However, spread out over the the 14 1/2 years since 9/11, that's $828 per capita annually. In comparison to the roughly $30,000 maximum SS retirement payment, it's not enough to make all that much of a difference. In addition, the wars are a "sunk cost" at this point. Of course we should investigate why 106 year olds are cashing SS checks. It shouldn't be all that difficult to confirm that a SS recipient is still breathing.
There are actuarial problems regarding the SS retirement system but there's still plenty of time to resolve them. Actuarially, 80 is the "new 60", and I see plenty of 60-somethings out jogging. Eventually raising the minimum age or partly taxing benefits would be the low-hanging fruit.
The bigger problem is SSDI, it follows that it must contain fraud and abuse, since applications appear to move in tandem with the unemployment rate. If the gov't is lax about investigating SS retirement payments that don't make any sense, I doubt it expends more effort investigating the much more difficult to investigate SSDI recipients as carefully as private DI insurers do.
