In prepared remarks given in advance to the Huffington Post, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warns Democrats against accepting any budget deal that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and even goes so far as to threaten to end the career of any politician who fails to heed his call. “No politician … I don’t care the political party … will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don’t try it,” Trumka says, according to the Huffington Post. “This warning goes double for Democrats,” he continues. “We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we...

A number of years ago I was between flights on a business trip and was sitting in an airport restaurant having lunch. It was right after the 2008 presidential election and I knew that the election of America’s first black president, a man of the hard left, would make my job bringing a conservative message to black communities much more challenging and difficult. As I ate my sandwich I glanced at the wall and saw a sign with a quote from General Douglas MacArthur. It said, “We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.” I was...

As gun sales break records—partly because of fear of coming gun control from the Obama administration—supplies of ammo ran so low that gun stores and ranges have to ration ammunition. Meanwhile, rumors of mass purchases of ammunition made by government entities began to fly around the Internet. Making all this even worse is that fact that it hasn’t been a short-term supply problem. Now well over a year since the shortages of popular types of ammo began there are still empty shelves and rationing here and there around the United States.

A former Social Security official has pleaded guilty to identity theft on accusations he used information from the federal agency's database and took more than $160,000 of a Coventry man's stock investments. ... Hurst, who was assistant district manager for the Social Security Administration in Warwick, used a Social Security database to find personal information such as a Social Security number and date of birth.

I wanted to share a quick story about something that happened in our household today and 3 days ago with a friend of mine as well of 23 years. My wife is on permanent disability for the remainder of her life due to a number of health reasons from on and off cancer battles to other sustained health issues that prevent her from working. My friend Cory injured himself on the job a few years ago breaking his back, right knee, and shoulder. Both have been getting around $1,000.00 a month in disability. My wife puts that money towards the...

Eventually this shutdown crisis will end. And eventually the two parties will make another stab at a deal on taxes, investments and entitlements. But there’s one outcome from such negotiations that I can absolutely guarantee: Seniors, Wall Street and unions will all have their say and their interests protected. So the most likely result will be more tinkering around the edges, as our politicians run for the hills the minute someone accuses them of “fixing the deficit on the backs of the elderly” or creating “death panels” to sensibly allocate end-of-life health care. Could this time be different? Short of...

I just heard my Conservative radio hosts discussing what is being put on the table by the Republicans in the House. They said Ryan is pushing means testing for SS benefits.

The Social Security Administration has begun warning the public it cannot guarantee full benefit payments if the debt ceiling isn’t increased. When asked by the public, the agency is notifying beneficiaries that “Unlike a federal shutdown which has no impact on the payment of Social Security benefits, failure to raise the debt ceiling puts Social Security benefits at risk,” according to a person familiar with the agency directive. The warning was assembled after the agency consulted with the Treasury Department, which would play a lead role in determining how the government handles payments if the borrowing limit isn’t raised soon....

Social Security Administration employees are being instructed to tell people who ask that if the debt ceiling is not raised, their social security benefits could be in danger. In an email sent Friday, obtained by The Daily Caller, employees are instructed: “If a member of the public asks whether their Social Security payment will be affected if the federal debt ceiling is not raised, you may give the following response: ‘Unlike a federal shutdown which has no impact on the payment of Social Security benefits, failure to raise the debt ceiling puts Social Security benefits at risk.’ “Direct all program–related...

The President’s comments, underlying the danger of not authorizing an increase in government debt, highlights the structural concerns within the government’s current fiscal policy. During a campaign style speech (does he give any other kind?) the President said "In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time, [ but] if we don't raise the debt ceiling, they don't go out on time." double speak "In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time, [ but] if we don't raise the debt ceiling, they don't go out on time."

President Barack Obama warned Thursday that as bad as the government shutdown is, a failure to raise the debt ceiling would be even more damaging to the U.S. economy, and called on congressional Republicans to end their “irresponsibility” on both issues. “As reckless as a government shutdown is … an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse,” Obama said on the morning of the third day of the government shutdown, at an event held at M. Luis Construction Company in the D.C. suburb of Rockville, Md. The president had on Wednesday warned Wall Street that “this time’s...

Pensions: In Chile, a major study shows the nation's private retirement accounts provide workers pensions worth 87% of their salaries, 73% of that from profits on savings. So much for the canard about the perils of markets. The story was front-page news in Chile's largest newspapers, El Mercurio and La Tercera, on Sept. 3, a powerful affirmation of what former Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain called "The Chilean Model" of private retirement accounts. The study of 28,000 households by Dictuc, a consultancy affiliated with the Catholic University of Chile, showed that male workers who contributed just 10%...

In response to Just How Distorted is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Number?, reader Bjorn asked "care to take a guess on the percentage of fraud among the population receiving disability compensation?" Fraud Incentive My Reply Follows: I suspect fraud is in the neighborhood of 25-50% (and higher would not surprise me one bit). The reason is that States Have an Incentive to Promote (Not Stop) Disability Fraud. This all goes back to 1996 when president Bill Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it". He did indeed do just that, and fraud is the result. Why? The federal government...

Americans who dream of a retirement filled with sandy beaches, temperate weather and colorful local life may have another thing coming. That's because a new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that 45 percent of working-age households have no retirement savings at all. The average figure for funds set aside by households nearing the end of their working lives was a meager $12,000. That's not enough to cover a single year. If there is no change in their savings rate, many Americans may wind up living on monthly Social Security benefits alone. Monthly benefits now average just...

One potential benefit that can come from last week’s March on Washington 2013, which commemorated the 1963 civil rights event, is the various data publicized about the current state of affairs of black America vis a vis the rest of the country. In particular, it has been an eye opener for many to see how little progress has been made over the last 50 years in closing the economic gap, on average, between blacks and whites. I call shining light on the data a “potential” benefit because there is no benefit if real remedial action is not taken to improve...

A recent audit report by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration found that Obama’s IRS was reluctant to penalize any employers who consistently used Social Security numbers that did not match the names. Thus refusing any efforts to stop identity fraud from ”unauthorized noncitizens” using Social Security numbers that in 80% of the cases belonged to legal citizens. Defund the IRS. Flashback video reports here and here: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)CNSNews.com reports the following: An audit report published this month by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration says that the Internal Revenue Service’s reluctance to penalize employers who consistently...

This week’s charts show total receipts, expenditures, and assets left in the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) trust fund. Data from the 2013 Trustees Report show that the disability fund is currently predicted to be three years from insolvency. Under more pessimistic assumptions, the insolvency date is pushed up to 2015. The fact that the DI trust fund is not currently depleted shouldn’t mislead us into thinking we have until 2016 to deal with the shortfalls.Spending on Social Security has more than doubled in the past decade, and DI now accounts for almost 20 percent of Social Security’s budget, up...

The Federal government debt outstanding is almost $17 trillion. This has grown at a staggering pace since 2007. GFDEBTN_Max_630_378 (2) And that is the GOOD news! According to economist James Hamilton at University of California at San Diego, the value of notional off-balance sheet liabilities was around $70 trillion in 2012. We were already aware that unfunded liabilities are staggering, according to USDebtclock.org. usbtclcok The biggest items in this category are Social Security and Medicare. If current policies are maintained, these off-balance sheet liabilities will require enormous sacrifices from future taxpayers. Better know as massive increase in taxes. Hamiton includes...

Dear Readers, Social Security is a hot topic for young and old alike. And as with any frequently discussed issue, there's a lot of misinformation out there. So whether you plan to collect benefits soon or are worried there won't be anything for you to collect by the time you reach retirement, take a look at these 10 common myths and misunderstandings about Social Security. It's always best to have the facts! 1) I should start taking Social Security benefits as soon as I'm eligible. This sounds good on the surface, but to max out your benefits, you need to...

In just about seven weeks, people will be able to start buying Obamacare-approved insurance plans through the new health care exchanges. But already, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting those plans, and the whole system of distributing them, will eventually be moot. Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.” “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said. When then asked...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

Went to the local Social Security Administration Office today with my wife who will be retiring in near future. The office is in a rural low crime area in Western Kentucky. We were greeted by two armed, courteous "Rent-a-Cops" upon entry. While waiting to be served we observed the Rent-a-Cops doing a thorough search of a an elderly lady's purse prior to her being allowed to see the Social Security worker. These guys were opening every thing in the purse, unzipping every zipper. Voicing our disapproval over the search, we departed. The entire scenario was ridiculous. Does anyone know the...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises...

Dear Carrie, I'm turning 65 next year and plan to work for a couple more years. Should I apply for Medicare even though I have coverage through my employer? --A ReaderDear Reader, This is an important question that affects a growing number of workers. In fact, data from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study (2006 to 2010) sponsored by the National Institute on Aging shows some eye-popping trends. According to the study, 79.5 percent of respondents expect to work past age 65, with 65.2 percent expecting to retire by age 80 -- and 22.4 percent planning never to...

The City of Detroit tried to file for bankruptcy last week. A state judge initially blocked the filing, but a federal judge ruled Wednesday this week that the bankruptcy case can move forward. More legal maneuvering is ahead and Detroit may well succeed in the end. After all, Detroit owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $18 to $20 billion to over 100,000 creditors. One group of creditors particularly wary of a municipal bankruptcy is Detroit’s public sector labor unions. They fear a bankruptcy judge might allow the city to cancel or reduce their pension or retiree health benefits. The unions...

The Social Security Administration announced Friday that it would begin accepting benefit claims related to same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court in June found the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional. It ruled that the federal government cannot treat same-sex marriages approved by some states any differently than heterosexual marriages. The ruling affects more than 1,000 federal regulations affecting everything from tax breaks to entitlement benefits. Prior to the ruling, an individual in a same-sex marriage was unable to claim survivor benefits from Social Security when a spouse died and a couple was unable to claim...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has paid at least 1,546 dead people $31 million, with some of the deceased receiving benefits for 20 years. According to a June 21 audit by the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, 2,475 beneficiaries had a recorded date of death in Social Security’s own database. The IG determined that “at least” 1,546 of these individuals were in fact dead and still receiving benefits, totaling $30,956,695 through May 2012. Among those 1,546 deceased, some were receiving benefits for up to 20 years. …

**SNIP** His age and his tenure in Congress — almost 17 years — are short of the mark for a standard retirement annuity from the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS. Members of Congress can collect a pension from FERS starting at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after 25 years of service, according to the Congressional Research Service. But Jackson appears eligible for another FERS program that pays out "disability retirement" payments. Under program rules, potential payments in the first year would total $8,700 a month — or $104,400 a year....

I received a phone call from American Express a few minutes ago telling me that Social Security had notified them of my wife's recent, three weeks ago, passing, and that they were cancelling her card and what payment arrangements did I wish to make. I hintend to deal with her cards and our accounts but for the life of me I can't comprehend what Social Security is doing passing bnews of her death to private institutions. Where in the law does SSS get this authority. Tea Party Patriot that my wife was, she would be outraged at this example of...

You’d think when the Huffington Post’s top writer on finance writes about the tax code, he’d understand at least how the tax code works. But in an age when “finance” editors, like the HuffPo’s Mark Gongloff, are demonstrably anti-business, pro-Occupy and work as shills for progressive ideas, facts take a back seat to ideology, outrage and agendas. The latest outrage Gongloff has taken issue with is how little of the U.S. tax revenue, on a percentage basis, is generated by corporate taxes, as opposed to the good old days of the 1950s. He even has a chart to prove it...

The heat comes early each spring in Slidell, La. If it weren’t for that, the handless corpse of Charles Fisher might have gone on rotting in a 160-quart ice chest for some while, and the Social Security Administration might still have been unaware that Debra Fisher and Heidi Todd were collecting his benefits. On a warm March day last year, repairmen were sent to fix an air conditioner at a brick apartment complex on Military Road. They knocked on the door of the apartment of Charles Fisher, a man in his early 80s, who shared his home with his 58-year-old...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Chauncey Clinton, 65, of Ross Township was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges he cashed his late mother’s social security checks for nearly four decades. Clara Clinton died in May, 1973, and Clinton allegedly began cashing her checks the very next month. U.S. Attorney David Hickton told KDKA-TV News Tuesday that the fraud began to unravel after a SSA program that congratulates people for reaching the century mark turned up possible fraud.

One-fourth of Social Security disability benefits were improperly awarded, according to a Senate report published last September. Outright fraud accounts for a lot of that. National Review Online thought you might like to put a face to the phenomenon, so here’s our Top Ten list of the most outrageous disability cheaters of the past year: No. 10: The Marijuana Entrepreneur In 2011, federal agents raided more than two dozen medical-marijuana businesses in Montana. At the Missoula home and warehouse of Scott Lee Hubeny, 48, they found 243 marijuana plants, several pounds of marijuana, and processing equipment. It was a profitable...

The annual Trustees Report for Social Security has just been issued, and the news is that there is no news. Social Security is on its way over a fiscal cliff – what we hear every year when the report is issued. According to this year’s report, Social Security will be insolvent in 2033 – 20 years from now - when those now 47 years old will be eligible for their full promised benefits. But nothing gets done because the heroes representing us in Washington won’t act on anything politically tough until emergency sirens force them. Social Security is a tax...

The 2013 Social Security Trustees' report, released last week, is proof positive that you really can make numbers say whatever you want. By highlighting one set of "asset reserves" that showed some growth, the report gives ammunition to those who would rather not deal with the fact that the program is on a path to disaster. The Trustees' report begins by noting that: "Asset reserves held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew from $2,678 billion at the beginning of the year to $2,732 billion at the end of the year." Translation: the program is "not in a crisis." But...

Americans might generally think that if someone forges a document and uses a Social Security number that does not belong to them, they should go to jail. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., believes if you are an illegal alien and you do these things, you should become a U.S. citizen. He made his case for this in the Senate Judiciary Committee. When the committee was considering amendments to its immigration "reform" bill on May 20, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pointed to a report published by The Associated Press in March. This report told the story of Candida L. Gutierrez, a Houston...

The Social Security program faces $9.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years, which is up $1 trillion from last year’s projection of $8.6 trillion, according to the latest report from Social Security’s board of trustees. The unfunded liability is the amount that has been promised in benefits to people now alive that will not be funded by the tax revenue the system is expected to take in to pay for those benefits. (The Social Security trustees calculate the unfunded liability for a period of 75 years into the future, from 2012 to 2087). …

The number of Americans receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) more-than doubled over the past two decades, from 5.2 million to 11.7 million by the end of 2011. The number of residents receiving disability insurance from the Social Security Administration (SSA) varies from state to state. In West Virginia, close to one in every 10 people aged 18 to 64 was receiving SSDI benefits from the federal government, more than three times the rate in states like Utah and Alaska.Click here to see the states with the most Americans on disabilityThe proportion of eligible workers applying for disability benefits also...