Paying More for Benefits
Munnell">Alicia H. Munnell, a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers, is the Peter F. Drucker professor of management sciences at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and director of the college’s Center for Retirement Research.
Despite the financial crisis, Social Security continues to send out monthly benefits to 35 million retirees, 9 million disabled workers and their families, and 6 million families in which the bread winner has died.
Even under current law, Social Security benefits will replace a smaller fraction of pre-retirement earnings than in the past.
Yes, in the short run, a higher-than-predicted unemployment rate means that fewer people are working and contributing to the system than originally projected. But the system has a contingency reserve to buffer just such a downturn, and today’s trust fund is more than adequate to insure the payment of full benefits for decades.
How about Social Security’s long-run outlook? A worse than expected short-term economy will have only a small impact on Social Security’s 75-year outlook, which is driven mainly by the aging of the population.
Editor's notes: you will have to search long and hard to find anyone who agrees with this woman's rosy picture of Socialized Security. First, there is no "contingency reserve" laying around to feed the needs of SS -- if there was, there would be no truth to the forecast of unexpected deficits beginning THIS year instead of the year 2016 as originally predicted. What Munnell has to say is so far from reality as to be simply "silly" ----- no truth to what she says at all.
Secondly, the Federal Government has been stealing Social Security payroll tax collections for years and years. There never has been a special fund set aside and dedicated to the future needs of Social Security. That WAS the plan, you know. That was the lie told us by Progressives in pre-legislation rhetoric. That is why the program now owes 38 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities and no longer collects enough payroll tax to fulfill current demand let alone fund a "reserve." The Baby Boom generation is about to crash the bank with its 78 million applicants over the course of the next 15 years.
Three things are about to happen: first, retirement age is about to be increased from 62 and 65 years to somewhere in the 70's bracket. Secondly, new benefit pay-outs will be cut. Third, taxes on retirement payouts will be increased. The effect of all the above is this: those under 50 will not have the same degree of "security" some of us old timers have . . . . best make other arrangements.
But there is more to this story. What you see in Socialized Security is exactly what will be the case for ForceObamaCare. Progressives laughed at conservatives and arrogantly argued that SS would always be self sustaining. Within ten years of the programs beginnings, it was obvious that the Nation had been lied to in this regard. Look at Medicare -- set up in 1965 -- we were told that the projected Medicare debt for the year 2000 would be under 10 billion dollars. Instead, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 370 billion dollars.
When Obama took office, each family in this country owed %56,000. Because of Obama, by we now owe $71,000 per family and $170,000 per family by 2020 !!! That's 90% of our Gross National Product. Under Bush? Our debt was a manageable 40% of GDP.
Need we say more? Forget about elections based on our "pocket book" and start thinking "national debt reduction" --------- jds
.
No comments:
Post a Comment