Social Security funds have been squandered when it shouldn't have been accessed by Congress.
It’s way beyond Social Security - most funds have been squandered by Congress, and the American people should have never been subject to an income tax or property tax. Payroll taxes, are just another form of income tax - the original name was for Old Age Survivors and Disability tax (now called social security).
The program was set up to provide - Insurance-not retirement. The excess paid in is “invested” in non-negotiable Treasuries - so called trust fund, and becomes part of the National Debt.
Whenever the outgo exceeds the amount paid in, the Treasury Department “liquidates” a few of the non-negotiables to cover the shortfall. When the rates were raised, and retirement age raised, and a surplus was coming in, it was changed from an off-budget item to an on budget item, so that the budget deficit appeared to be reduced.
It’s all smoke and mirrors with Washington DC. I think a good way to conceptualize it is that they have a bunch of charge cards. One is the one used for Social Security, another for Medicare, and so forth, only instead of Master Card, the American people are the ones the debt is owed to.
Just like MasterCard, we have paid for whatever Congress has purchased, but soon they will not even be able to pay the interest on the debt, let alone the principal. They have actually been defaulting on that debt by printing money which devalues the dollar, and has the same effect as huge tax increase, since the money available for discretionary purchases goes down, and eventually even necessities become difficult to afford.
Well, anyway, I have a feeling that we passed the point of no return, during the Obama Administration, and whatever crash is coming, will likely happen during the Trump Administration, and Pubbies will get the blame. Hope I am wrong.
The best way to impact health care costs, is get rid of the “diseases of civilization” which are so related to unhealthy eating-the USDA pyramid is NOT healthy eating. What is used to make Beef fat? GRAINS. Is it a shock that if people eat 6-11 servings of grains per day, they get fat and develop diseases?
We are subsidizing things like corn and wheat - this is refined into the “processed” foods which gives everyone something cheap to eat and sugar or HFCS is added to make it palatable, along with chemicals to make it shelf stable. Then people get sick due to improper
diet, and they tax us to provide medical care. Vicious cycle.
Sorry for the rant.