Friday, September 25, 2009

Don't Want to Alarm You....But Social Security Will Be Out of Cash in 2010

Not 2075 as some of the pointy-heads, budget policy wonks and program apologists have claimed.

Not 2032 as previously hoped. Not even 2017 when the so-called 'Social Security surplus' lines were supposed to have started to cross with actual cash payments to recipients, according to numerous past reports and estimates. (the dates have been moving around like cockroaches when you turn on the lights)

Next year. 2010. You can count on it.

This does not mean that the Social Security program will end tomorrow. What is does mean is that the payroll tax part of the funding equation no longer covers the entire cost of the program. And that means, you, as the American taxpayer, will start to pay for Social Security benefits from your general tax payments next year in 2010.

Or we will just load that up on your children's tab again, just like we always seem to have been doing lately. They are going to feel like Atlas holding up the world pretty soon.

We refer you to two other blogs that have sent out the Paul Revere-alarm bells this week on this subject for those of you patriots who want to be truly informed, and not ‘influenced’ by the talking heads you see on cable, hear on the radio or the politicians who want to tell you “their” version of the story. To learn more in detail, click on the aptly-named ‘HotAir’ and then the excellent posting of a true Social Security expert, Andrew Biggs

The bottom-line is this: There will be more cash going out the door to Social Security recipients than is coming in from payroll tax revenue next year in 2010. Remember, the ‘interest’ on the so-called “Social Security trust fund’ is bogus. It is ‘imputed’ interest meaning ‘assumed’ interest….as if the underlying ‘trust fund’ (which also is not in existence) were a true trust fund earning interest. (see Social Security)

These numbers are just accounting entries made up by some accountant in the federal government, most likely at OMB or the Treasury.

But these numbers are hard and real: 2009- Revenues into Social Security = $688 billion. Out-go = $670 Billion. $18 billion in the black, or good, side of the ledger.

2010- Revenues to SS = $692 billion. Out-go = $703 billion in cash payments that have to be made to current Social Security recipients.

$11 billion in the hole on a cash basis. Next year. 2010. In Social Security.

Why have you not heard more about this crisis? Well, because we have already spent $4 trillion of your children’s money in the last year or so to fix the banks; the US auto industry; AIG; build bridges in a stimulus plan that doesn’t seem to be too ‘stimulating’ right about now and possibly another $1 trillion or so on health care expansion.

The ‘day of reckoning’ or the proverbial ‘chickens coming home to roost’ is now upon us to fix and deal with, not on some unborn future generation but on living breathing Americans like your children and grandchildren.

The question for us today is really this: “Will the Boomer generation stand up to their promise as a ‘great, creative, altruistic’ Age of Aquarius generation of Americans and make the bold political decisions necessary to fix this alarming situation?”

We now have a government ‘of the persuaders and partial truth-tellers’; ‘by the fabrications of the politicians and political consultants’; ‘for the gullible and compliant populace’. And it won’t change until you help your friends and neighbors understand the facts and the truth about what is going on right now.

And then you can run for office or help others win next year to help fix these gigantic problems now facing us as a nation.

2 comments:

  1. Do you think running for office will work? Has it ever worked?

    Since the beginning, people have recognized that the federal government is growing ever more tyranical, stealing more, etc. and they run for office, and... here we are today!

    Perhaps the solution lies outside of centralized control, cages and whips?

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  2. Running for public office 'worked" when Abraham Lincoln did it....

    But,I agree, 1 person can't change this ship's course, even though President Obama seems to think he can. It will take the thoughts and actions of millions of Americans to change their ways of thinking, voting and 'wanting everything for nothing, as long as someone else pays for it!"...which will not be easy.

    but great fires always start with one or a few sparks and embers...let's be that ember.

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