Posted on 08/12/2012 10:27:08 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
WASHINGTON—Now that Social Security is paying more in benefits than it collects in taxes, there is a fierce debate among politicians, academics and advocates about whether those shortfalls are adding to the federal budget deficit. The issue is important because the federal government's annual deficit already exceeds $1 trillion, making any more borrowing tough to swallow. If Social Security is adding to the government's financial problems, it becomes even more urgent to fix it.
"Over 77 years and now through 13 recessions, Social Security has not added one penny to our deficit or our debt," Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said at a recent hearing by the House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee. Becerra is the top Democrat on the panel.
"I believe that Social Security has not contributed one nickel to the deficit because it is funded by the payroll tax," Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who heads the Senate Social Security caucus, said in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
$24.5 Trillion In US National Debt, $144 Trillion In Unfunded Liabilities In... 2015
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2645360/posts
Only in Bizzaro World.
Just imagine if the government followed GAAP like every US company is required to do.
Wouldn’t the truth be refreshing?
Add to that the approx $2.5 Trillion that government has borrowed from SS......They don’t talk much about that do they?
I assume they are listening to the “experts” at AARP, LOL.
Add to that the approx $2.5 Trillion that government has borrowed from SS......They don’t talk much about that do they?
They will be taking the fifth soon.
And SS is for the first time running a deficient?? Geez....can you say "Obama made that happen"???
Becerra and Sanders are fools.
Remember all of those IOUs stuffed into the “Lockbox”?
Each one is a liability of the U.S. Government and each one MUST be paid for out of current receipts to the U.S. Treasury.
At least that is what Obama’s Chief of Staff (and former director of the OMB) Jack Lew has said. That is how it is described in the Budget of the United States (2008, the last one published).
With millions of potential taxpayers killed in the womb by abortion and now the Obama depression severely reducing the amount coming into SS because of unemployment, SS will not last the thirty years that was projected. And the nation will suffer its self-inflicted punishment.
Socialist Security and Medicare are the two greatest Ponzi schemes in the history of human civilization and they will be the millstones around our necks which will sink us.
The only way to ‘fix’ this problem is to STOP these programs now. Sure people will be screwed, because they “paid in”, but their money has already been spent. They have been robbed. We shouldn’t rob the future earnings from others and their children to cover up for earlier robbery by the politicians.
SS has been running a deficit since 2010. It ran deficits in the early 1980s until Reagan struck a Faustian bargain with Tip O’Neill that increased taxes and reduced benefites—including raising the age for full benefits from 65 to 67.
For years, there was a surplus of social security taxes taken in vs benefits paid out. Politicians, being the scum of the earth that they are, used this surplus to partially finance their deficits. Now, they will have to actually have to borrow from someone to fund their deficits (as opposed to raiding the (ahem) ‘lock box’. Won’t stop them though.
Democrats will tax us for 'health care' then take the money out of 'the box' as soon as it's dropped in. Just like they did with Social Security.
In a few years when boomers hit the age where health care costs skyrocket, they'll bemoan the fact that there's no money left. They'll act shocked that boomers health care costs more when they get older. They knew all along, but they'll lie.
There won't be money left because corrupt democrats will pretend the future isn't knowable - they'll spend every dime as it comes in and their shills in the MSM will pretend along with them... They destroy everything they touch.
And the elderly living on them now. Do we kill them immediately or let them die slowly of exposure and stavation?
Our team - conservatives - work to be fair. Fair IS NOT throwing those who gave into the system off the bus... Dems bankrupted the system - by taking money put in and spending it on their pet projects ( hint: project that pay off their pet victim group voters). There never was a 'lock box' just a place money dropped into and an IOU replaced it as it was falling.
People under 30 can be given a choice of privately funding their own retirement in an account that can't be touched or staying with what we have now... slowly we drop the current system and replace it with something honest. Something that will starve democrat hucksters who want to use every legitimate program to feed their addicted dependent ones... and pay their trolls to lie.
when they stole the money from the social security fund, sloshed it into the general fund, and then spent every last dime of America’s savings...
THAT’S when it became attached to the yearly expenditure.
DO NOT let them separate the two. CONSTANTLY remind everyone that the yearly spending is all inclusive.
we bring in 2 trillion in tax revenues... yet our debt has been increasing by $2 trillion/yr for the last 3 1/2 yrs.
even the kids in remedial math will tell you .. 2 + 2 = 4
$4 trillion PER YEAR is what they are spending. regardless of whether or not it’s being spent on social security and other entitlement programs (which is 65% of the federal spending)
We need to elect people who truly want to start paring these programs back. Pick a reasonable age and start telling these people the truth. The ride is coming to the edge of the cliff so you better get off and walk on your own two feet.
My beef is with the usual scammers who have turned Social Security into a life long check for gang bangers, alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals etc. NOW THAT'S something Americans don't want their Social Security being used for. Few of us begrudge Social Security being used to help out a widow and her children. But we do object to supplying walking around money for dependent drug addicts who spend more on drugs than than most working people make... then use Social Security to pay the rent ( if that's not being paid by Uncle Sam already)
I have no idea Starstruck why you attack the things that people care about about Social Security and ignore the blind sick payoffs dems use Social Security for to buy votes from the ones they keep dependent and broken ...
The disability payments for those who have chosen a disabled lifestyle should end immediately.
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