Going After Social Security and Medicare

According to Stephen C. Goss chief actuary (?) of the social security administration this year social security will pay out more than it receives.

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Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

Goss identifies the culprit and blames the economy which I don’t argue with…as far as it goes. What neither Goss nor Greenspan mentions is that Congress has been spending monies from social security and stuffing it with IOU’s in return.

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For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits - billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes - nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs - in the form of Treasury bonds - which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.

Here is what Greenspan said.

“Even if the trust fund level goes down, there’s no action required, until the level of the trust fund gets to zero,” he said. “At that point, you have to cut benefits, because benefits have to equal receipts.”

Under democratic leadership Medicare has been cut to help pay for the so-called health care reform. Now social security will come under scrutiny.

President Obama has appointed a bipartisan commission to examine the debt problem, including Social Security, and make recommendations on how to trim the nation’s debt by Dec. 1, a few weeks after the midterm Congressional elections.

They’ve been after Medicare and social security ever since these programs have been implemented. Referred to as entitlements and handouts despite that these are paid for with your money I see this health care reform as a first step, a first step to finally dismantling Medicare. And social security won’t be waiting long in the wings it appears.