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- #41
Social security has always been pay as you go.
Social security WAS pay as you go, until 1983, when Reagan, via the advice of Greenspan, gave us a 100% tax increase on our Social Security tax....it was only 3+% for us and the same for our employer, which was paying for all of the retirements of the seniors....(pay as you go)
When this tax was doubled, (so that the government could collect surplus social security taxes from us, to pay for ourselves, to pay for our own retirement, as well to pay for our parents and grandparents....we were told there would NOT be enough people to support us and our retirement by the time we retired at the very tail end of the Boomers...)it no longer was a "Pay as you go" tax, but sadly... became a cash cow for congress...
It is still pay as you go. The social security trust fund has been raided since day 1 of its creation. Functionally its the same as if it never existed.
No, it was NOT raided from its inception Tuba....it did not even have any substantial surplus until after Reagan signed this doubling of our tax rate, in to law....
And Social security was separate from the general revenue fund in the budget, until Johnson added SS in to the general fund/the budget...in the mid 1960's to mask the percentage of his budget that was going in to paying for the VietNam War....
at that time under Johnson, there was no surplus...other than a normal year's slight excess after the retirements were paid....it WAS Pay as you go still.
Under Reagan, SS taxes were doubled, so that there would be an intentional SS surplus to help pay for the future Boomers....about $4 trillion in surplus SS taxes have been collected from us since then...as we speak....
we can't have $4 trillion in SS surplus money, IF IT WAS STILL PAY AS YOU GO...???