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The Social Security clock keeps ticking: It's marching to a steady cadence of financial decline
American Thinker ^ | 02/09/2024 | Brenton Smith

Posted on 02/09/2024 7:45:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Social Security has marched to a steady cadence of financial decline for the past 40 years. Every year, the size of the Social Security bomb gets bigger while the fuse becomes a little shorter. While that image might be a serious problem for you, it doesn’t seem to have captured the attention of anyone on Capitol Hill.

At this point, the program has roughly $22.4 trillion in promises that it does not expect to keep to those who can vote today. Someone who turns 80 years old today expects, on average, to live long enough to feel the impact of legislative neglect, which stretches all the way back to 1983.

It is interesting that Congress hasn't found time over the past few decades to address these worrisome prospects, but it has wasted an abundance of time on marginal proposals that have no material chance of consideration, much less passage.

Where on earth do these highly-paid legislators find the time?

To illustrate, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) has reintroduced the “You Earned It, You Keep It Act” last week. In her announcement, the lawmaker describes the bill as “a win-win” -- a fiscally responsible tax cut for seniors that puts money back in the pockets of middle-class Americans. Moreover, she claims that the bill would reduce “the federal debt by $8.9 trillion over 75 years.”

Wow. Voters get more and pay less. How could anyone oppose such an appealing deal?

Well, I do; because none of her statements are in fact true. The legislation would not reduce the $34 trillion national debt and the money doesn’t really go to middle-class Americans.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: socialsecurity
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1 posted on 02/09/2024 7:45:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

At the demise of the Society Union, they had ONE welfare program. It was old age pension. The satellite countries assumed that obligation for their citizens.


2 posted on 02/09/2024 7:48:25 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh for cryin out loud..
This question again???

If we have untold billions to send to other countries, untold billions to pay to illegal immigrants, untold billions to buy bullets for government agencies, then we have the cash to pay to people that paid into this system.
Period.
End of discussion.


3 posted on 02/09/2024 7:58:06 AM PST by joe fonebone (And the people said NO! The End)
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To: SeekAndFind

y’all can nevuh run out of muh-nee when ya gots a printing press.

Turn it on . . . and Leave It On!

paper the planet


4 posted on 02/09/2024 8:06:25 AM PST by Macoozie (Roll MAGA, roll!)
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To: joe fonebone
we have the cash to pay to people that paid into this system.

If you restricted it to those who paid in, and their deserving survivors, that would be one thing. But now it's welfare for everyone who didn't pay because the ability to pay was a white privilege.

5 posted on 02/09/2024 8:08:48 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: SeekAndFind

it’s never been more clear; recipients *MUST* be prepared to take a SS cut in order to fully-fund war, illegals and sexual transplants.


6 posted on 02/09/2024 8:11:11 AM PST by JonPreston ( ✌ ☮️ )
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To: joe fonebone

Thank You!
I’ll add your response to “Is it the end of our Country” also.

It really gets old.

Proud American, and always will be.


7 posted on 02/09/2024 8:12:32 AM PST by MotorCityBuck (Keep the change, you are filthy animal! )
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To: joe fonebone
"If we have untold billions to send to other countries, untold billions to pay to illegal immigrants, untold billions to buy bullets for government agencies, then we have the cash to pay to people that paid into this system. Period. End of discussion."

Bingo! And you don't want to piss off a bunch of old people with nothing to lose who have been paying into the system their whole lives.

8 posted on 02/09/2024 8:18:44 AM PST by mikey_hates_everything
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To: SeekAndFind

If I remember my history, when the SS system was designed you could retire at 62. The life span of a man was about 57 so there was no chance of the system going broke.

Then came Penicillin and other antibiotics and life spans shot up Up UP! Now the SS is on the verge of collapse.

Here is what was promised back in 1964...

https://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.”


9 posted on 02/09/2024 8:22:34 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: AndyJackson

Oh, I agree!!!!
Pretty simple to put it back where it belongs (but first we need to get rid of the bush league chamber of commerce worshiping republiCAN’Ts)


10 posted on 02/09/2024 8:23:28 AM PST by joe fonebone (And the people said NO! The End)
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To: joe fonebone

Yup—bring all the troops home and seal the border.

Deport all illegal aliens.

End all foreign aid.

Eliminate half of the federal agencies.

After all that is done then maybe we can start talking about Social Security.


11 posted on 02/09/2024 8:30:30 AM PST by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: joe fonebone
The problem with Social Security is that it has the same structural flaw that we see in so many programs and cultural expectations that have come into existence after the Industrial Revolution. I would include pensions, paid holidays and vacations, and taxpayer-funded health care for retirees.

What all of these things have in common is that they completely sever the link between financial compensation and productive work. You could even say it’s all part of a delusional scam that tries to erase the limitations of the human condition that were established with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

12 posted on 02/09/2024 8:34:49 AM PST by Alberta's Child (If something in government doesn’t make sense, you can be sure it makes dollars.)
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To: SeekAndFind

John McCain said that Social Security is easy to fix — you just tweak the knobs. He’s got a point. It’s not all or nothing.

The biggest knob of all is for the government to create money to make the payments. But that generates additional interest payments for taxpayers unless the loans are defaulted on.


13 posted on 02/09/2024 8:35:52 AM PST by cymbeline
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To: cgbg

Include Eliminate all NGOs on that list.


14 posted on 02/09/2024 8:45:36 AM PST by Semper Vigilantis (If the government wants you to have it fight it like your life depended on it - it probably does.)
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To: joe fonebone

If we have untold billions to send to other countries, untold billions to pay to illegal immigrants, untold billions to buy bullets for government agencies,

Hence, the problem: We DON’T have the money. They’re printing it with nothing to back it up.


15 posted on 02/09/2024 8:47:51 AM PST by jagusafr ( )
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To: Semper Vigilantis

Agreed—I would also like to eliminate all non profit status for every non profit entity.

There is just too much left-wing politics marching through too many of those institutions—too complicated to sort it all out piece by piece.


16 posted on 02/09/2024 8:50:43 AM PST by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

The program would be self sustaining if they kept to the original premise:

1. It was a retirement supplement, not a pension.
2. If everyone paid into the system from the first dollar to the last dollar.
3. If they pegged the “retirement age” for those entering the workforce to their life expectancy.

They left those tenants a long time ago.

There is no way that retirement age for an 18 year old is going to max out at 67. There is no way that someone making $300,000 a year shouldn’t be paying the same rate as someone making $50,000.

And stop giving SSI to people with non-disabling issues. Or who haven’t paid into the system.


17 posted on 02/09/2024 9:00:43 AM PST by Vermont Lt (Don’t vote for anyone over 70 years old. Get rid of the geriatric politicians.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Self-Supporting
———
It used to be. Now the children and wives of the deceased man get his benefits when he dies- till the kids are 18. The other “ pork” is SS “ Disability “ payments if one is “ disabled “ and unable to work, payments still go out to him AND family.

That said, SS does a good job of scrutinizing Disability payments, often those that apply have to hire a lawyer and prove beyond doubt his inability to work. Anyway you look at it, it has become a mess.

Lastly, I monitor the “ solutions”, some drastic- the latest is Means Testing SS recipients/ if you “ make to much money”, your benefits which you paid into all your life are reduced. The VA is already Means Testing.

Many people don’t realize they are paying 7 percent of their paycheck into SS, AND the employer pays another 7 percent into SS- that’s a lot of dough being squandered.


18 posted on 02/09/2024 9:02:22 AM PST by delta7
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To: SeekAndFind

Just print more fiat money.


19 posted on 02/09/2024 9:10:50 AM PST by Old Yeller (On judgement day, you’ll wish you were biblically correctly, not politically correct.)
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To: Vermont Lt
I disagree with #2 as SS is currently structured. FICA payroll taxes are capped because the benefits paid in retirement are capped.

There’s no way that someone earning $300,000 should be paying the same rate as someone earning $50,000 if they are both going to be getting paid the same monthly benefit in retirement.

20 posted on 02/09/2024 9:14:44 AM PST by Alberta's Child (If something in government doesn’t make sense, you can be sure it makes dollars.)
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