Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
And of course, we have yet ANOTHER thread where some idiot who ISN'T an economist tells us not to worry, his favorite little Socialist program will continue just fine for eons to come.
Some of you might enjoy a READ of something that is ANALYTICAL instead of BIASED IMBECILE reporting:
Summary of SSA 2004 Annual Reports
Public concern about the financial status of Medicare and Social Security tends to focus exclusively on the HI and OASDI Trust Fund exhaustion dates when benefits scheduled under current law can no longer be paid in full. But there are more immediate and fundamental reasons why Medicare and Social Security financing reform is needed: namely, the two programs together will place rapidly mounting draws on Federal general fund revenues long before trust fund exhaustion, and their financing in the long term is far more problematic than suggested by the 75-year actuarial deficits for HI and OASDI.
The rapidly mounting financial shortfall in these programs is illustrated in Chart E. It shows, as a percentage of GDP, the gap between annual HI and OASDI tax income and the cost of scheduled benefits, plus the 75-percent general fund revenue contributions to SMI's Part B and Part D. The initial negative amounts for OASDI in 2004 and for more than a decade thereafter represent net revenues to the Treasury that result in the issuance of Treasury bonds to the trust funds in years of annual cash flow surpluses. Conversely, the positive amounts for OASDI and HI initially represent payments the Treasury must make to the funds to supplement tax income to help pay benefits in the years leading up to exhaustion of these trust funds, then their widening financing gap thereafter.
The Social Security tax income surplus in 2004 is projected to be more than offset by the shortfall in tax and premium income for Medicare, resulting in a small overall cash shortfall that must be covered by transfers from general fund revenues. This combined shortfall is projected to grow each year--such that by 2018 net revenue flows from the general fund to the trust funds will total $577 billion, or 2.6 percent of GDP. Since neither the interest paid on the Treasury bonds held in the HI and OASDI Trust Funds, nor their redemption, provides any net new income to the Treasury, the full amount of the required Treasury payments to these trust funds must be financed by increased taxation, increased Federal borrowing and debt, and/or a reduction in other government expenditures. Thus, these payments--along with the 75- percent general fund revenue contributions to SMI--will add greatly to pressures on Federal general fund revenues much sooner than is generally appreciated.
You'll have to go to the link to get the chart, sorry. Anyway, it's plain enough from this ONE paragraph, much less the rest of the document (which you should READ!) that Socialist Security is, in fact, in trouble, and 2078 ain't the only relevant date anymore than the HI and OASDI figures are the only issues.
You wanna save money on Social Security and NOT have to borrow any or transition to a new system? OK, I'm all for that option! Let's phase out Social Security: Let those currently collecting grow old and die still on the system, and THAT'S IT--no more. Take care of your own damn retirement, like you should have been doing all along!
Jason
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