Social Security Expected to Dip Into Its Reserves This Year

it's not an earned benefit, like I just said. There isn't some fund where your contributions are sitting, accruing interest etc. Your SS payments are coming from people still in the workforce. If they ended SS tomorrow, you are not entitled to a penny.

 

You have no property right in that. It's entirely up to the Congress. It is, by the language of the law, an entitlement.

It's going to run out of IOUs soon enough. That's already happening. You voted for politicians who sold you a defective system and then you refused to vote for anyone who would have actually fixed it or simply abolished it. Now you want to saddle future generations with paying for your entitlement with their earnings which are already meager enough and taxed enough. They could revolt and you would quickly much of the value of your entitlement.

They'll cut SS to the bone and move anyone who doesn't have money into retirement camps. Three hots and a cot with weekly visits from your grandchildren.

 

You don't have any property right to those bonds that SS holds. The Congress does and they could rescind them from SS by a simply majority vote.

"Full faith and credit" simply means that current taxpayers will foot the bill for any bonds that come due. When SS goes to cash those bonds in, it comes out of current tax revenues along with the payroll taxes already collected. That means less spending elsewhere. Or, more debt. More debt means more inflation which means goods cost more and taxes hurt more.

The government can print limitless amounts. It cannot, however, create wealth by doing so. The money that was "paid into" Social Security has already been consumed and, in order to fund social security payments in the future, current taxes must be allocated above and beyond the payroll taxes.

That is the point. It doesn't matter how much shuffling there is, new wealth is not generated by it. The productive of today must pay for the excesses of the people who demand not only their Social Security retirements be funded, but that all of the excess money be spent on the wants of the time.

 

There is no trust fund. What the SSA calls a "trust fund" is like polishing a turd and calling it gold. It has nothing in common with a trust. No ownership, no property rights, no trustees with a stake, no settlors.

Every one of your personal, individual contributions was spent as soon as it came in. You already got the benefit of that governmetn spending, whether it was on a war, or welfare, or some highway repairs, or some other boondoggle sold to you by your rulers in Washington. Now you want your grandkids to pay extra to cover your retirement because you couldn't be bothered to vote the scammers out of office.

An honest-to-God fraud has been perpetrated on the American public (which could have paid more attention) for the last 80 years, and now people like you get angry because you've been taken advantage of and you insist that strangers owe you the money that they were not responsible for taking. Fraud is a crime and so is thievery.

 

I love your sense of humor, Ken. Oh, and BTW, I didn't get to vote for (or against) any of the politicians who passed SS or Medicare. Even I was far too young to be able to vote for people who saddled us with either of those things. But I was plenty old enough to start PAYING for these things... I got my SS card and started working gainfully when I was THIRTEEN years old....

Believe this if nothing else -- successful politicians understand that the worst thing they can do is to make deadly enemies out of 77,000,000 members of a generational bloc that is very well known for its voting participation. Uh, and no, I'm not talking about Millennials, Ken....

 

One doesn't earn anything by paying taxes. Well maybe other than staying out of prison.

 

Well, "turd", "fraud", gold-bar, or whatever. I've got my Social Security benefit now, Ken. And I'd like to see anybody try to take it away from me. Worrying about it is futile, and I wouldn't worry about it anyway. The SS system has been functioning properly for about 80 years. Why would it stop now when the economy is doing so very well, a tax cut is really beginning to take effect, unemployment is down to 3.8%, etc., etc. It would make more sense to worry about a gigantic asteroid smashing into the Earth, and you're welcome to worry about that, too, if you want to....

Me? I think I'll go fix myself a drink and watch another re-run episode of "Downton Abbey"....

."Actually, I'm not rich -- but I postponed taking my Social Security until age seventy!"

 

This is amazing! Why do so few of you people understand that SS is a TRUST FUND?
Link: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/describeoasi.html

You have your own individual, personal, private account within that trust fund! Don't believe it? Go to this site and see what you already have recorded there for your contribution to SS, year by year. And then see, based on that, what your payout will be when you decide to retire: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/

It's worked for 80 years... why do any of you think it's going to stop working now? I've been hearing about how SS is going to "run out of money" all my life... but it never has.

 

You actually don't have anything. You paid a tax and were promised welfare in the future. But the government can renege on that promise whenever the voters decide to do so.

 

Social security taxes are a tax you are required to pay. The government is not required to give you any more welfare payments than it chooses to do.

 

OK, Longshot, you have your vision of 'reality' (SS is only a mere tax and the promised benefits are mere "welfare"), and the Social Security Administration, which has been continuously and successfully in operation for 80 years, has a different reality. Do I have to post this again? Yes, I do, because some of you just don't GET it. The 'taxation' method is simply a convenient, logical venue through which the money has been extracted from our paychecks, since way before even I was born....

But as for the EARNED Social Security retirement benefit itself? IT'S A TRUST FUND!

trust fund
noun
noun: trust fund; plural noun: trust funds

1. a fund consisting of assets belonging to a trust, held by the trustees for the beneficiaries.

Please understand that this is not (NOT) my subjective interpretation of what SS is -- no -- it's what the Social Security Administration itself says it is: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/describeoasi.html . If you wish to dispute what Social Security is, go lecture the Social Security Administration! I'm sure they'll be absolutely enthralled to learn what your opinion of who and what they are really is!

. "We're SO glad you got us straightened out about what we do!"

 

Yeah, it's a trust fund. Until it's not.

 

That's a fair statement, and I do agree with you on this.

And somewhere in the future, if some bunch of conniving, confiscatory bunch of factional bureaucrats decide to try to "change the deal" and rob people who have been forced to PAY all their lives, we'll deal with them accordingly....

 

Violently???

If the government doesn't give you a check, that doesn't mean they've robbed you.

 

What is theft? What is robbery? Perhaps that determination, like the idea of 'beauty' is in the 'eye of the beholder'.

IMHO, anyone who tries to steal from you, and "change the deal" AFTER the fact, deserves to be shot, no matter how one tries to finesse the 'verbiage'. But, I'm sure you wouldn't agree. So, some day in the far, far future, if they decide to screw YOU, just roll over and try to enjoy it. From what I've observed of Millennials, it will be almost 'instinctual' to do so....

 

So if the government doesn't give you the money to which you think you are entitled you are going to commit violence? Against whom, exactly?

 

This is a senseless 'hypothetical', Longshot. The government isn't going to interrupt any Boomer's earned SS benefit... I think we both know that. If you're a Millennial, however, it may try to screw you! Would you commit violence to protect your ability to live if the government arbitrarily "changed the deal" and screwed you out of the money you had been promised from a TRUST FUND? Ah... another 'hypothetical'. You certainly don't have to rise to that kind of 'bait'. And neither do I....

Hint: "W" Bush tried to broach the possibility of 'privatizing' some or all of SS, on the basis of an individual's selection, and his little 'trial balloon' was shot down in flames... remember? Beyond that, the only two "big" political figures who have called for cuts in earned benefits, or the introduction of "means-testing" have been Republican 'Crusader Rick' Santorum and Republican New Jersey Gov. 'Buttertub' Chris Christie. Where are they now...?