How about the one is this thread that says the US Congress will eventually fix the SS system, even if it is at the 11th hour? To make a post implying that SS won't eventually be fixed is just downright stupid.
Yes, it is stupid.
He obviously doesn't understand political strategy.
Remember the body armor thing?
The American people wanted soldiers to have body armor, so Congress must spend money in a must-pass Bill.
Naturally, the Democrats loaded the Bill with pork-amendments and ear-marks.
Congressman Steve Chabot (R) voted against the Bill on 8 different occasions, precisely because it was over-loaded with unnecessary pork and ear-marks. After the crap was removed, Chabot voted for it.
Then, in the next election, Steve Driehaus (D) runs commercials accusing Chabot of not wanting to help American soldiers because he voted against the Bill 8 times.
The commercials conveniently forgot to mention Chabot was voting against the pork and ear-marks, not the body armor.
Social Security is like that. By waiting to the 11th Hour, it becomes a must-have/must-pass Bill that can be loaded with all kinds of extraneous pork and ear-marks to bloat the deficit.
Then, if you don't vote for a Bill loaded with pork and ear-marks, you get accused of being against the American people.
That's part of the strategy and both parties do it, but Democrats by far are the worst.
My friends, we have had dozens of threads on Social Security and needing a fix. I am beginning to question if anyone really understands how Social Security interacts with the General Fund when looking over the Social Security Administration numbers for FY2018 to the projections for FY2020.
There is no interaction. They are two totally separate independent things.
It is true that money from the General Fund is used to buy the special treasury securities in the OASI Trust Fund and convert them to cash for payment of benefits, but it's also true that interest rates on those special treasury securities are much higher -- some as high as 11%-- than marketable treasury bills, bonds and notes, so that it costs you less to service General Fund debt than it does to service OASI Trust Fund debt.
As of April 2019 (the last annual report from the SSA) we are on course to have full benefits by the Fund assets well into 2034, with combined (reserves) taking us 1-2 years past that. On top of that we are seeing net asset increases year on year (been the case for several years now.)
It's also true that the Trustees never take recessions into account, and you are likely to have two recessions, possibly three recessions before 2034.
I am also on record as suggesting that you will have real Monetary Inflation from about 2025 on (to about 2034), so that the COLA increases will be double-digit COLA increases like the 10%-14% COLA increases in the 1970s and 1980s that will eat up the Trust Fund faster.
I project 2027-2028 as the date of default.
What is the actual problem we are debating?
The funding formula for Social Security (and Medicare) is just simple 6th Grade Math:
Revenues = # of Workers * Wages * FICA Tax Rate
From our 6th Grade Math classes, we know that if we increase or decrease any one of the factors, the product will increase or decrease accordingly.
Let's examine.
Increasing wages will not help Social Security, since benefits are based on wages. Increase wages and you increase benefits to get an off-set, so that fails.
Initially, you had 156.4 workers for each Social Security beneficiary. That ratio has dwindled to 2.6 workers for each beneficiary. You are effectively 11 Million workers short and even if you got all 5.5 Million currently unemployed jobs by 8:00 AM tomorrow and you sent your army to foreign countries and kidnapped 5.5 Million workers, brought them back to the US and got them jobs by 8:00 AM tomorrow you'd have to maintain a 0.0% UE Rate for the next 200 years.
That would cost a lot to use your army to kidnap 5.5 Million workers.
Or, you could just raise the FICA Payroll Tax from 6.2% for employer and employee to 8.0%-8.2% for employer and employee and be done with it.
Your ratio of workers to beneficiaries will decline to 2:1 by 2040, but the good news is it will remain that for the next 200 years.
So, all you need to do is step-increase the FICA tax rate to 8.0%-8.2% through 2030 and Social Security will be solvent for the next 200 years.
(CBPP: Ten Facts).
