Social Security – A Must Read – Source: The Black Long Island Iced Tea Party

THE BLACK LONG ISLAND ICED TEA PARTY

This is very appropriate in light of what is going on !!! Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your 49 year working life, that’s close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working (me) you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had. Entitlement, my foot, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or handout !! Congressional benefits, aka free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that’s welfare, and they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements !!!!!! They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? 99% of people won’t have the guts to re-post this. I’m one of the 1%

Thanks Peggy Mims Kennedy

IS SOCIAL SECURITY A “PONZI SCHEME”? by William Reed Columnist

Social Security is one of Americans’ most important safety-nets.

The current Social Security program is a mainstay for women. Women are 52 percent of all adult beneficiaries, including retirees, the disabled, and the survivors of deceased workers. Twenty-five million adult women receive Social Security checks every month.

Social Security may be the chief support for adult American women, but there are warnings that Social Security is in danger. Texas Governor Rick Perry says Social Security is “bankrupt” and compares the program to a Ponzi scheme that is a “safety net” young 20-somethings are “not ever going to see.”

There is also reason for auntie to have some angst about the stability of Social Security. Social Security is actually a social insurance program that is officially called the federal “Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance” (OASDI). It is primarily funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA). For the moment, Social Security is solvent, and will be until 2037. Social Security currently has “$2.6 trillion in reserves. During 2009, total benefits of $686 billion were paid out versus income (taxes and interest) of $807 billion that produced a $121 billion annual surplus. In 2011, 156 million people paid into the program as 53 million received benefits – a ratio of 2.94 workers per beneficiary.

Social Security’s main problem is that long-term revenues are smaller than promised benefits. Starting in 2015 program expenses are expected to exceed cash revenues. The aging of Baby-boomers has resulted in a lower ratio of paying workers to retirees, as have continuing low birth rates and increasing life expectancies. The government has borrowed and spent the accumulated surplus funds – the Social Security Trust Fund. The trust fund consists of the savings of worker contributions and associated interest, to be used towards future earned benefit payments. Funds are held in US Treasury bonds and securities. The funds borrowed from worker contributions are part of the total national debt of $14.3 trillion as of March 2011. The U.S. Government has perpetuated a Ponzi scheme by looting the Social Security Trust Fund. By 2015, the government is expected to have borrowed nearly $3.25 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund.

To fix Social Security and other entitlement programs Congress and the Obama administration are going to have to go beyond the mundane and employ new and sounder practices and policies. Changes are certainly needed to keep Social Security working to reach the goals it was established to meet. Either benefits will need to be decreased or the government will need to kick in funding. Between 2015 and 2037, Social Security has the legal authority to draw amounts from other government tax sources besides the payroll tax. However, this will liquidate the trust fund, which by 2037 will be “officially exhausted”.

The U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal treasury. It currently keeps roughly 40 percent of Americans age 65 or older out of poverty. Like auntie, nearly two in every five African Americans expect Social Security to be a major source of income during their retirement. African Americans who were low-wage workers receive back more benefits in relation to past earnings than do high-wage earners. In 2009, among African Americans receiving Social Security, 29 percent of elderly married couples and 56 percent of unmarried elderly persons relied on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income. In 2010, Social Security’s total income was $781.1 billion and expenditures were $712.5 billion.

America’s government is broke and Social Security is evolving into more of a “feather bed” than safety net. For Social Security to be relied upon and more relevant we will have to require much more in legislation and practices from government officials. Stop staying stuck on stupid, remember: When government increases its debt limit, it’s still a debt Americans have to pay.

(William Reed is available for speaking/seminar projects via BaileyGroup.org)

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William Reed Columnist

Health Care Benefit Cuts Being Mapped Out By House Republicans–Source: The Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — House Republicans will "lead with our chin" and offer politically explosive cost curbs this spring on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and perhaps Social Security, the party’s point man for curbing crippling budget deficits said Thursday. (Read more)

Washington DC – Social Security Payments to Shrink For Millions

Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975. (TIME)