• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Social Security Deficits Now Permanent

cpwill

DP Veteran
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Messages
75,493
Reaction score
39,817
Location
USofA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Conservative
Yup. The entitlements have now officially shifted from being a source of extra "revenue" (yay free money! yay hopefully never having to pay it back! we have to pay it back? yay for making our kids cover the tab!) to a drain on a General Budget that is already running an annual $1.5 Trillion Deficit.


Social Security will run a permanent yearly deficit when looking at the program’s tax revenues compared to what it must pay out in benefits, the program’s trustees said Friday in a report that found both the outlook for Social Security and Medicare, the two major federal social safety-net programs, have worsened over the last year...

The figures come as Congress and President Obama are wrestling over whether to make major changes to the entitlement spending, and Republicans said the new projections should force the debate to turn in their direction.

“Today’s report makes it clearer than ever that doing nothing is not an option. The failure to act means current as well as future beneficiaries, will face significant cuts even sooner than previously estimated,” said three top House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees both programs...

Social Security began running an annual deficit in 2010 when looking at tax income and benefit payments...



heyyyyyy, now this strikes me as the perfect time to create a brand-new huge entitlement! :roll: Obamacare, meet your doom - you have predecessors and they've already taken all the money.
 
.....and the Ponzi scheme begins to unravel.

A permanent yearly deficit is Liberalism realized......
.
.
.
.
 
Social Security's challenges are mild compared to those of Medicare. Moreover, Social Security can be fixed with some actuarial changes (eligibility age, benefit structure, funding, or some combination of the three). Medicare's challenges are far more complex. In part, they result, from problems inherent in the nation's health care system, specifically the excessive cost growth problem.
 
Social Security's challenges are mild compared to those of Medicare. Moreover, Social Security can be fixed with some actuarial changes (eligibility age, benefit structure, funding, or some combination of the three). Medicare's challenges are far more complex. In part, they result, from problems inherent in the nation's health care system, specifically the excessive cost growth problem.

Medicare's issues stem from the fact that making cuts hurts industry and thus affects the economy. A majority of healthcare funding in this country comes from Medicare. It's easy to say "cut medicare" unless you realize that at the same time you are saying "cut healthcare reimbursement to providers, thus cutting healthcare access/quality to patients." With a population that lives longer, and baby boomers entering the system (and likely stressing the hell out of it) the challenge of keeping medicare viable is astronomical.
 
Social Security's challenges are mild compared to those of Medicare. Moreover, Social Security can be fixed with some actuarial changes (eligibility age, benefit structure, funding, or some combination of the three). Medicare's challenges are far more complex. In part, they result, from problems inherent in the nation's health care system, specifically the excessive cost growth problem.

They are both screwed. If people with good will pay into these schemes expecting the promised benefits then they should realize those benefits. But their dreams will probably not be realized.

We can certainly be sympathetic but it's difficult to feel too much sympathy for those who believe the government will take their money and return it later with added benefits. This is a political Ponzi scheme invented by politicians whose only ambition is to gain political office in the short term, and promising to finance it with the the money of others.

The Greeks will finally realize the cupboard is bare and their experience should encourage everyone to look after their own futures rather than rely on politicians, who they never really trust anyway, to look after something as important as their health and retirement..

Rely on the government and odds are you're going to get dumped on, particular in the second and third generations of any promised benefits.
 
Last edited:
Yup. The entitlements have now officially shifted from being a source of extra "revenue" (yay free money! yay hopefully never having to pay it back! we have to pay it back? yay for making our kids cover the tab!) to a drain on a General Budget that is already running an annual $1.5 Trillion Deficit.

I suggest the following steps to solve the social security imbalance. If these steps are followed, the program could be made solvent into the foreseeable future:
1. Automatically raise the retirement age by 2 months every year.
2. Index starting benefits to price inflation, rather than wage inflation.
3. Index annual increases to a price inflation measurement that takes into account changes in buying habits, rather than the antiquated CPI.
4. Allow more legal immigration, so that we have more young people to balance the number of older people.
5. Means-test social security, so that we start reducing benefits when the recipient is earning around $150K per year, and phase them out entirely by $250K.
6. Increase the cap on taxable income for social security; we should be taxing at least up to $200K, rather than the $100K we tax now.

cpwill said:
heyyyyyy, now this strikes me as the perfect time to create a brand-new huge entitlement! :roll: Obamacare, meet your doom - you have predecessors and they've already taken all the money.

This assumes that the Affordable Care Act creates an expense out of thin air that previously did not exist. It already existed, it was just being paid in the private sector, or by the public in other ways. Had the ACA not become law, it would not change the underlying problem with rising health expenditures, it would just foist them off to individuals and/or make the public pay for it in more concealed ways (e.g. lost productivity from being sick, inefficient pricing mechanisms, etc.)
 
Last edited:
And to think it all started with that hero LBJ, no wait a minute he was a stupid racist idiot who was first to steal money from the Social Security Lock Box as "Al the damn fool "global worminger" Gore" would call it, and it's been a president that lives on to this day.
 
I suggest the following steps to solve the social security imbalance. If these steps are followed, the program could be made solvent into the foreseeable future:
1. Automatically raise the retirement age by 2 months every year.
2. Index starting benefits to price inflation, rather than wage inflation.
3. Index annual increases to a price inflation measurement that takes into account changes in buying habits, rather than the antiquated CPI.
4. Allow more legal immigration, so that we have more young people to balance the number of older people.
5. Means-test social security, so that we start reducing benefits when the recipient is earning around $150K per year, and phase them out entirely by $250K.
6. Increase the cap on taxable income for social security; we should be taxing at least up to $200K, rather than the $100K we tax now.

:shrug: i think your last point risks hurting more than it helps; but with that exception I would happily take all of these.

This assumes that the Affordable Care Act creates an expense out of thin air that previously did not exist.

it doesn't have to assume any such thing - the ACA objectively does do this. Specifically the subsidy for general middle-class health insurance.
 
I suggest the following steps to solve the social security imbalance. If these steps are followed, the program could be made solvent into the foreseeable future:
1. Automatically raise the retirement age by 2 months every year.
2. Index starting benefits to price inflation, rather than wage inflation.
3. Index annual increases to a price inflation measurement that takes into account changes in buying habits, rather than the antiquated CPI.
4. Allow more legal immigration, so that we have more young people to balance the number of older people.
5. Means-test social security, so that we start reducing benefits when the recipient is earning around $150K per year, and phase them out entirely by $250K.
6. Increase the cap on taxable income for social security; we should be taxing at least up to $200K, rather than the $100K we tax now.



This assumes that the Affordable Care Act creates an expense out of thin air that previously did not exist. It already existed, it was just being paid in the private sector, or by the public in other ways. Had the ACA not become law, it would not change the underlying problem with rising health expenditures, it would just foist them off to individuals and/or make the public pay for it in more concealed ways (e.g. lost productivity from being sick, inefficient pricing mechanisms, etc.)

There are always those who will come up with a myriad of ways government programs ought to work but in fact they never do over the long term. A teweak here or there won't matter at all/

Health insurance became less affordable the more it became less competitive. Big corporations took over the health care business the same way big government did, and the person in need of medical attention was left with less freedom of choice and greater costs.
'
Politicians often believe they have come up with foolproof systems that will work, particularly when anonymous taxpayer's money is being used but, as we see in Massachusetts, even very smart people cannot control a government bureaucracy, or the politicians with different philosophies who succeed them. We have to look after ourselves our families and our neighbors, all old fashioned virtues but ones that last.
 
it doesn't have to assume any such thing - the ACA objectively does do this. Specifically the subsidy for general middle-class health insurance.

It subsidizes health insurance, but insurance itself is not the issue...it's just a way of paying for health care. The reason insurance is expensive is because health care is expensive. For that matter, health care itself is just one of many ways of paying for health problems. People can seek treatment, or they can choose to be less productive and/or die earlier because they're sick, or they can choose to take care of themselves through behavioral changes they'd prefer not to make. But one way or another, people WILL pay for the fact that health problems exist.

Government-subsidized health insurance does not change this reality. It merely affects the WAY in which people choose to pay for health problems (e.g. more people seek treatment, fewer people choose to forgo it and be less productive) and it changes WHO is paying for it. Therefore I reject the notion that this is a "new entitlement" (in the sense that a new expense is suddenly being created that didn't exist before), because people have always had health problems and frequently have sought health care to solve those problems. The important question is how it affects the overall economic costs...and I'm including both the financial costs and the hidden costs.
 
Last edited:
I would not worry too much. If the GOP gets its way, the life expectancy will fall since the elderly cant get any healthcare since they dont have any money!.. so win win right?
 
Social Security's challenges are mild compared to those of Medicare. Moreover, Social Security can be fixed with some actuarial changes (eligibility age, benefit structure, funding, or some combination of the three). Medicare's challenges are far more complex. In part, they result, from problems inherent in the nation's health care system, specifically the excessive cost growth problem.

It can be fixed by ending the program. Now.

10 year, pay out by age grouping, oldest to youngest then END it.

Same thing with Medicaide and Medicare. You CANNOT make massive entitlement programs sustainable, all you can do is punt the issue.
 
It can be fixed by ending the program. Now.

10 year, pay out by age grouping, oldest to youngest then END it.

Same thing with Medicaide and Medicare. You CANNOT make massive entitlement programs sustainable, all you can do is punt the issue.

But then it's time to be honest, you either say "we're going to take care of our elderly" or "we're not going to take care of our elderly".

Be honest.

If you're a retired construction worker, you have athritis and you didn't make enough to pay for health care in old age, you're ****ed.

But that's ok as long as someone is willing to say "sorry chum, we can't afford you".

It's not wrong as long as you're honest about it.
 
But then it's time to be honest, you either say "we're going to take care of our elderly" or "we're not going to take care of our elderly".

Be honest.

If you're a retired construction worker, you have athritis and you didn't make enough to pay for health care in old age, you're ****ed.

But that's ok as long as someone is willing to say "sorry chum, we can't afford you".

It's not wrong as long as you're honest about it.

I think most of us would be willing to pay out what is supposed to be sent to current and about to be current retirees.
The problem arises that there are other options, that have been noted as being more successful than Social Security, yet so many resist them.

Chile is celebrating it's 30th anniversary with private retirement accounts, that have lower contribution requirements but typically pay out more than SS does.

Why should all of us be forced to "invest" in an inferior product because other people don't like choices?
 
Last edited:
But then it's time to be honest, you either say "we're going to take care of our elderly" or "we're not going to take care of our elderly".
That's a false choice that's couched in the LIE that only GOVERNMENT can take care of people. Listen to you lot, just listen to yourselves. "Oh woes us, if Government doesn't care for us, we're DOOMED!!!"

How silly, how pathetic you all sound. The politicians promise you a "safe" way, convince you that without their benevolent guidance, you will starve in the streets, die in the cold, weep alone. And instead of saying "Bugger off", you flock in fear of your own stupidity. What about personal responsibility? Oh wait, that's a scary term, it means planning, saving, being responsible. Can't have that, someone might screw up, and then what? Who saves them eh?

What happens when the whole system collapses under the weight of it's own stinking lies? The whole welfare state paradigm is built on sand, a house of cards just waiting for one good puff of wind to blow it all over.

Be honest.
I am being honest, you want honesty? How about you admit you're scared of growing up, taking care of yourself, better to let the State do it for you, cause you're afraid.

If you're a retired construction worker, you have athritis and you didn't make enough to pay for health care in old age, you're ****ed.
Oh noes! Scare tactics! What's next the race card? The "victim" card?

But that's ok as long as someone is willing to say "sorry chum, we can't afford you".
It's not "Sorry chum, we can't afford you." It's "Hey, you had choices, you live with them."

It's not wrong as long as you're honest about it.

It would help your case if you were honest, just for a moment. You're AFRAID.
 
That's a false choice that's couched in the LIE that only GOVERNMENT can take care of people. Listen to you lot, just listen to yourselves. "Oh woes us, if Government doesn't care for us, we're DOOMED!!!"

How silly, how pathetic you all sound. The politicians promise you a "safe" way, convince you that without their benevolent guidance, you will starve in the streets, die in the cold, weep alone. And instead of saying "Bugger off", you flock in fear of your own stupidity. What about personal responsibility? Oh wait, that's a scary term, it means planning, saving, being responsible. Can't have that, someone might screw up, and then what? Who saves them eh?

What happens when the whole system collapses under the weight of it's own stinking lies? The whole welfare state paradigm is built on sand, a house of cards just waiting for one good puff of wind to blow it all over.


I am being honest, you want honesty? How about you admit you're scared of growing up, taking care of yourself, better to let the State do it for you, cause you're afraid.


Oh noes! Scare tactics! What's next the race card? The "victim" card?


It's not "Sorry chum, we can't afford you." It's "Hey, you had choices, you live with them."



It would help your case if you were honest, just for a moment. You're AFRAID.

None of this right wing rhetoric bull**** is honestly worth a streak of piss.

I'm not ****ing afraid, I'm going to be just fine, and good you're honest, lets just hope if you get your way, and all of it is abolished, that you might not need it cause you fell on hard times.

Otherwise, I'll throw a quarter in your hat, private charity and all that.
 
None of this right wing rhetoric bull**** is honestly worth a streak of piss.
Yes, I suppose the left wing "The world will end, women and children and old people will STARVE AND DIE and LIFE WILL BE SUCK!!" if, we ended big government entitlement programs isn't the song of cowards afraid of their own existence, it's "reality!"

I'm not ****ing afraid, I'm going to be just fine, and good you're honest, lets just hope if you get your way, and all of it is abolished, that you might not need it cause you fell on hard times.
LIFE is hard times, grow up. No one owes me a penny, and I don't owe anyone jack ****. All Big Government Entitlement Programs are pathetic slugs of life demanding other people PAY FOR THEIR LIVES. "OH WOES ME!!! I FELL ON HARD TIMES!!! Oh Mr. Politician! Here's my vote!!! Give me other peoples hard earned labor! I don't give a rats ass about anyone else, gimmie gimmie gimmie!!!"
Otherwise, I'll throw a quarter in your hat, private charity and all that.

A quarter tossed to private charity is far more useful, moral and worth the effort then a dollar taken by the Government.

It's time people woke up, told the politicians "We aren't for sale, sorry old folks but NO, you cannot have our futures" and took folks like you aside and slapped the crap out of you for daring think you had a right to steal from us for your own greedy ends.
 
Last edited:
A difference in philosophy.

That's all that seperates us.

Problem is, the raving, mouth foaming way you put it, is irrelevent in totality.

You say, they should be ended, Republicans have held all levels of government at various points, why have they never ended it? Is it because perhaps they realise the human impact of such a decision?

You see government as the problem, and regardless of what you may think, I don't see government as a solution.

What I do see government as, is a medium, a tool. That WE THE PEOPLE control, I see a better use for government that is accountable to the people, then a private corporation with an agenda when it comes to citizens needs, rather then their wants.

A tool in which THE PEOPLE combine their recources to tackle a problem, whether it be the education of our children, the health of our people, and the defence of our nation.

You see Health Care as a priveledge, I see health care as a fundamental right for me and my fellow citizen, we stand as one, or we fall as one, a nation divided against itself cannot stand, for a nation to be prosperous in this century, it must unite itself and point itself in a single direction, it must commit itself to 21st century solutions that provide prosperity, gutting education, health and various other things will not achieve that goal.

And a disclaimer on that last point, yes I know more money doesn't mean better results, HOWEVER, where are the solutions then, its not as if cutting funding is magically going to fix the fact that America's schools are crumbling. And it's not entirely the unions fault either, I mean seriously, what happened to personal responsbility with the child and the parents. Oh wait I forgot there's an election next year, better hammer the left eh ;)

Anywho.

Yeah, Republicans have had plenty of oppertunity to gut the Dept. of Education, medicare and medicaid and Social Security, I mean **** Leave No Child Behind is the dumbest piece of **** legislation perhaps in Educational history...

Anyway.

Your opinion and my opinion will butt heads til the end of time, and I'm well aware that the reality is, you cannot afford to run these programs in the long term, but the other issue is, private health insurance has been butt ****ing the American Public for years now and it's going to continue.

The thing is, no solution is absolutely perfect, not yours, not mine, not anybody's, as Tony Blair once said

"All you can really do, is try to make most of the people happy, most of the time".
 

Most of the time, politicians don't this stuff because the political fallout is horrid, not because it may be better.

If good ideas based on real results, ruled the day, our world would be totally different.

Just don't ever trust that, because it hasn't been done, means that it is bad.
 
A difference in philosophy.

That's all that seperates us.

Problem is, the raving, mouth foaming way you put it, is irrelevent in totality.

You say, they should be ended, Republicans have held all levels of government at various points, why have they never ended it? Is it because perhaps they realise the human impact of such a decision?

You see government as the problem, and regardless of what you may think, I don't see government as a solution.

What I do see government as, is a medium, a tool. That WE THE PEOPLE control, I see a better use for government that is accountable to the people, then a private corporation with an agenda when it comes to citizens needs, rather then their wants.

A tool in which THE PEOPLE combine their recources to tackle a problem, whether it be the education of our children, the health of our people, and the defence of our nation.

You see Health Care as a priveledge, I see health care as a fundamental right for me and my fellow citizen, we stand as one, or we fall as one, a nation divided against itself cannot stand, for a nation to be prosperous in this century, it must unite itself and point itself in a single direction, it must commit itself to 21st century solutions that provide prosperity, gutting education, health and various other things will not achieve that goal.

And a disclaimer on that last point, yes I know more money doesn't mean better results, HOWEVER, where are the solutions then, its not as if cutting funding is magically going to fix the fact that America's schools are crumbling. And it's not entirely the unions fault either, I mean seriously, what happened to personal responsbility with the child and the parents. Oh wait I forgot there's an election next year, better hammer the left eh ;)

Anywho.

Yeah, Republicans have had plenty of oppertunity to gut the Dept. of Education, medicare and medicaid and Social Security, I mean **** Leave No Child Behind is the dumbest piece of **** legislation perhaps in Educational history...

Anyway.

Your opinion and my opinion will butt heads til the end of time, and I'm well aware that the reality is, you cannot afford to run these programs in the long term, but the other issue is, private health insurance has been butt ****ing the American Public for years now and it's going to continue.

The thing is, no solution is absolutely perfect, not yours, not mine, not anybody's, as Tony Blair once said

"All you can really do, is try to make most of the people happy, most of the time".


They have held power, and they have failed to do the right thing, because people are idiots. They don't care about tomorrow, they care about today. What can I have today > what might have to be paid for tomorrow.

Look around you Jet, Credit Cards maxxed, people buying homes they cannot afford, cars they cannot pay for. Politicians keeping false promises of a better tomorrow for votes to today in return for spending. Progressives, of all political stripes, that's who I blame.
 
They have held power, and they have failed to do the right thing, because people are idiots. They don't care about tomorrow, they care about today. What can I have today > what might have to be paid for tomorrow.

Look around you Jet, Credit Cards maxxed, people buying homes they cannot afford, cars they cannot pay for. Politicians keeping false promises of a better tomorrow for votes to today in return for spending. Progressives, of all political stripes, that's who I blame.

Yeah, because even you would vote for someone who says...

"Hey guys, from now on all our lives must be **** because we ****ed up as a nation."
 
In fact, you know whats even funnier, as my memory recalls, when someone in the Obama administration made the statement that the US no longer had the capacity to drive global growth because of long term problems, you called it "Un American". Wouldn't it be amazing if I had that quote somewhere.


Oh wait, here it is... :mrgreen:

And Duece agains adds nothing to a thread.

Why did America Elect such people taht have no faith in the Country? The shame of this Administration will take a generation to expunge.

So, when someone says reality, this is your response.

Cooooooooooooool
 
It is quite amusing to hear conservatives complain about S.S. as an entitlement and a bad thing, but then they themselves have no problem using it.

It's quite simple conservatives, if you think it is a drain on the budget, stop using it.
 
Yup. The entitlements have now officially shifted from being a source of extra "revenue" (yay free money! yay hopefully never having to pay it back! we have to pay it back? yay for making our kids cover the tab!) to a drain on a General Budget that is already running an annual $1.5 Trillion Deficit.






heyyyyyy, now this strikes me as the perfect time to create a brand-new huge entitlement! :roll: Obamacare, meet your doom - you have predecessors and they've already taken all the money.

Overstated just like foxnews...part of the scare campaign by the right...Im always suspect when either a right or left leaning outlet is the only one to report on something.
Social security needs fixed but not by giving tax cuts to the rich and corporations
 
Last edited:
Overstated just like foxnews...part of the scare campaign by the right...Im always suspect when either a right or left leaning outlet is the only one to report on something.
Social security needs fixed but not by giving tax cuts to the rich and corporations

You can tax the corporations all you want but they will just pass these costs on to the consumer, go broke, or leave. Looking for others to pay for political whims and societal security just doesn't work.

We can see that especially clearly in Europe right now. The problems they're experiencing now should have been predictable and obvious from the start yet people everywhere will ignore human experience and think that maybe, just maybe, this time it might work, The consequences are always debt and disappointment.
 
Back
Top Bottom