‘Real News From The Blaze’: Social Security ‘Drop Dead’ Date Looms
- Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:13pm by
Christopher Santarelli
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Social Security is dangerously close to insolvency. Who’s saying this now? Not only Rep. Paul Ryan, conservative commentators and right-wing think-tanks, but the program’s trustees.
The Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) sent out their 242-page 2012 report to Congress yesterday revealing that thanks to retiring baby boomers, a weak economy and weaker political backbone to address needed policy reforms, the trust funds that support Social Security will run dry by 2033; three years earlier than previously projected. Some analysts predict that the SSTF will be exhausted as early as 2026.
“Real News” opened Tuesday night discussing just how serious this problem is and if anything can, or should, be done to save Social Security. Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, joined the panel to discuss the upcoming “Social Security D-Day.”
De Rugy speculated that at the pace we are on now, the Social Security “drop dead” date will continue to creep up faster, especially when there isn’t a bipartisan effort on Capitol Hill to fix the problem.
“It‘s a system that’s not sustainable in the long run no matter how much taxes you’re going to collect,” de Rugy commented on the fund. “Even if you were to raise the cap, you could only collect an additional amount of taxes that will cover just a small share of the promise benefits.
“Politicians have made too many promises.”
De Rugy believes it’s unlikely that the problem will come to the point where the fund is empty, but legislators will eventually be unable to ignore the situation, and react with a dramatic reduction of benefits. From there, the government could continue the benefit reductions or reform the system entirely. De Rugy commented that if changes are not made now, even those who have paid into the system will still see a dramatic reduction of benefits because the money is just not there.
“People have paid into the system, but that doesn’t matter, even legally,” said de Rugy.
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packsack54
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 10:03amMost people forgot about the 2% tax holiday? It from the SS taxes, not from your income withholding, Which goes to the Federal Reserve for interest. Look on youtube for Aaron Russo, Freedom to Fascism. If the debt rises as fast in the last 10 years, SS willbe broke in half the time. May guess is the 2018 not 2033?
Report Post »Rarejewel
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 11:34pmThere is something I just don’t understand. I remember back when Clinton was in office and he borrowed money from the SS Fund and put IOUs in to balance the budget. It was either 4.2 OR 2.4 Trillion. I checked a while back about this through Google- I believe it was written as 4.2 Trillion. Now does Obama and Geitner know about it? My point- the Fund is not going broke. Interest should be added too, I would think. I wish someone smarter than me would check this out and get the facts together and get it to these cronies in DC. How many times over the past 3 1/2 years has Obama said seniors might not get their checks. Also needs to get on the news. I will certainly do my part. So many of the sites that I collected info before the 2008 election have been removed. Some of us OLD seniors have steel trap minds. I thougt it was against the law to borrow from the SS Fund.And what happened to the IOUs-America’s Seniors need an explanation.
Report Post »NoSocialistRetards
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 11:06pmWhy don‘t they get the non state islands that don’t pay into these system backoff it? I had a woman from the Virgin Islands ask me if I would accept section 8 for rent. She and her husband work for the Virgin Island government and on the benefits. They know how to brake us financially.
Report Post »billstanley
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 9:50pmIf my Social Security taxes had been placed in a private account and earned only 4.34% per year, the current monthly interest would be equal to the monthly payment I receive. When I die, my heirs would receive $345,000. Instead, they will receive nothing from Social Security. http://www.newsandopinions.net
Report Post »Military Vet
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 8:12amOur system of government is not sustainable. There will be a reckoning and it will be painful. Social Darwinism will impose itself on our culture one way or another. To believe differently is simply to be in denial.
Report Post »54smom
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 12:24amThese people are nuts. I went into the state office to pay my sales tax. And I noticed a bulletin for
Report Post »a self reliance program, They teach you about food stamps, medicaid, child care services and financial assistance. Really? Self Reliance. WE are in sooo much trouble.
Cosmos102
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 10:31pmKinda like Union Pensions. The Pyramid Scheme is crumbling.
Report Post »liberty49
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 7:59pmSince the Democrats removed SS from the lock-box and put it into the general fund so that it could be spent, it is nothing more than a PONZI scheme! And now they have voted to give benefits to illegals who have NEVER paid into the system, too.
Report Post »MrKnowItAll
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:25pmHugh Hefner and many others with self supporting income get to collect. Sorry, but if you have over one million dollars in cash and assets. You shouldn’t get a check. That’s the kind of things the commies say…
Report Post »The real answer is….Yes they should if they paid in. Social Security did have the money for over 100 years in payments. It’s now I.O.U. paper. This entire problem was caused by our Elected officials. I started working at age 15 on the books. Every year since then, my Social Security they take from my check get’s bigger and bigger. This was a Self Solving Problem. But NO! Instead of keeping everything straight. Money continues to be taken for anything our Dis-honorable leader’s want it for. Think of all the people who do not live to collect. Think of all the people who don’t know how to collect and never do. There is many more than you would EVER think. Can’t talk about that though. I know many REALLY, TRULY Disabled people who get Denied and Give up permanently trying. Can’t talk about that either. It doesn’t fit the Agenda of how Crooked Our Leaders have became.
Cosmos102
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 10:39pmSocial Security is bankrupt because it takes in much less per man and woman than it pays out. You didn’t pay enough into SS to justify the amount you will use when you retire. SS was never a good plan and actually the Democats in the House rejected it when FDR tried to sell it to them. At the time, there were no entitlement programs as there are now. I believe the Blue Ridge Pwy highway system that spans across the Southern States of VA to Tennessee were used as the bribing mechanism to get SS approved. Congress always knew this. It was introduced as a way for Democrats to buy the people’s votes.
Report Post »deac0n
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:25pmssi was modeled after the railroad pention fund which had to go to 50% of a workers paycheck to stay solvent. go figure
Report Post »abbygirl1994
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:13pmSeems to me the trillions they have stolen from Social Security.. Last I read it was 2.5 trillion.. pay it back and Social Security will be fine. When will American’s realize that we have thugs in Washington.. who have helped themselves to the money we put into our SS funds for close to 50 years! Thieves, pure and simple.. Thieves! Lord help us!
Report Post »deac0n
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:27pmwhat you dsay is not true , please check your facts.
Report Post »Teaparty-grammy
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:32pmI have watched in weary amazement as the ethically challenged politicians–the VERY same politicians who “pretended” to be balancing the budget by looting the Social Security fund now speak with curled lip about “those entitlement programs” and imply that all us OLD people who had the nerve to expect them to pay the benefits we had paid for our entire working lives are somehow to blame for this situation.
They all KNEW that Baby Boomers would soon start to retire, and that the money Boomers paid in would be needed to pay those benefits, and yet that did not stop them from stealing the money. But nobody is talking about how they stole the money. All we hear about is what a problem the Baby Boomers are. WHEN will these lying, thieving SOBs be held accountable for the billions they have stolen from that fund? If anybody adminstering a private retirement fund did what they had done, they would be in JAIL.
Report Post »Teaparty-grammy
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:41pmOf course in addition to stealing the money to “balance the budget”, they also used it to pay benefits to illegal aliens and all kinds of people who never paid into the system–now THERE is an actuarial train wreck waiting to happen! And now that the bill has come due, they are blaming EVERYBODY except themselves–the THIEVES who stole the money.
Maybe Social Security is a failed experiment that was unsustainable and bound to fail in the long run, but these thieving, lying politicians have certainly hastened its demise by paying out benefits to people who never paid into the system to buy votes, and stealing the money so they could pretend to be “balancing the budget” and making budget deficits and government debt appear smaller than they actually were. The big reason for all the panic we’ve seen about the budget lately was these thieves KNEW the cookie jar was empty–because they had stolen it all, and they would no longer have money from the Social Security fund to cover their sorry a$$es and hide from the public just how badly they had mismanaged taxpayer money.
They stole the money and filled the“Social Security trust fund” with worthless IOUs, which they now cannot make good (gee, who could have predicted THAT would happen!)
Report Post »IMAWAKENOW
Posted on April 25, 2012 at 12:18amGrammy, you are exactly right. There are thousands if not millions of young able bodied folks collecting social security checks and not working at all. Watch day time TV and notice all the commercials with lawyers shilling for cliants to go on SSDI. I really doubt that I will see a dime even after paying in for 40+ years so far.
Report Post »Stu D. Baker-Hawk
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:09pm…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…
(Excerpt from The Declaration of Independence — 4 July 1776)
Our elected representatives have failed us to sure ruin; if ever we needed to throw off such Government, it is NOW.
Report Post »c0mm0nsense
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:55pmRep. Paul Ryan plan balances the budget in 30 years. I don’t think that will save the Republic, but a nice thought. Only 1 man has a plan to balance the budget in 3 years.
Ron Paul
Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.
Without large cuts Federal spending S.S. and the other Social Program are sure to default on there promises. Wonder what the streets will look like then?
Report Post »THXll38
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:08pmShame on you! You said a bad word in the eyes of many Blaze readers — Ron Paul. Although I agree with you, I am not sure if Americans are ready to cut the budget and get our country back on track to a constitutional republic. To many, that would be scary and could infringe on their subsidies requiring them to be productive and self-reliant citizens.
Report Post »Sue Dohnim
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:33pmUnfortunately it is too late,,,
Even a balanced budget won’t work, the interest and rollover requirements are unsustainable. The only thing keeping the Ponzi scheme going is Fed intervention to keep rates artificially low. There is not enough money in the world to keep this thing going at current debt levels. It will default either slow and controlled aka “currency devaluation” or a fast hyper inflationary depression.
Also, if the FED stops the liquidity pump (debt expansion) the world economies will collapse as the US dollar is the global reserve, global liquidity squeeze. If that happens the world will abandon the US dollar as a reserve and the US dollar would collapse causing US internal massive inflation and probably collapse. That reserve status has enabled the US to maintain a much higher standard of living than otherwise.
The game is expand the debt or die and devalue the currency/debt. a very narrow rope to walk.
A real Ponzi dilemma…
I am sure Soros is shorting already….
Report Post »THXll38
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:55pm43 mins of pure Ron Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kG2uDf2F3cA#!
Enjoy!
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:52pmI have been living with this knowledge since I was four in 1960, when I listened to a speech by Hubert Humphrey on my Transistor Radio. Where he said that if SS was not fixed right then and there children entering school then would not have SS when they retire (10 YRS )
Report Post »oyster0302
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:42pmSign on some more phoney disability claims, some more illegal aliens, throw some more partys in Vegas. A ponzi scheme to begin with was made worse when money was diverted to general budget. I’me pissed!!!!!!!
Report Post »FedUpAlready
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 10:30pmI was forced to sign into Medicare when I retired, and I pay out of my $219 ss check $110.00 for Part B coverage and pay for a Supplimental plan at $190.00 a month. As Medicare benefits errode, medicaid benefits seem to increase, This Ponzi scheme has only benefitted the Federal Government,
If I were the working Class now, I would refuse to pay for medicare and SS, It’s no more then a rouse to take your money and give you back Nada, nothing ,zilch, scata, under the cover of Ponzi schemes, and, scams.
SS and Medicare are Ponzi schemes with the only beneficiaries being the federal Government, and all the illegals, and, scam artists and drug addicts, illegals, down right lazy pieces of crap.
Report Post »Netsurfer2
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:40pmI’m not counting on any Social Security even though I pay into it and wonder why! The government has never been able to manage anything regardless of what program they make! They have spent our money on people who do not deserve any of it and even then, those that died and never got it who had no one next of kin to take it the government squandered. I don’t trust the system and their lawyers! None of them are worth trusting in our society and I still don’t understand why I cannot manage my own Social Security that I have paid into all these years? I have an IRA that I never touch and it would the the same way with SSI.
The truth will set you free! Hard times are coming!
Report Post »Sue Dohnim
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:38pmThis fund is empty now… the ponzi has run out. New money pays all recipients..
Remember the debt ceiling fiasco, Obama said that SS won‘t go out if it wasn’t raised..
Was it a lie, NO, the cash is gone and replaced with “special non marketable Securities” not an IOU but an IOUU. The taxpayer owes it to themselves. Socialism is ponzinomics…
Report Post »Psychosis
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:36pmdont fix it
let it go unsolvent ………………we can then blame the do nothing democrats , the spend and spend democrats , the spend and spend reps , and do away with this bit of socialism forever
we then can do it right and create private retirement plans like they have in chile ………..with NO ABILITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO SPEND Y O U R MONEY
Report Post »Exrepublisheep
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:44pmAfter the great die off (1/13ish) when the old repubes off themeselves there will be plenty of money left.
Report Post »LeadNotFollow
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:31pm…
Report Post »Been paying into SS my whole adult life, but will probably never see a penny of it back into my pocket.
oyster0302
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:45pmBut Pedro, Poncho, and my worthless cousin will!
Report Post »Conservative_T-Rex
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:20pmYeah, I don’t plan on seeing anything from Social Security. Chalk that one up in the moron column for progressivism.
see if u can ID fox news personalities quiz: http://www.sporcle.com/games/Bohnfather/fox-news-personalities
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:19pmOh, yeh… and the PayRoll Tax Cut… of Contributions to SS… had nothing to do with it!
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 9:20pm50 years of (i will be polite) GROSS MISMANAGEMENT by everyone in that God forsaken town; has more to do with it than the current Dem inspired 2% cut.
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 8:18pmHeaven forbid the Democrats ADMIT there is a problem and try and DEAL with it before the 2012 elections! Paul Ryan has been right all along, that’s why they hate him and attack him so much. FOOLS.
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