This year, Social Security goes into the red, unable to pay out all that’s been promised … without somehow finding new funds. Five years ago, the estimated date for this was 2017. An economic downturn later and seven years disappear. Just like that.
It’s obviously time for a major overhaul. But Congress and the President had other priorities. Don’t fix the old entitlement program — add a new one to bankrupt the country, “health care reform.”
What to do? Well, Associated Press’s Stephen Ohlemacher writes that it is time to cash in the IOUs that Congress owes the Social Security Administration. Congress has been siphoning off the system’s revenue surplus since the ’80s.
Congress, that august body of spendthrifts and thieves, actually accounted for these funds by printing up non-negotiable bonds, rather than leaving them as electronic IOUs. They are stored in a folder in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Fat lot of good that does us, though. To pay the bonds, Congress would have to raise taxes or borrow even more money.
Or it could auction off some property. Selling vast tracts of BLM land might make sense, but you won’t see that brought up. Instead, Congress will be sorely tempted to debase our money further.
Congress’s IOUs to Social Security add up, to $2.5 trillion. Of course, the money promised Americans in basic retirement is far more than that. The two-and-a-half trillion is just the tip of a very large iceberg … heading this way.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “The $2.5 Trillion Tip of the Iceberg”
Being ‘alive’ when Social Security was enacted gives me a different perspective. My parents were opposed- and both were staunch supporters of FDR!! I married in 1952 and had 8 children. My employment was raising those children- because women weren’t “suppose to go out to work”. Now, our husband’s SS is going bust, and the kids aren’t ready to provide for ‘MOM’ or ‘DAD’. Good show Congress – stealing from the cookie jar while our backs were turned!
All the government entitlement programs were and are doomed to failure the moment they are enacted into law, otherwise the free market would have created alternatives to them.
One of the main reasons that the government passed the healthcare reform bill is because they knew that social security, medicare and medicaid are unsustainable. The establishment politicians wanted a new form of entitlement legislation in order to enlarge their political base.
These thugs, that call themselves congressmen and senators, will stop at nothing including the total destruction of this country in order to maintain their power base. Their greatest concern is to massage their egos and aggrandize themselves with stolen money. They could care less about the concerns of the people.
It is time for action. Throw out all those that support or have supported these programs. It has to be done now before this great country is completely destroyed.
Selling off the government properties will only buy us enough time to make positive changes to alleviate the coming debacle that will occur if this is not done. Eliminate about 90% of the federal agencies and their related positions. This will help reduce the federal employee retirement benefits.
Our warmongering effots in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be immediately ended. It is costing the taxpayers approximately one million dollars per year per soldier in order to continue these unjustifiable and unwinnable wars.
The only legitimate purpose of our government is to prevent attacks against our citizens. Policing the world via our foreign aid and military is both immoral and unconstitutional.
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