Social Security won't be able to pay full benefits by 2034, a year earlier than expected due to the pandemic

[Richard-H]

It is truly yours which is why government can't take it, hence bill and coin collectors. You keep that currency all of your life and even will it to family members when you die, If government actually owned that currency, they could force you to give it back to them at will.

Wow, I guess you've never heard of "taxes".

 

[Richard-H]

See how much the government produces if the populace quits working and paying taxes, moron. The government does nothing.

See how well society functions without government.

Try taking a look at Yeltsin era Russia for example.

 

[kyzr]

Did I say everyone? I said IF you live to the age of our average lifespan in the US.

"Next time a Republican tells you that ‘Social Security is broke,’ remind them that Pres. Bush ‘borrowed’ $1.37 trillion of Social Security surplus revenue to pay for his tax cuts for the rich and his war in Iraq and never paid it back," reads one version of the meme, which appeared on the Facebook pages of Occupy Democrats and Americans Against the Republican Party.

A number of readers asked us to check out the claim, so we decided to take a look. The meme seems to extrapolate a point made in a 2009 newsletter post by Allen W. Smith, a professor of economics emeritus from Eastern Illinois University.

Third, if we characterize the entire trust fund system as the government borrowing from Social Security, Bush is by no means the only debtor.

"That’s how the Social Security trust fund has worked ever since the program started, so there’s no point in focusing on Bush," said Andrew Biggs, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "You could focus on pretty much any president."

Our ruling
A Facebook posts says, "Bush ‘borrowed’ $1.37 trillion of Social Security surplus revenue to pay for his tax cuts for the rich and his war in Iraq and never paid it back."

By law, the Social Security surplus is converted into bonds, and the cash is used by the Treasury to pay for government expenses. If we agree that this is "borrowing," every president since 1935 has done it, to fund all sorts of things. Even if Bush "borrowed" from the surplus, the amount is more like $708 billion, and the borrowing wasn’t earmarked for a special purposes.

As for not "paying back," the bonds won’t need to be repaid until 2020.

Overall, the claim is misleading and confuses many points. So we rate it Mostly False.

Referencing a non-sequitur FB post about GW Bush "borrowing from SS" and a Politifact response does not mean anything. What matters is that SS is going to be insolvent in 2033 and that needs to be "fixed". I like removing the cap and raising the tax 0.50% to keep SS 100% fully funded. If congress decides to print money, that works too, but will be a disaster when the dollar becomes devalued.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Referencing a non-sequitur FB post about GW Bush "borrowing from SS" and a Politifact response does not mean anything.

Of course it means something because it proves what I said that SS is a revolving door and has been since before most of us were born. That was my point. When funds are due from a previous administration, it gets put back while the current administration might borrow more.

 

[kyzr]

Of course it means something because it proves what I said that SS is a revolving door and has been since before most of us were born. That was my point. When funds are due from a previous administration, it gets put back while the current administration might borrow more.

Nothing is ever paid back. Worthless IOUs are put in a file cabinet.
From your link:
"The larger question posed by critics of the trust fund system is if and how the government will provide cash for all the bonds, now totaling $2.8 trillion. These bonds are a special class of securities unique to the Social Security fund that can’t be sold. Because they’re not-marketable, some contend that they’re "worthless IOUs."

"These special-issue things, they’re all in a filing cabinet in West Virginia. That’s the entire trust fund," Smith said in an interview. "There’s no trust, and there are no funds."

Prior presidents stole the $2.8T SS surplus and put in worthless IOUs. Now it time to pay the fuck up. I want the cap removed and a 0.50% tax increase to fully fund SS.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Nothing is ever paid back. Worthless IOUs are put in a file cabinet.
From your link:
"The larger question posed by critics of the trust fund system is if and how the government will provide cash for all the bonds, now totaling $2.8 trillion. These bonds are a special class of securities unique to the Social Security fund that can’t be sold. Because they’re not-marketable, some contend that they’re "worthless IOUs."

"These special-issue things, they’re all in a filing cabinet in West Virginia. That’s the entire trust fund," Smith said in an interview. "There’s no trust, and there are no funds."

Prior presidents stole the $2.8T SS surplus and put in worthless IOUs. Now it time to pay the fuck up. I want the cap removed and a 0.50% tax increase to fully fund SS.

It also said this among other things:

By law, the U.S. Treasury is required to take the surplus and, in exchange, issue interest-accruing bonds to the Social Security trust funds. The Treasury, meanwhile, uses the cash to fund government expenses, though it has to repay the bonds whenever the Social Security commissioner wants to redeem them.

 

[kyzr]

It also said this among other things:

By law, the U.S. Treasury is required to take the surplus and, in exchange, issue interest-accruing bonds to the Social Security trust funds. The Treasury, meanwhile, uses the cash to fund government expenses, though it has to repay the bonds whenever the Social Security commissioner wants to redeem them.

There is NO SURPLUS. The $2.8T surplus was pissed away.
This is the link to the SSA and the current status and options:

Research: The Future Financial Status of the Social Security Program

Social Security Administration Research, Statistics, and Policy Analysis

www.ssa.gov

"The concepts of solvency, sustainability, and budget impact are common in discussions of Social Security, but are not well understood. Currently, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects program cost to rise by 2035 so that taxes will be enough to pay for only 75 percent of scheduled benefits..... If trust fund assets are exhausted without reform, benefits will necessarily be lowered (by 25%) with no effect on budget deficits.
.......
At the point where the reserves are used up, continuing taxes are expected to be enough to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits. Thus, the Congress will need to make changes to the scheduled benefits and revenue sources for the program in the future. The Social Security Board of Trustees project that changes equivalent to an immediate reduction in benefits of about 13 percent, or an immediate increase in the combined payroll tax rate from 12.4 percent to 14.4 percent, or some combination of these changes, would be sufficient to allow full payment of the scheduled benefits for the next 75 years.

So the "fixes" available to Congress are:
1. Reduce earned SS benefits by 13%
2. Increase the SS tax from 12.4% to 14.4%
3. Remove the cap
4. A combination of the above (no COLA for 4-years+increase the tax+raise the cap) as an example.