The Sneaky Way They Plan on Cutting Social Security Benefits

EPJ ^ | 7-8-2011

[blam]

The Sneaky Way They Plan on Cutting Social Security Benefits

July 8, 2011

Talk of changing the way the CPI is calculated is now part of on going talks on how to deal with the debt expansion. Reuters explains bluntly what is going on:

President Barack Obama and lawmakers are considering cutting Social Security and increasing revenue by changing the way the government measures inflation.

Four senior congressional aides said lawmakers are discussing using an alternative yardstick to gauge inflation, known as the “chained consumer price index,” to determine annual cost-of-living adjustments for millions of Americans. How much of an impact will the change in the method of calculating CPI have on Social Security?

It could result in cutting Social Security by $112 billion over 10 years, raising taxes by $60 billion and cutting pension and veterans’ disability payments by $24 billion, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

According to Reuters:

Advocates say the change is needed because the government’s current measure of inflation overstates how quickly prices rise. Got that? In May, the annualized core CPI came in at 2.4% and the government debt negotiators think this is too high a number.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma goes one better, he says:

There hasn’t been any economist anywhere that says we shouldn’t do that, [change the way inflation is measured] Earth to Couburn, start with John Williams at Shadow Stats, if you are looking for some one who thinks the CPI measure has been manipulated downward enough already and read up on the last manipulation of the CPI, which was inspired by President Richard Nixon.

Coburn continues with this outrageous remark:

We need a CPI that truly reflects what’s happening in the economy, not what’s good for the politicians.

Bottom line: D.C. politicians are attempting every way possible to raise revenue and cut expenditures, even if it is on the back of the elderly. They will lie and say things with a straight face, even if a quick trip to the supermarket confirms the absurdity of the statements made by politicians like Coburn.

[Vaduz]

Privatize it or kill it the gov can’t run it same with Amtrak and post office.
D.C. greed must be stopped.

[Will88]

Actually, people like me and Mr G, who are self employed, have been picking up the whole amount, so my income would have been 12% higher.

That's true, but your statement is totally irrelevant to anything I said since I clearly addressed the employer and employee separate contributions.

[Bob]

People who saw 6% deducted from their pay for forty years might think they did 'save'.

Don't forget the other 6% that their employers 'contributed'.

[Will88]

Unless you understand common sense economics and believe that employers set wages in a free market.

Lol, you are the one who doesn't understand how wages are set by employers and the not so free markets. And it really gets old hearing all this silliness about how the free market is this perfect controller of all things in the economy.

The functioning of the markets, even in the US, has been so rigged and lobbied and negotiated by various parties that they lack a lot being free markets. So, did the free market set the minimum wage? Did it set union contracts? Did it demand that Obamacare be passed? Did it set up the EPA and all other government regulation and intrusion into the market?

It pays live in the real world rather than the fantasy worlds of the left or the right.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

How can this be? Here is the promise made in 1964!
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/usa1964-2.html

Self-Supporting

“The program is designed so that contributions plus interest on the investments of the social security trust funds will be sufficient to meet all of the costs of benefits and administration, now and into the indefinite future—without any subsidy from the general funds of the Government. Both the Congress and the Executive Branch, regardless of political party in power, have scrupulously provided in advance for full financing of all liberalizations in the program.”

And here is where your FICA money goes. Read and weep!

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n4

*****

THE OLD AGE PENSION CHECK

Roy Acuff & His Smoky Mountain Boys - 1939

When our old age pension check comes to our door,
We won’t have to dread the poor house anymore.
Though we’re old and thin and gray,
Good times will be back to stay,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.

When her old age pension check comes to her door,
Dear old grandma won’t be lonesome any more.
She’ll be waiting at the gate,
Every night she’ll have a date,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.

Grow a flowing long white beard and use a cane,
‘Cause you’re in your second childhood, don’t complain.
Life will just begin at sixty,
We’ll all feel very frisky,
When our old age pension check comes to our door.

Powder and paint will be abolished on that day,
And hoop skirts will then be brought back into play.
Painted cheeks will be the rage,
And old maids will tell their age,
When their old age pension check comes to their door.

All the drug stores will go bankrupt on that day,
For cosmetics, they will all be put away.
I’ll put a flapper on the shelf,
Get a grandma for myself,
When her old age pension check comes to her door.

There’s a man that turned this country upside-down
With his old age pension rumor going ‘round.
If you want in on the fun,
Send your dime to Washington,
And that old age pension man will be around.

[Bob]

The notion that an employee's pay would have automatically been 6% higher absent the employer's SS contribution is quite a stretch.

I don't think anybody has said that employees would have automatically gotten the other 6% as a salary increase. That money, though, could have been used to grow the business, benefiting both the company and its employees.

[randita]

1. Social Security won’t be there at all.

2. Some beneficiaries will vote for me to pay even higher taxes to pay their benefits.

Does this seem like an appropriate set of expectations?

---

That’s what I’m hearing from my young adult relatives. They are jaded about politics. They think politicians don’t care about them - only about getting re-elected and pandering to the folks who will donate to and vote for them.

I tell them that if their generation rose up in arms against the FSA (Free S*** Army), they might be able to shake and move the system, but they claim they’re too busy with their jobs and their families and it won’t make a difference anyhow.

[Will88]

Don't forget the other 6% that their employers 'contributed'.

I'm not forgetting it. And it continues to amaze me how exercised some here get about SS. SS is not an example of some unearned entitlement, but of a programs that provides a basic retirement benefit for workers who paid into the system for a minimum number of years, and also a program that built up a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus that would have carried it until 2037 IF

Our reckless members of Congress and presidents hadn't begun spending it for general fund purposes decades ago. SS needs reform, but people should also consider what sort of nation we'd have with many millions of elderly with no source of income.

Nobody's bothered about welfare and medicaid and the $950 billion annually paid to working age Americans who don't work, or work in lower paying jobs. We just get this Pavlovian dog response whenever SS is mentioned.

[randita]

There is no point in endless postings about “solutions” that will keep these programs as they are. We can’t defy economic reality. Moreover, although we have been robbed by prior generations, we need to admit that these “programs” are stealing from our children and grandchildren.

Well said. You'd think conservatives would get it, but many don't. Anyone who can add 2 + 2 can see that the Ponzi scheme is not sustainable. It never has and it never will be.

We are in great need of a line of leaders who will be honest with the public and tell them point blank that we're going to become a third world nation if we keep stealing from future generations. And when the first line of leaders gets shot down, the next line needs to pick up the flag and keep charging.

People HAVE to wake up to the truth. We shouldn't have to be telling conservatives on FR what the truth is, yet we end up doing it OVER and OVER again.

[Wolfie]

Everybody wants cuts. Nobody wants “their” stuff cut. Go figure.

[Will88]

I don't think anybody has said that employees would have automatically gotten the other 6% as a salary increase.

Yes, it's been said and implied here and elsewhere that the 12% total that goes to SS would have been compensation to the employee if not for SS.

But if Obamacare goes into effect, we'll see if employers who drop their medical care benefit and pay the fine, or tax in lieu of providing coverage, we'll see if they all give raises to their employees equal to the difference between the tax (10% of payroll?) and what it would have cost to provide medical coverage.

[italianquaker]

Like I said I just want what they took from me not a penny more not a penny less.

[chris_bdba]

I’ve never understood the adjusting for inflation at all.Your benefits should just be what they are no raise ever.Your paycheck never just goes up automatically because it costs more to live why should ss?

[algernonpj]

Actually, people like me and Mr G, who are self employed, have been picking up the whole amount, so my income would have been 12% higher. And the amount is actually 15.6% now, for SS and medicare. 15.6% times 40 years would be quite a nice nest egg, thankyouverymuch.

For a good while now, all efforts at initiative and independence have been punished and discouraged.

[chris_bdba]

IIRC there has been more than one Supreme court decison saying no one who contributed is guaranteed benefits and that it is a tax and does not belong to us....

[Wolfie]

The fact is that your money is gone. They spent it. The debt is crushing us, and the only way to pay you back is to borrow more or raise taxes. We can’t do either one of those things.

[VideoDoctor]

Great idea wolfie... just give me back ALL the damn money I was FORCED to pay into it.

Wolfie must be "Captain Obvious" in disguise.

[Wolfie]

Read post #76. The money’s gone. Sacrifices have to be made by all to get rid of this crushing debt.

[italianquaker]

I know!

[achilles2000]

Thanks. I’m waiting for the “Queen for a Day” stories (see, I really am an antique) that somehow are supposed to justify the unjustifiable.