You thought you were paying excess FICA taxes so that there would be enough money to pay your Social

[midnight]

security trust in your retirement.

The Catfood Commission rump report made it crystal clear that the political and financial elites have no intention of ever paying off the bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund. You thought you were paying excess FICA taxes so that there would be enough money to pay your Social Security in your retirement, but that was never the intention. The intention was to raise your taxes and cut taxes on the rich.

They try to hide this fact behind a barrage of numbers, and shouting flacks, but occasionally, the truth unintentionally leaks out, as here:

Unless the program can be made to pay for itself, Congress would have to appropriate more than $13 trillion over the next 75 years to make up the shortfall, according to the Brookings Institution.

Of course the program can be made to pay for itself, out of those bonds in the Social Security Trust fund, and with taxes if that becomes necessary in 2037. What kind of idiot is making financial plans for 2037? Our political and financial elites, that’s who, if you can call stealing a plan. They don’t want to pay off those bonds. They want to raise taxes on working people so they will never have to pay off those bonds.http://firedoglake.com/2011/08/11/completing-the-theft-from-the-social-security-trust-fund/

[Jim__]

1. There's their intention and there's our intention.

We don't have to accept their dictation. If they don't pay us, we have the power to take it.

[midnight]

2. With the super congress behind close doors, I'm wondering

what power we have?

I found this article and it seems John Kerry is in favor of the deal Obama and Boehner have in mind... It also discusses the most leaning to the left on the committee is Baccas?


"Kerry spoke favorably of a grand bargain that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had tried to reach, noting it would have included “a mix of reductions and, and reforms in Social Security.” <...>
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/08/11/kerry-not-baucus-weakest-link-on-catfood-commission-ii/

[ellenfl]

3. but we don't know yet what the reforms are.

they could involve, for instance, raising the income cap from $106,000. if dems were talking seriously about cutting our benefits, don't you think the repubs would be shouting the details at the top of their lungs? crying before we're hurt is keeping them on notice but i won't be taking to the streets before i know what the 'reforms' will be.

ellen fl

[bemildred]

4. The "Trust Fund" was always bullshit.

I think originally, the idea was to use anger at the higher FICA taxes to attack the SSI system, but that didn't work, and now the money theoretically in the "trust fund" is piling up. Sooner or later people will start asking about it.

[Faryn Balyncd]

5. The problem is warmakers who refuse to live within their income-tax-revenue means.

As Barney Frank told NPR before Inskeep abruptly cut him off, Social Security is self-funding (and fully funded through 2037).


The problem is that hypocritical warmongers (who falsely claim to be "fiscal conservatives") refuse to either:

- - - (1) Pay income taxes to finance the simultaneous war, OR
- - - (2) End the wars, and reduce "defense" spending, that is, force warmakers to live within the confines of general fund revenues, which are primarily income tax




Instead, the right wing (and their "Democratic" enablers) are resorting to a classic "blame the victim" farce:

They ignore the reality that the Social Security system (the only federal program to have accumulated a SURPLUS - $2.3 trillion -), the MOST FINANCIAL SOUND federal program that has ever existed, is a CREDITOR of the United States Treasury, and not a dependent step-child shamefully begging for "entitlement" crumbs.

They ignore the reality that the uberlords who have handed themselves unsustainable, historically low income tax rates (during an era of simultaneous wars, no less) are demanding that their plundering of the Social Security Trust Fund be MADE PERMANENT.

They have the unmitigated gall to falsely portray Social Security, with its $2.3 trillion surplus sufficient to fund full benefits including COLAs until 2037, as undeserving beggars.

And the right wing continues to rely on the volume of their hypocritical screaming to divert Americans attention from their plan to continue their theft of payroll taxes into eternity.




And unless we call them out on their lies, and force Democrats to pledge to use every dime of the Social Security Trust Fund for its intended purpose (and vote against each and every benefit cut, the purpose of each one being the diversion of payroll taxes to non-SS purpose), this right wing scam will continue.

[skepticscott]

6. Social security taxes were just cut

by 33% for wage earners.

[midnight]

7. I'm confused as to why that was?

[Igel]

8. It was a "job creation" measure.

And the taxes weren't "cut" if you speak Congressionalese. They were expensed by Congress, who basically bought out that tax debt. There's a line item showing that the FICA reduction is a general budget expense, so the tax rate never decreased at all, and that means it can't increase.



What that means is that you pay less but the government still collects the same amount of FICA tax. The difference between what's paid and what's supposed to be paid on your gross earnings is paid by the US government from its general revenues. You pay some, Uncle Sam pays some on your behalf, but both together actually pay to Uncle Sam what you used to pay; once paid to Uncle Sam, he puts it into the trust fund so that it can be loaned back to Uncle Sam.

That way you pay less on it and Uncle Sam pays the SSA interest on money that it didn't collect from you.

[skepticscott]

9. We're already running a huge deficit

So we have to borrow the money to pay ourselves to lend back to ourselves. Is there any sense there?