Not even close. SS ran a $29 billion shortfall in 2010 or about $2.5 billion (enough to pay active duty military salaries) and an anticipated $34 billion in 2011 or about $3 billion a month.
Didn’t know medicare was funded that way, I wonder why?
Because if people had to pay payroll taxes and premiums to cover the costs, the increase in taxes and premiums would be enormous. And the monthly diffence between what premiums pay and what must come out of the general fund amounts to about $19 billion a month. And that number will continue to climb as 10,000 baby boomers a day retire from now until 2030. If not reformed, Medicare will consume one out every two federal non-entitlement dollars by 2085.
So the shortfall for SS and Medicare amounts to about $22 billion a month and it will increase every year.
I see my confusion- I’m thinking of OSDI. It runs a surplus but the welfare components of SS- DI, HI and SMI- run deficits.
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html
What bothers me about the “can’t pay SS” argument, besides thw inclusion of the welfare items, is that there are receipts coming in from it- yet that’s never mentioned. Look at this article- no mention of SS receipts- just SS expenditures.