Social Security Has “A Large and Growing Surplus”

So the next time the GOP lies, at least you will know that they are lying and that their ultimate goal is to privatize it and give it to Wall Street like a big fat wet French kiss.

And this is why I respect Senator Sanders....

 

A progressive respects a self-identified socialist. There's a big surprise.

This article is nearly 2 years old. Why is it a "current event"?

Despite your article's cheery optimism, even the Social Security Administration paints a much darker picture

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/

 

If an average worker were to invest in a low to moderate risk product the 15.3% they now pay into combined Social Security & Medicare, with average wage increases over their 45-50 year working career they would own an account worth over $1.2 million (adjusted), which they can draw down on the interest only and pass the principal on to their heirs, should they choose.

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme.

 

So, the next time a liberal lies, do a little checking. Lying is what leftists have to do since they have so little support.

 

Wow, you really couldn't have been more wrong. Check out the Social Security Trustee Report

Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010 and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period.

So we're not in a surplus, we're in a deficit and have been since 2010.

Redemption of trust fund asset reserves from the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits. Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2019, reserves of the combined trust funds will continue to grow but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2013, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.) After 2019, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of combined trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report.

So we're getting by on the trust fund surplus we've had and it will be exhausted in 2033. Then we're screwed.

I'm really curious, considering all this news about the program, with the date the program being unable to pay out all it's benefits bouncing around from 2035 to (now) 2033, that has been the case for almost 20 years. How could you not know about that?

 

The only reason lefties want SS to remain totally govt controlled is so they can pilfer it.

 

Lefties will not admit that it was a short sighted program to start with. It assumes that there will be an equal number of working people and retirees at any given point. Life expectancies have increased dramatically and there is no adjustment available for that. Add to that the disability benefit fraud that is rampant and you have a real problem.

 

Oh that's not right. democrats are going to have to spend that surplus. Can't have money laying around. That just isn't the liberal way.

 

Why in the hell do the elite see you and your group of yahoo's as an answer. You come in to a neighbourhood of which I have lived in since 1990, indoctrinate us all with your racist racial profiling bull(*)(*)(*)(*), you think mind reading and control is normal and not a violation of any human rights. When will the elite just tell you and your stupid gang to get lost and just all do their jobs properly for the greater good - without you (who ever you actually are), Owen, Graham, Mike, Stewart or Andrew thinking you know better or thinking you should have such power by entitlement.

When will you just cut the bull(*)(*)(*)(*) and help the community but without thinking you are so important, so special, and heaven and earth have to move for you at the click of your fingers because you think you are (*)(*)(*)(*)ing gods. We would all be a lot better off without you, I know I certainly would be.

Why in the hell can't you be more humble about yourselves the self-importance is just astonishing.

I'm not going to the Catholic church, and I haven't done so despite being felt like I have been enormously pressured to over the past eleven years. This is just all some big game by British, South American, Polynesian and Maori criminals. I am not driving that stupid (*)(*)(*)(*)ing Toyota either, I am much happier with my Renault and would be moreso if it would operate to its full capability without modifications done to it by some *******n Hitler Youth from Hamilton.

I want to get out of this (*)(*)(*)(*)ing town anyway and when I get my money I will be just gone and you can do what you please, without me.

You log on here and say this and that critically about governments around the world and the world we live in when you are the cause of it all. Not me, you and your (*)(*)(*)(*)ing tyrannical, murderous, sick, racist and perverted illuminati with some old dirty bastard named Keith Rupert Murdoch supporting you.

My god I hope you people get thrown in jail or in a coffin where you belong before you kill us all.

 

Well, there is this guy. Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't call him a leftist, but I'll bet you do.

 

are you serious?

From your Quote
Is Social Security "going broke"?

No! Social Security is not going broke. According to the Social Security Administration, the Social Security Trust Fund has a surplus today of $2.8 trillion. This sum, plus revenue that comes in every day, can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 20 years. In 2033, unless Congress acts, Social Security will be able to pay out only 75 percent of benefits owed. Congress must act and make Social Security strong for the next 50 to 75 years.



He basically says its not going broke, except when it is... in twenty years....

wtf?

Hes an obvious liar, attempting to deceive.

 

Right, and if you believe that, I have a really nice bridge in Arizona -- I'll make you a special deal on it.

With umpteen gazillion Baby Boomers circling like vultures over the retirement payoff carcass, we're really really sure there's this vast, totally overabundant surplus in Social Security. Right.

 

As I see it, in actual practice Social Security is the mother of all earmarking schemes. We take a certain percentage of most payroll taxes and call them "FICA tax". They we take the income from those taxes, and the income from bond dividends from money already invested, and money from taxing back the money we paid those collecting Social Security, and we have the general fund "borrow" it all for immediate expenses, for which the SSA has bonds. Bonds are IOUs, nothing else.

Now, looking at the entire federal budget, we find that social security payouts have until recently been smaller than the earmarked payroll taxes. Today, those payouts aren't quite covered by the earmarks, but they ARE covered by interest income and by taxing benefits. In other words, the SSA is selling those bonds. By 2033, if the Social Security payroll earmark is not increased somehow, the bonds will be gone and the general fund will have to pay into, rather than suck out of, Social Security funds.

So if we can conceptually clear away the bookkeeping sleight of hand, and regard federal income from ALL sources as "income" and federal expenses for ALL purposes as "expenses", we're back where we knew we were - spending more than we're collecting, and running steady (if variable) deficits every year. With a little creative re-labeling, we could easily create the impression that Social Security is either fabulously wealthy and will never run out, or that it is and always has been a simple drain on the budget, for which there never has been or ever will be a "fund" earmarked for anything. And both impressions would be equally correct, without changing the fiscal reality in either case.

From this Olympian perspective, we can see that paying people a stipend after a certain age is a burden on federal expenses proportional to the size of the cohort receiving the stipend - regardless of where we choose to say the money is coming from. And the size of the cohort in turn is a function of two factors - the average length of eligibility time and the demographics of the nation.

When SS first started, the stipulated elibility age (65) was selected because 65 was the average lifespan of American taxpayers. Half of all workers didn't live long enough to become eligible at all, and most of those who did live that long, didn't live much longer. Today, the average lifespan is 84, and the earliest eligibility age is down to 62. So that's 22 years of eligibility on average.

On top of this is the baby boom, which is considered to have extended from 1946 to 1964. So not only are people living a lot longer, but currently those born during the "age lump" baby boom are entering eligibility age. I picture a snake that ate a pig, and you can see the pig moving through the snake. So we have this double whammy, with increased longevity and a growing disproportionate number of the elderly.

But fortunately, the pig will move through the snake and come out the nether end. And when that has happened, the number of workers supporting each social security recipient will have doubled. This will take off some of the pressure on those currently age 30 or less. Depending on how the accounts get jiggered around, of course. But however it gets done, the fact is that America faces a period with an abnormally high percentage of the elderly.

 

and those that did not save, society would still have to take care of them, were not Mexico, were not gonna throw granny out in the street

just like two incomes became the norm, social security tax free income would become the norm, thus still not able to save, electric bills ect would just rise to fill the void


.

 

We have no obligation to care for the lazy or inept. Bring back the 'poor houses' or let them sell all the toys they wanted instead of saving.

 

so you would just throw the elderly out to the street, get real....

I will take our system, the ones our grandparents paid in to for the elderly of their day, the one we pay into for the elderly of our day

too much of the me me me mentality these days, I hear Mexico has the system you prefer....

.

 

The "elderly" often have a home paid for (eliminate socialist style property taxes) and savings. If they didn't save and have no money, then it sucks to be them. Don't ask me to support them.

 

SS is nowhere near going broke. No news there. To say it is, as democrat contenders are wont to do, is merely their war on old people in their ridiculous attempts to deceive and scare them. Unfortunately, it works. Little old ladies fret and stew and worry for nothing.

 

There are no guarantees (read the disclaimers that companies post) with a 401.k; merely speculation. You can either do well depending on the economy or do lousy if the economy tanks. The only guarantee that you'll have is that the clearing houses will make a small fortune off of people.

 

I'll go further than that.It's not that there are no guarantees. It's more like there are guarantees that the economy will tank again, once the dust finally settles from all the Wall Street shenanigans of the Great Recession.

 

you can support the republicans tax cuts for the rich, we can help support the elderly

 

what I'm talking about!

 

Here's where this sht really comes from, you have to dig a bit

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/about/coalition

I draw attention to this via ad hominem because of the dishonest way the OP source is titled and purposeful newspeak, positioned as a legitimate news story ripe to be repeated out through the leftosphere, it's like a f-ing borg machine and this thread and the OP source are perfect examples. OP's source (yeah I know it's old) is a staging ground for the union label sewer, not any kind of source of any factual data, as several have already pointed out upon cursory review of the actual SS trustee report.

Unions and leftist lobbies. No wonder they constantly bltch about the Kochs, they can't stand the thought of their propaganda being diluted by ANYTHING on the other side, by any reasoned analysis. Folks, if you want to get pretty close to seeing the source of the entire leftosphere, where all these blogs come from, probably where lots of LW posters here originate, just review that list. There's where the real influence is peddled, anything of the nonleft is TAME in comparison. They are usually smart enough to hide these types of lists away where we can't see them. All you need to know in combination with the insane cherrypicking, context omitting, constant BS they peddle hoping you are stupid enough to buy it. Are you? I'm not.

Why can't they EVER create a valid, direct, simple, contextual argument stating their actual case in an unadorned way without this kind of crap sandwich they constantly try to sell us? Is there policy or what passes for it THAT F-ING WEAK? 100s of times a day on this forum alone this stuff goes on. Should social security be privatized? Should it not? Should it be reformed? Not? Unfortunately we will never ever get to any kind of legitimate policy discussion about SS or most any other issue through all the mountains of union label horseturd and the outpouring of the stinky leftist sewer pipe. Is it purposeful? Is it some gap in basic reasoning capacity? I have to go with the former because I simply can't believe people who can read and type could possibly be that stupid and easily manipulated.

 

So it is a pile of IOUs after all?

Just what do you think government bonds are?

Unless the government cannot pay back all this debt.

How do you suppose the Treasury is going to start paying off all this debt to the Social Security fund? Take on more debt elsewhere?

 

And you think this post is helpful? Social Security is fine the way it is. It works.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3261