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To: Kaslin

Why is this guy fixated on Social Security? There is still, on paper a $4.6 trillion surplus in the SS trust fund. SS could be repaired over the years if Congress and the President would only do it. Shortfalls stay around $100 - $200 billin per year for another decade, small stuff in current federal budget terms. - SS could be fixed.

Maybe he should tell us how the future funding for Medicaid and food stamps looks. Lots of folks paying into specific funds to fund those? Poverty programs already cost $1 trillion plus annually and will only grow in the future with current programs and Obamacare deficits.

Instead of using scare tactics by looking 75 years into the future of SS, people need to be looking at next year and the next decade and start making changes in all unsustainable programs.


15 posted on 08/11/2014 9:51:12 AM PDT by Will88
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To: Will88
There is still, on paper a $4.6 trillion surplus in the SS trust fund. SS could be repaired over the years if Congress and the President would only do it. Shortfalls stay around $100 - $200 billion per year for another decade, small stuff in current federal budget terms. - SS could be fixed.

The SSTF is part of the $17 trillion national debt. They are held under Intra-governmental Holdings as distinguished from the publicly held portion of the debt. There is no "surplus,s" but rather interest-bearing , non-market T-bills that must be redeemed by the General Fund to make up the shortfalls. The current amount is about $2.8 trillion.

SS is a pay as you go system. Today's workers pay for today's retirees. SS has been running a shortfall since 2010, i.e., revenue received is less than benefits paid out. In order to make up the shortfall, SS cashes in some of the T-bills in the SSTF. The General Fund must come up with money. Since we borrow 40 cents of every dollar spent, we borrow money to redeem the SS T-bills,

Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.

And Medicare is in far worse shape. 40% of all Medicare funding comes from the General Fund. Currently, $233 billion came from the General Fund. Medicare has been running in the red since 2008.

This graph shows that the average man and woman (average defined in the study as average income over their working lives and living to the average life expectancy) who start receiving benefits in 2010 get over 3 times more in benefits than they pay in to the system! Of importance, the study accounts for inflation by calculating all past taxes and future payments in 2010 dollars to provide an accurate comparison.

If the notion that Medicare recipients are simply "getting back what they paid in" is false then where is the money coming from? Simply, the excess received is being borrowed from younger generations and the cost is more than we can bear.

21 posted on 08/11/2014 10:48:04 AM PDT by kabar
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