So basically our idiot in chief ought to be looking for solutions to energy pricing and creating jobs and that alone could improve the outlook. Instead we’ve got him and his cabal insisting that they need to raise the retirement age and cut benefits instead of trying to resolve issues like energy or un and underemployment. Peachy.

“Owing to bad economy, SS trust fund is in jeopardy so we’ll just have to cut benefits.”

Getting a head start on the talking points.

Not to worry! With ever-escalating healthcare and food costs, it can be predicted that seniors will follow the Republican meme: Don’t get sick; if you do, die quick. Hastening their demise by cutting benefits is NOT a conservative ‘bug’ . . . it’s a shining ‘feature.’

Well the SS payroll tax cuts have really *helped* now, haven’t they?

I mean: wasn’t THIS the intended goal of that particular tax cut? To make SS more “insecure.” The SS payroll tax “cut” really doesn’t help out the middle & working class all that much, other than to make it more viable for the MOTU to cut SS in the long run.

Score one for the 1%. The 99% takes another hit.

The report neglects to mention the affect artificially low interest rates resulting from Bernanke’s ZIRP policy is having on interest income on the Trust Fund’s balance.

The shortage should have been replaced out of the general fund. At least that is what we were told was going to happen.

I expect the argument eventually will be that the year or two they took out of the general fund is totally equal to the 20 or so odd years they spent the surplus on whatever they felt like.

Yes, something like that. And conservatives will clap and cheer to see SS be whittled away with bc you know: independence! pull yourself up by your boot straps! Ayn Rand panty sniffing! yadda yadda…

The trustees seem fairly neutral and actuarial and probably can’t propose simple solutions to the problem like raising the income max on Social Security payroll taxes at something like twice the rate of inflation for 10 years.

Well, let’s see here now… Social Security taxes are capped at the first $110,100 of taxable income. So they’re not paying any more than they were ten years ago.

Virtually all of the gains in income over the decade have gone to those who were already making well over $110k a year — the 1%.

For the 99%, incomes have stagnated and unemployment is far higher than the numbers we commonly hear because it never includes people who’ve given up looking for work or who are under-employed (part-time, working well under experience, etc.). Of COURSE the Social Security tax intake from the rest of us working stiffs is down.

What would fix this and make Social Security and Medicare solvent forever? (1) Get people back to work in good, fair-paying jobs that support a solid middle class and a strong track to help poor people aspire to that status. (2) Remove the $110k income cap on the taxes.

I though we had worked this out earlier in the day by abandoning the wall with Mexico, installing some fast paced escalators and moving sidewalks instead to encourage immigration and then having the “new” immigrants pay INTO SS but only be eligible for 50% benefits compared to American born citizens.

I think THAT is what the French meant when they put the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. Just probably didn’t translate very well.

It’s the neo-liberal way!

I really think THAt approach is entirely TOO LOGICAL.I’m pretty sure our inept, ignorant, self-serving, bought-and-paid-for legislaturds will try everything ELSE before resorting to your plan. /s

I would never ask new citizens to be second class citizens. My solution would be to create a way to tap into the money earned through passive means. Romney made over 20 million last year. Most of that was “earned” through investment. Most of it was not subject to Social Security tax. I find that very unpatriotic of Mittens. I want to ensure that he has enough “skin” in the Social Security system just like he insists the poor should have in the income tax system.

Oh, that’s right… only the Republicans want to cut benefits…

“It’s official: There’s now a bipartisan consensus on the Super Committee to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits.

The Republicans have a longstanding desire to dismantle Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But according to recent news reports, a majority of Democrats on the Super Committee just proposed their own plan to reduce the deficit that included slashing Medicare benefits by $200 billion1 and dramatically reducing future Social Security benefits.

It’s hard to imagine how the Democrats on the Super Committee could be any more out-of-touch or wrongheaded.”

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/supercommittee_mms2/

A big, but partial fix, that would be easy and equitable, would be to treat earned income in Sub S corporations the same as it is treated in partnerships.

This is a big deal.

It’s an election year. Harry Reid is going to pretend that he really cares about what happens to a system that he’ll likely never ever be reliant on. It’s the Democratic way.

You can’t spell PBS without BS:
just now, the Newshour referred to Social Security “running dry” in 2033.

As some of us already know, the running out of money thing is part of the myth.
The dems are prepping the masses for a slice and dice of SS benefits. Already the full benefits retirement age is up to 67.

Medicare in the meantime is slashing benefits.

Why are people still voting for democrats?

Speaking for myself, I’m not. I gave up on the Democratic party somewhere around 2008. I was leaning towards it as early as 2006 when the writing was on the wall that they ‘d say one thing and do another on a regular basis.

The cap on the SS payroll tax has always been ridiculously regressive and far too low. If they raised the cap *even just* another $100k up to $210k, it would be a good step. But as you point out, the goal, as usual, is to make the middle & working class pay & pay, whilst the 1% laughs at us and could give a crap about our fate.

Don’t get sick. Keep working until you drop. When you get ready to die, die fast. It’s the conservative “way.”

I gave up on Dems some time ago, but citizens are still registered and vote Dem because they don’t pay attention and/or they really truly do not want to know the truth. It is scary. I don’t blame people for being afraid. Their fears that they’re/we’re *on our own* are well justified.

Too many citizens – not just conservatives – are very authoritarian, and they want to believe that “Big Daddy” will take care of them.

They don’t want to see that the Dems sold out to the 1% quite a while ago, even though it seems screamingly obvious to me.

As you no doubt know, PBS is just Fox-Lite. It’s another propoganda organ paid for and brought to you by the 1%. In this case, mainly by the Kochs. Of course, Public Bull Shit Network will tell you that.

It’s just like, yesterday, National Pentagon Radio kept *incessantly* talking about how Iran allegedly figured out the drone & had the means to create their own. I rarely listen to National Propganda Radio anymore, and this is why: it was just an *incessant* drumbeat for WAR WAR WAR, Inc on Iran.

Propoganda… but citizens need to realize that it’s bullshit lying in order to understand that it’s propoganda. The vast majority haven’t figured it out yet, and a large segment of the populace still believes that NPR & PBS are, cough cough, “leftwing.” Oy vey.

Never fear folks, all SS shortfalls, interest, etc. Are paid currently for by general revenues. That is to say taxes/borrowing/printing. Mostly printing.

Here we go again. Periodically we start this merry go round with all the ways out of the box. Never ends well. Someday, we need to change the conversation. Like what are we going to do? We all know both the candidates and both the parties are in agreement. We need to cut SS. So much bull shit.

Firedog Lake people are way too smart to buy this BS. Why is there always enough money to start a war ? And look at the money that is being spent on that bogus trial with John Edwards……and how about the $38,000 a day to protect Gingrich’s fat ass….and on and on and on. There is money flowing all over the place and it is being spent on all kinds of worthless causes. There are no complaints about spending anywhere accept on SS and Medicare. Its orchestrated crap started by the Republicans and their wealthy friends who think that the “tax the 1%” movement is an assault on them to pay for our Social Programs.

I like your idea of printing money. We have been doing that for wars for almost a dozen years. And for the last four we have had deficits of over a trillion a year. Funny, we haven’t all turned into pumpkins yet.

Of course there is enough money. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. What we need is the political will. But what we got are quislings.

The neat trick of these guys is to say that we won’t cut benefits for anyone now receiving them or for those near to receiving them. Their calculus is that younger people don’t care and once the older are made to feel safe, they win the day. Nice trick.

Yeh but you can bet your bottom dollar that when those kids are retirement age there will be a new welfare system created to care for the elderly of that time……a mess they will have to try to clean up because of their ignorance of the past.

Whenever the SS Trustees issue their annual report we get the gloom-and-doom folks in the media and political parties calling for 1) an increase in age to qualify for benefits, 2) a call to decrease the amount of benefits, 3) blame the boomers for all our problems, 4) let’s form a commission that will consider a transition to privatization of SS. The real crisis we’re facing is the large number of our elderly citizens who are facing a tragic decline in their standard of living due to increasing energy prices, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and the one percenters wanting to turn this country into a a nation populated by peasants and serfs.

yes.

Yep, we need to keep repeating this over and over. They pulled out the printing presses for the Iraq war, they pulled out the printing presses for the bankers, they can pull out the printing presses for the elderly. They just don’t want to.

The whole entire the world is coming to the end if we print money to help pay for the elderly crap makes no sense if you actually understand how our government has funded a whole bunch of crap in the past.

SocSec still good through 2033, right?

But that the report writers just discovered that long term high unemployment affects the revenue stream to the SocSec trust fund? Well, that deserves a big “d’oh.”

I know I figured that out and I can’t even play an economist on the internet.

Oh, why did we get ourselves lumbered with Obama???

We coulda had a centrist Dem who at least would have been held to her promises by the press and other Dems…. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Yeah, I know. If only….

And the actual fix is so damn easy, so damn obvious, and so fitting. If the Powers That Be want to keep shoveling all the wealth to the Tippy Top, why shouldn’t the cap on SocSec FICA taxes be raised? Take it to where the money is….

But Obama does not want to do that. He wants to do what Reagan could not/would not do: Transform SocSec into something else. Maybe vouchers, maybe a big fat wet kiss to Wall Street, who know? He does not want it to be improved and extended for people who need it and those pushed out of the employment system too early to get on it.

Oh, damn, this is so depressing. This president and then either his second term or Romney’s first. Flying Spaghetti Monster help us!

Boy, is it so hard to figure out that

1) Bush lied us into war and it cost over two trillion and he NEVER budgeted for it.

2) Bush cut taxes on the rich which cost us FOUR TRILLION and he NEVER budgeted for it.

3) Bush deregulation Wall St and Wall St ran the whole economy off a fucking cliff, and Bush just bailed out the banks that did it WITH TRILLIONS.

So why do I got to deal with ANOTHER PRESIDENT, a Democratic President no less, that

1) Hasn’t got us out of the GD wars that don’t make us any fucking safer.

2) Didn’t let the Bush tax cuts expire.

3) Continues to bail out Wall St and the TBTF banks with TRILLIONS, maybe even TENS OF TRILLIONS.

While he cuts funding to Social Security.

And now he’s got the fucking gall to issue a report telling me Social Security goes broke in twenty years and THATS A BIG DEAL, after he just spent TENS OF TRILLIONS bailing out a bunch of fucking crooks, NONE who have gone to jail.

Just, why, why should I vote for this POS?

10 years ago the cap was $84, 900. So they’re paying slightly more. But then their benefits from SS will be the same as the next guy in retirement.