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suston96's Journal
And for those not following events, it is in regard to future Social Security payroll tax cuts for 2012. This time to include cuts by employers' contributions. Great for the consumer and employers' checkbooks but still a burden on the Trust Funds.
Sorry, I disagree with the Actuary. Unless employment picks up with new jobs and rehiring to old jobs Social Security and Medicare will not withstand those generosities by the Congress and the administrations no matter who they are, reflected in that proposed legislation.
The cycle of cash payments in and out of the Social Security and Medicare systems can only suffer if the incomes are cut or deferred - that's just common sense.
Less cash coming into the checking account, more going out as baby-boomers retire in hordes and swell the ranks of the no longer employed.
Try this one: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.h... What happens to the taxes that go into the trust funds?
Tax income is deposited on a daily basis and is invested in "special-issue" securities. The cash exchanged for the securities goes into the general fund of the Treasury and is indistinguishable from other cash in the general fund.
If all the income is invested, how do benefits get paid each month?
Money to cover expenditures (mainly benefit payments) from the trust funds comes from the redemption or sale of securities held by the trust funds. When "special-issue" securities are redeemed, interest is paid. In fact, the principal amount of special issues redeemed, plus the corresponding interest, is just enough to cover an expenditure.
What were the amounts of securities bought and sold during recent years?
The amount bought in 2010 was $1,020 billion, while the amount sold was $929 billion. See investment transactions for more detail and earlier years.
Why do some people describe the "special issue" securities held by the trust funds as worthless IOUs? What is SSA's reaction to this criticism?
As stated above, money flowing into the trust funds is invested in U. S. Government securities. Because the government spends this borrowed cash, some people see the trust fund assets as an accumulation of securities that the government will be unable to make good on in the future. Without legislation to restore long-range solvency of the trust funds, redemption of long-term securities prior to maturity would be necessary.
Far from being "worthless IOUs," the investments held by the trust funds are backed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government. The government has always repaid Social Security, with interest. The special-issue securities are, therefore, just as safe as U.S. Savings Bonds or other financial instruments of the Federal government.
Many options are being considered to restore long-range trust fund solvency. These options are being considered now, over 20 years in advance of the year the funds are likely to be exhausted. It is thus likely that legislation will be enacted to restore long-term solvency, making it unlikely that the trust funds' securities will need to be redeemed on a large scale prior to maturity. That's from the official Social Security website. Read the rest of it and its links. Clearly some of you don't know how the system works. Years ago copies of the 941s (Payroll Tax Forms) were sent to Social Security. In this electronic age that isn't done anymore. Funds collected and deposited to the Treasury are immediately available to the Social Security Administration to invest and to meet current obligations - as clearly outlined above. Payroll Tax holiday non-receipts are posted as money owed BY the Treasury to the Trust Funds. There is only one checkbook and the US Treasury keeps it. It accepts and disburses funds for different accounts and keeps records of those accounts. Included in those accounts are the Trust Funds.
The Treasury owes those monies that would have been collected as part of the payroll taxes to the Social Security Trust Funds. http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/switching... What to do about those FICA contributions, aka payroll taxes, now that the supercommittee has blown up? Last Christmas the Obama administration handed workers a special gift—a one-year holiday from paying their payroll taxes, which as most workers know fund their Social Security retirement benefits and disability and survivor’s benefits, should they need them later on. The year is up. Chris Wallace’s interview on Fox News Sunday with the Senate’s second-ranking members, Dick Durbin for the Democrats and Jon Kyl for the GOP, produced a huge news nugget for campaign reporters to contemplate.
The Republicans, represented by Kyl, seem to be saying that they want to keep Social Security strong, while the Dems, represented by Durbin, appear to advocate a policy that could end up jeopardizing the program. Kyl told Wallace:
The problem here is that the payroll tax doesn’t go into general revenue, it supports Social Security. And you can’t keep extending the payroll tax holiday and secure Social Security. That 2% freebie has to be paid back to the Trust Funds. Maybe not from the tax payer - directly - but by the Treasury, which means the taxpayer - indirectly. Here is another cite. Read the facts about the payback feature of this payroll tax cut: http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/09/abo... / The FICA/payroll tax goes into the Social Security Trust Fund. This is a dedicated fund currently worth $2.6 trillion, which has been built up over time through employee and employer contributions, along with accrued interest. Current and future Social Security beneficiaries receive benefits from this fund. No general revenues are involved, except for administrative and clerical costs.
Under the payroll tax cut initiated in the 2010 lame duck tax deal, the revenue loss to the Trust Fund from the payroll tax holiday is made up through compensatory payments into the Trust Fund from general revenues. The President proposes to continue this scheme — deepening a relationship between Social Security and general revenues (read deficit) that did not exist until the December 2010 tax deal. This will make Social Security increasingly vulnerable to demands for “reform.”
In the worst case, Congress could choose to enact the payroll tax cut without actually appropriating revenue compensation for the Trust Fund. This would mean that the payroll tax cut directly depletes the Trust Fund, creating financial/actuarial problems far sooner than the currently anticipated shortfall date of 2036.
But even if the Trust Fund receives full revenue compensation — for both employer and employee contributions — Social Security will be jeopardized. That’s because the resources in the Trust Fund will be increasingly comingled with general revenue funds — and, hence, increasingly connected to the deficit.
If the government can’t pay back Social Security money it has borrowed to pay for other things (through IOUs, bonds, etc), it certainly won’t be shy about cutting Social Security to pay itself back for funds it shared with Social Security to offset revenue losses from the payroll tax holiday.
*******
Once the payroll tax basis of Social Security financing has been corrupted the future of Social Security will no longer be in doubt. It won’t have one.
Take 10 dollars out of your kids' piggy bank and explain to them that they still have the 10 dollars because you owe them the 10 dollars.
I know what my kids would say to me with that kind of fractured logic.
That the Treasury has to justify such an underhanded raid on the Trust Funds with a "we'll pay you back when the economy revives" or some such bullshit is really pretty sad.
Just take the fucking money and run. The people will have to wait until their heads stop spinning to realize that they have been had once more by those they expected were on their side.
There was, there is no payroll tax holiday. There is a raid on the Social Security and Disability Insurance assets known as "cash collected for the Trust Funds and disbursements."
If it looks like a raid, if it smells like a raid, it IS a raid on Social Security and Disability Trust Funds.
Oh, put that 10 dollars back into your kids' piggy bank. They worked hard for it on that paper route or cutting the grass or whatever....It's their money.
They are NOT "co-equal branches". (I dare anyone to find the phrase "co-equal branches" in any founding document of the United States).
The Executive is the weakest of the three branches. Historically, all three branches have jockeyed for power supremacy but it always ends as it should with the Congress on top. Or there is a crippling stalemate with the the nation on the bottom.
"The Legislative is supreme" John Locke said. And so it should be. The only branch of government elected directly by the people.
That supreme legislature - the US Congress needs to assert its power and responsibility to pass the governance needed to control the economy - create jobs. Congress needs to empower the President with the tools for creating jobs - the biggest hurdle to the economic recovery of this nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asse... "Of these banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, American Express Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., State Street Corp., BB&T Corp, Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America repaid TARP money. Most banks repaid TARP funds using capital raised from the issuance of equity securities and debt not guaranteed by the federal government. PNC Financial Services, one of the few profitable banks without TARP money, planned on paying their share back by January 2011, by building up its cash reserves instead of issuing equity securities.<56> However, PNC reversed course on February 2, 2010, by issuing $3 billion in shares and $1.5-2 billion in senior notes in order to pay its TARP funds back. PNC also raised funds by selling its Global Investment Services division to crosstown rival The Bank of New York Mellon.<51>" Any proof that TARP was a "disaster" other than right wing bullshit talking points?
Sorry, poor grammar. It should read: Yes, we can. No, WE didn't.
He didn't say: Yes, I can. He said: Yes, WE can, and I repeat. WE didn't. WE haven't. WE had better get with it and WE had better do it - TOGETHER!
HE cannot do it alone.
....."yes, we can."
By that I mean that the constitutionally explicit right to assemble is being effectively exercised with little opposition and just a smattering of mishap.
When the time comes, demands will be made or grievances will be declared and all will listen and pay attention to those who could, and did.
....and Occupy Wall Street and the like will be kindergarten compared to what will happen in this nation of an aging populace.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.h... If more people would take the trouble to read up on the subject, the Social Security Trust Fund would be a source of solid reassurance to its subscribers - the American people, instead of misinformation and fable from its detractors. That includes those ill-informed and malevolent authors who purport to have researched the subject.
...to make the American people realize, once more, (the 1960s?) that the right to assemble is their inalienable right and that exercising it, quietly and universally, is one of the most powerful weapons they have against entrenched political and economic tyranny and other oppressions.
The people leaderless? They are leading themselves, everywhere, in unison and in formidable array.
And the best part? It is just the tip of the iceberg - I mean: the tip of the smoking volcano.
The happiest days of my life were my 4 college years which I was lucky to have done during my middle years - 45 to 48.
I wouldn't trade them for any instantaneous and clearly perilous venture into my brain chemistry.
If you could grow a giant redwood overnight, would you? An elephant? Anything else in nature?
The beauty of life is its birth, and then the growing and maturation process.
Let it all happen as intended by the very nature of life - and learning - using life's most important and cherished element - time.
By the way, I recently celebrated my 80th birthday. I know about time - its joys and pleasures, and some of its pain.
(I recommended the OP because it is thoughtful and appreciative).
....but luckily for the falsely convicted and imprisoned, found and his innocence settled.
I wonder how much more "misplaced evidence" there is, or is happening as these embarrassing episodes surface?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca... And this: http://bestofnj.com/great-falls-national-h... / And this: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office... / "Today I have signed into law H.R. 146, the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009." This landmark bill will protect millions of acres of Federal land as wilderness, protect more than 1,000 miles of rivers through the National Wild and Scenic River System, and designate thousands of miles of trails for the National Trails System. It also will authorize the 26 million-acre National Landscape Conservation System within the Department of the Interior. Among other provisions, H.R. 146 designates three new units in our National Park System, enlarges the boundaries of several existing parks, and designates a number of National Heritage Areas. It creates a new national monument -- the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument –- and four new national conservation areas, and establishes the Wyoming Range Withdrawal Area. It establishes a collaborative landscape-scale restoration program with a goal of reducing the risk of wildfire and authorizes programs to study and research the effects of climate change on natural resources and other research-related activities."
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