[RFEngineer]

“As long as they collect for SS under the payroll tax, benefits will be paid. They will just be reduced to fall within the revenues collected. “

Possibly. But the government doesn’t have a good track record in this regard, does it? That’s why we are in this situation in the first place.

When they jack taxes up so high, there will be less employment and less payroll tax collected. At some point we become like Italians and stop reporting any overt income at all.

No entitlement dollar is safe in a distressed fiscal environment.

[kabar]

I am not saying entitlement dollars are safe. According to the law, any payment of benefits is based on revenue collected. Once the T-bills in the SSTF are exhausted and can no longer make up the shortfall, then, by law, the benefits paid out cannot exceed the revenue collected.

The simple fact is that the entitlement programs are not sustainable as currently structured. They will have to be changed no matter who is in Congress or the WH. The longer we wait, the more draconian the solution.