Social Security Just Ran A $9 Trillion Deficit And Nobody Noticed.

[angelatc]

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/443465-social-security-just-ran-a-9-trillion-deficit-and-nobody-noticed?fbclid=IwAR1E7rLKKwlarI1AVJoeKD0JRr-OyqoFp0NGbMkNhW87Q8r2DybuWYnFTsE

Some numbers, some media shaming, some explanations, but what caught my attention was this bit at the bottom:
What should we do to handle our bankrupt Social Security system and other federal programs? In short, we should freeze benefit accrual under the current system. In other words, we should pay current retirees and current workers (when they retire) every penny now owed but not let anyone earn rights to extra benefits under the old system.

Next, we should require all workers to contribute 10 percent of their pay to a Personal Security Account (PSA). Half of the contributions of married or legally partnered workers would be contributed to their spouse/partner's account.

The government would make matching contributions on a progressive basis to the PSA accounts of the poor, the disabled and the unemployed. All PSA contributions would be combined and invested by a computer (not Wall Street) in a market-weighted global index fund of stocks, bonds and real estate.

At age 59, each PSA participant's account balance would be topped up in case it didn't equal what had been contributed adjusted for inflation (i.e., the government would guarantee a zero real return) and gradually sold off, on a cohort basis, to purchase Treasury inflation-protected bonds.

These bonds would be used to pay cohort members a PSA pension that's proportional to their share of all the cohort's PSA account balances at the time of conversion.

This Personal Security System reform would more than eliminate Social Security's unfunded liability and let us gradually eliminate the FICA tax. Today's and tomorrow's workers will end up far better off under this reform compared with their fate if Social Security's ink-red blood continues to pour out of the current system.

Laurence Kotlikoff is a professor at Boston University (BU) and professor of economics at BU. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fellow of the Econometric Society and was formerly on President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. Follow him on Twitter: @Kotlikoff.



This makes me want to scream.

[Anti Federalist]

This makes me want to scream.

I read a couple of things that make my teeth ache.

Which in particular has the urge to kill rising?

[Anti Federalist]

One of the most tragic events, that the idiot children Bolsheviks and Jacobins running around right now have never been made aware of, was the death of pensioners in the old USSR when that whole rotten edifice caved in.

Old folks by the score died, simply because their only source of income, a Soviet pension check, stopped showing up.

[angelatc]

I read a couple of things that make my teeth ache.

Which in particular has the urge to kill rising?

lol -

- invested by a computer (not Wall Street) :flushed: in a market-weighted global index fund of stocks, bonds and real estate.

- gradually eliminate the FICA tax. (yeah, right. Like a flat tax would "eventually" eliminate the income tax. So the tax would go up another 10% is what they're saying, meaning that over 25% of a worker's income would go into this shiny new shitcan)

- more Treasury Bonds!!! Yay!!!

[angelatc]

And the comments:


The Conservatives have been claiming SS is bankrupt ever since Reagan, but it's a complete lie. Notice the non standard economics terms they use. That's because they redefined them and don't count the debt the USA owes the SS fund. In fact SS is good till 2034, no other gov program is that solvent.

[Zippyjuan]

The "$43 trillion in off the books debt" is what the government would owe if everybody wanted to collect all of the Social Security benefits they have earned this year on this years tax revenues. Social Security spent about $1.5 trillion this year- not $9 trillion. $9 trillion is more than twice the entire budget.

[ATruepatriot]

And the comments:

Actually that's correct. They have borrowed out of the SS fund for other purposes like welfare and they legally owe that back to the SS fund. Basically it is misappropriation of funds for use other than what it was intended for, but this does not remove that fact that those funds still belong to the original fund they were intended to go into. Strict fund appropriation is a very serious Constitutional legal issue. If borrowed that debt is still and always will be owed back.

[ATruepatriot]

The "$43 trillion in off the books debt" is what the government would owe if everybody wanted to collect all of the Social Security benefits they have earned this year on this years tax revenues. Social Security spent about $1.5 trillion this year- not $9 trillion. $9 trillion is more than twice the entire budget.

Borrowed out to cover Welfare programs. They hide this fact quite often.

[oyarde]

lol -

- invested by a computer (not Wall Street) :flushed: in a market-weighted global index fund of stocks, bonds and real estate.

- gradually eliminate the FICA tax. (yeah, right. Like a flat tax would "eventually" eliminate the income tax. So the tax would go up another 10% is what they're saying, meaning that over 25% of a worker's income would go into this shiny new shitcan)

- more Treasury Bonds!!! Yay!!!

Ya , personally I see a lot of flaws in that . That sounds like some third world scam .

[acptulsa]

Who could have foreseen this while every president since Reagan was siphoning off the social security surplus?

https://lh3.ggpht.com/_MqYsHWQ7fo4/S5lLU0fC66I/AAAAAAAAAmk/HT921Mvyl5I/s800/15%20but%20the%20pension.jpg

[devil21]

Thanks for posting. So this is the next version of the federal employee (US Citizen) retirement trust plan. I was wondering when they'd unveiled the next slave earnings ponzi.


lol -

- invested by a computer (not Wall Street) :flushed: in a market-weighted global index fund of stocks, bonds and real estate.

There's a bunch of Chinese companies already listed on US market indexes, with more to come. Globalism requires Americans to subsidize Chinese corporations. It's only fair after the Chinese subsidized American corporations for many years :smirking:



- gradually eliminate the FICA tax. (yeah, right. Like a flat tax would "eventually" eliminate the income tax. So the tax would go up another 10% is what they're saying, meaning that over 25% of a worker's income would go into this shiny new shitcan)

They'll just replace with some other kind of tax and call it something different.



- more Treasury Bonds!!! Yay!!!

No more dollar global reserve standard so somebody's gotta buy the debt. The irony is that the debt is created off the backs of the people in the first place (via securitizing every child born here through birth certificates), so by forcing federal employees (aka US Citizen legal status) to purchase that debt, the people are actually paying for their own debt! Y'all think the current system is servitude? That proposal is perpetual socialist servitude that can not be escaped. I'll wait for Trump to comment.........:snort:

[angelatc]

The "$43 trillion in off the books debt" is what the government would owe if everybody wanted to collect all of the Social Security benefits they have earned this year on this years tax revenues. Social Security spent about $1.5 trillion this year- not $9 trillion. $9 trillion is more than twice the entire budget.

Government uses smoke and mirrors to hide behind. It's like saying that I have a 9 million dollar balance, but as long as I can keep making my minimum payments, I can ignore that.

[acptulsa]

Government uses smoke and mirrors to hide behind. It's like saying that I have a 9 million dollar balance, but as long as I can keep making my minimum payments, I can ignore that.

The government and federal reserve are worse than that. They don't care how worthless the currency becomes, as they print it into oblivion.

They're a classic case of, 'I can't be broke, I still have checks in my checkbook!'

[ATruepatriot]

The government and federal reserve are worse than that. They don't care how worthless the currency becomes, as they print it into oblivion.

They're a classic case of, 'I can't be broke, I still have checks in my checkbook!'

Good reply and thanks for pointing Angelatc's post out. +1 if I had it. :)

[TheTexan]

The "$43 trillion in off the books debt" is what the government would owe if everybody wanted to collect all of the Social Security benefits they have earned this year on this years tax revenues. Social Security spent about $1.5 trillion this year- not $9 trillion. $9 trillion is more than twice the entire budget.

Thanks Zippy for the clarification!