<<< Back in the day (1960) when a worker took out 6 times his "investment," it was welfare. Now? Not so much.
In a Yahoo news story, here, we are being given the bad news; new retirees will not recover their "investment" cash put into Social Security.
Contrast this news, with the idiocy of this early May report:
Which federal program took in more than it spent last year, added $95 billion to its surplus and lifted 20 million Americans of all ages out of poverty? Why, Social Security, of course, which ended 2011 with a $2.7 trillion surplus. Refer to Reuters, here: http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/05/04/social-security-is-not-going-broke/
Who is telling us the truth? The Democrat Progressives who wrote the Yahoo article or the Democrat Progressives who want you to believe that a workforce that is the smallest in 30 years has turned in nearly 3 trillion in surplus payroll collections, after Obama reduced the payroll SS deduction by 4% of the total payroll and 25% of the actual Social Security payroll deduct of nearing 16% ?
Look, the Reuter's claim is nothing short of “asinine” in terms of content and deliberate in contrast to what the author must know to be true. And what is the truth?
That Social Security, over the decades, has added $18.8 trillion . . . . . in unfunded and additional obligations for current SS participants above and beyond projected revenues from their payroll and benefit taxes, certain transfers from the general fund of the U.S. Treasury, and assets of the Social Security trust fund (link) and will not recover from the influx of the Boomer generation - 78 million folks coming into this "safety net" at the rate of 10,000 per day for the next 22 years.
Medicare is in far worse shape as it currently holds onto 39 trillion in unfunded obligations. What is disturbing as relates to Medicare is that its deficit has accrued since 1965.
And what has Obama done with our benefit programs? He decided to cut half a trillion out of Medicare to help fund ObamaCare and added 30 million to its numbers all without a detailed plan; at the same time he decided to buy re-election by reducing the Social Security payroll deduct by 25% just when the program needs more of a contribution, not less.
Point of post: to let the reader know that (1) in a time when Social Security is a critical aspect of American retirement planning, whether it was intended to be such or not, the plan is already broken and may be lost to the coming generations. And (2), when we role Medicare into ObamaCare, our national healthcare system is so far in arrears as to be little more than a very disturbing joke on the American people.
Question: why would a political party refuse to deal with the deficit issues of these two monster social policies and expect to be re-elected?
Time for a change and time to demand that these issues be effectively dealt with.