SS: disability payments would end in mid-2021 and payments to the elderly would stop in 2023

[UpInArms]

Repealing the payroll tax as proposed by President Donald Trump without putting in place a new source of funding for Social Security would mean disability payments would end in mid-2021 and payments to the elderly would stop in 2023, according to the program’s chief actuary.

Capitol Hill Democrats touted the letter on Monday as proof that Trump’s recent talk of getting rid of the payroll tax permanently would endanger the politically popular pension program, and presidential son Donald Trump Jr. lauded that night in his Republican convention address the executive order on the suspension of payroll-tax collection.

The White House has argued that Trump only wanted a temporary holiday, not a permanent payroll-tax repeal, despite Trump’s own words: He has suggested that, if re-elected, the tax’s suspension would become permanent.

... snip ...

Chief Actuary Stephen Goss, in a letter to four Democratic senators, analyzed a hypothetical proposal where the payroll tax was eliminated on Jan. 1, 2021, without a replacement. That would leave the two Social Security trust funds — the one for Disability Insurance and the other for Old Age and Survivors Insurance — reliant on existing cash, interest paid on government bonds and taxes paid on Social Security benefits for income.

“If this hypothetical legislation were enacted, with no alternative source of revenue to replace the elimination of payroll taxes on earned income paid on January 1, 2021 and thereafter, we estimate that DI Trust Fund asset reserves would become permanently depleted in about the middle of calendar year 2021, with no ability to pay DI benefits thereafter. We estimate that OASI Trust Fund reserves would become permanently depleted by the middle of calendar year 2023, with no ability to pay OASI benefits thereafter,” Goss wrote.

More at:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/scrapping-payroll-tax-without-replacement-would-hit-social-security-benefits-by-2021-actuary-says-11598371897

[doc03]

1. I thought it was a bad idea when it was done a few years ago

the door was opened to kill SS. I know back then it was said it would be taken out of the general funds of which
are just more deficits. But Republicans were given that inch now they want to take a mile.

[UpInArms]

2. I suppose this will also kill Medicare

[beachbumbob]

4. republican wet dream since FDR was to kill SS, and then add to it, kill medicare and SSi, no surpise

the fact that GOP want to make this a generational voter issue is hell of surprise as old voters always vote and younger voters do not. This really gives democrats Arizona and Florida and execellent chances in Texas, and a couple other redstates that have significant number of over 60.

[Trueblue Texan]

9. If they kill Medicare, they kill the healthcare industry...

16% of the economy...Think they have the balls? They are trying to destroy the economy, it’s clear. That’s the real reason the virus has been left to run like a wildfire. Make that gap between the rich and poor bigger, they get more powerful and Putin gets his prize. Still healthcare has some powerful forces.

[jaxexpat]

22. "Balls?"

Their voters don't understand and these guys just don't care. The mega wealthy believe SS is the bane of civilization. They have wet dreams about the return of feudalism. The murderer boy acting out his version of street justice is their spawn.

[Ilsa]

28. Exactly why the tax system needs to be

completely reworked. We need a tax on wealth, higher taxes on unearned income, and a transactions tax on equities/debt trading.

[jaxexpat]

34. That plan would be MY wet dream. Thanks...........

though we've hardly met.

[Ilsa]

37. Mine too. The problem I see is what happens

to all societies where the gap in wealth becomes so extreme because generations are able to pass along unearned wealth. Democracy has a tendency to fall apart under these circumstances.

[jaxexpat]

42. Pretty much inevitably.

To aide their purpose they have crowd-tested false terms to support their harmful purpose.

These come to mind:
Death tax
Right to work
Confiscatory tax rate
Job creators


And for other occasions:
Big government, "between you and your doctor", "we're here to help"
Welfare queen
2nd amendment rights
Anti-abortion
Coalition forces
Freedom fighters
States' Rights
Crowd control
Silent majority

[beachbumbob]

23. I think trump and his circle live inside a bubble and that trump has ZERO understanding about

any of this can not connect the dots. The impact of SS, Medicare, SSI vanishing will destroy what is left of the american economy but do they really care?

fuck no

[jaxexpat]

27. "Balls?"

Their voters don't understand and these guys just don't care. The mega wealthy believe SS is the bane of civilization. They have wet dreams about the return of feudalism. The murderer boy acting out his version of street justice is their spawn.

[Sherman A1]

20. Agreed

They have been after Social Security since it's inception.

[Celerity]

3. One of many kill-shots to come if Rump is re-elected

[riversedge]

5. ARE THE OLDER FOLKS NOT PAYING ATTENTION?? this is serious stuff -

[Delmette2.0]

30. AND anyone who has survived COVID-19.

We know some people have long term health issues after surviving COVID-19. We don't anything about recovery from those health issues if it is even possible. We also don't know if a health issue will pop up years from now.

I think this is the administrations way to avoid future disability benefits from COVID-19.

[appalachiablue]

40. It's possible that many upcoming disabled Covid cases

fueled this even more.

The US military already came out a few months ago that no one who's had Covid can join, (they don't want to pay for their future healthcare).

[Delmette2.0]

45. I didn't know that about the military.

Thanks for letting us know.

[appalachiablue]

46. Sure thing, it's very sad, the disease, lingering health issues

and blocked now from the military. In the last 20+ years the US military has become a huge employer for suburb, rural and city kids who can't afford the expense of college since Reagan, and for other reasons.

[Delmette2.0]

50. You are right about the opportunities for young people.

Whay ever their reasons for joining it was a way to an education, job skills or a secure income.

[appalachiablue]

51. All of that, so important, yes indeed. The US Post Office

that the GOP is trying to kill is also an employer known for job stability, retirement, benefits, unionization and a route to the middle class esp. for minorities.

The new, cruel dystopian feudal world will be brutal for all but the very rich, from what I've read, scary.

[Delmette2.0]

53. Yeah, get all your bills by email or text, IF you can afford basic WIFI.

F*** them all.

[Lock him up.]

33. FOX NEWS and ins-Hannity (and Limbo) never talk about those...

In those conditions, how can they pay attention? Answer is, they can't.

RICO the MASSIVELY-DEADLY tRump MOB
Over 182,000 confirmed INNOCENT VICTIMS KILLED for POLITICAL gain!

[Illumination]

44. Yes! Just shared this with residents @ my 55+ apt. bldg. & my resident property manager! Will

be thinking about who else I can share this with! We ALL need to expose this demon & his administration! "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN"? More like DESTROY AMERICA! Kamala Harris made mention about this in her speech a few days ago...Please share & or do flyers about this. We CANNOT let this happen!

[Ohiogal]

6. I will be eligible

for SS/Medicare in a year and a half and will be sweating bullets if Dumpface gets another 4 years

[WePurrsevere]

7. Without SSR & SSDI eventually homes would be lost and....

Many seniors and disabled would DIE.

While some seniors can continue to work a bit, many can't. The permanently disabled (of all ages) especially can't work to help support themselves and all too often any savings/retirement funds have been exhausted while fighting to get on SSDI. What 'might' be left is then often nibbled into but by bit to make up the difference between what the government pays us and our REAL cost of living and life stuff emergencies.

[Tanuki]

11. GOPers don't care about people losing their homes. That just gives

those who are already wealthy the opportunity to scoop up foreclosures at a vastly reduced price. Mnuchin and many others made sickening fortunes doing this systematically. They also don't care if you die, as the response to the covid pandemic has made clear.

[WePurrsevere]

18. I'm fully aware after fighting against the 'Con party for many years that...

they don't actually care about people who can't do anything for them, just money.

Corporations and RepubliCons love to do this "we care" PR BS to get customers and silence dissent.

[Tanuki]

19. Yeah, I know I'm preaching to the choir here and not really telling

you something you don't already know perfectly well. But just in case anybody thinks the GOP shares our basic humane values of wanting everyone to have life's necessities like food, shelter,and healthcare....they show time and again that they are fine with culling the herd and moving on without remorse.

[WePurrsevere]

25. Anyone who truly still thinks the GOP gives a tinkers damn about...

anyone or anything more than money and power is an easily conned (because the 'Cons whip up and cater to their hate, fear, greed, etc with their propaganda) malinformed, ignorant damn fool.

[appalachiablue]

47. +1 They're a different predator, reptile & vampire sub species

[duforsure]

8. Every American should know trump and the GOP's intentions now,

Destroy Social Security, Medicare, by any means possible by them, then trump would by deflation allow all businesses to steal from pension funds , again to destroy any retirement you might get, and giving it to the owners instead. If you want any SS, Medicare, or any health care, or pension, vote trump and all republicans out of office, if we still have a uncorrupted election. If not we're heading into trumps depression and putin's Russia . Vote!

[augyboston]

10. Nearly 38% of elderly will be in poverty without SS!

The Boomers and anyone who cares about their parents and grandparents better wake up and stand up!

Effect of Social Security on Poverty (Official Poverty Measure), 2018

Age Group Excluding SS Including SS Number Lifted Above the Poverty Line by Social Security
Children Under 18 17.8% 16.2% 1,197,000
Adults Ages 18-64 13.5% 10.7% 5,653,000
Elderly > Age 65 37.8% 9.7% 14,810,000
Total, All Ages 18.5% 11.8% 21,661,000

https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-security-lifts-more-americans-above-poverty-than-any-other-program#:~:text=Social%20Security%20Lifts%2015%20Million,below%20the%20official%20poverty%20line.

[AllaN01Bear]

12. if bidon gets in, is there anyway he can restore this as trumpkin did this via presidental order?

i thought these only last 180 days . maybe im wrong.
on edit: these bufoons have been nickleing and diming these programs for years . now they have the chance to kill it outright. and yet many of his supporters are on these programs? boy , arnt they in for a shock.and many homeless are his supporters . go fig.

[dalton99a]

13. Kick

[moonseller66]

14. Where the hell is the AARP?

They ignored the thing last time it was suggested until public outcry made them aware. They should be on top of this immediately!

Seems like another NRA organization.

If you're an AARP Member, you better call or write, text or email them to get off their rockers (wonder what the ages are of those running the AARP?) and open their mouths.

[Sherman A1]

21. Agreed

one really wonders just what the hell we pay dues to the AARP for anyway?

[Augiedog]

31. AARP is a right wing agency, always has been.

[appalachiablue]

43. +1 RW, AARP mainly sells life insurance, big office dntn DC

AARP is a U. S.-based interest group focusing on issues affecting the elderly. According to the organization, it had more than 38 million members as of 2018. The magazine & bulletin it sends to its members are the 2 largest-circulation publications in the U.S.

> AARP was founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus (a retired educator from California) and Leonard Davis (later the founder of the Colonial Penn Group of insurance companies). It is an influential lobbying group in the United States. AARP sells paid memberships, and markets insurance and other services to its members.
> 60 Minutes reported in a 1978 exposé that AARP had been established as a marketing device by Leonard Davis, founder of the Colonial Penn Group insurance companies, after he met Ethel Percy Andrus. According to critics, until the 1980s AARP was controlled by Davis, who promoted its image as a non-profit advocate of retirees in order to sell insurance to members. Possibly as a result of this report, AARP conducted a competitive bidding process, and, in 1980, shifted the insurance contracts available to members to Prudential Financial.

In the 1990s, the U.S. Senate investigated AARP's non-profit status, with Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson, then chairman of the U. S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, questioning the organization's tax-exempt status in congressional hearings. According to Charles Blahous, the investigations did not reveal sufficient evidence to change the organization's status, though in an interview years later by The Des Moines Register,..
> Senator Simpson remained "troubled by AARP' practices", calling AARP "the biggest marketing operation in America and money-maker" and an organization whose practices are "the greatest abuse of American generosity I witnessed in my time in the U.S. Senate". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARP

[WePurrsevere]

36. FWIW... Too often they sound the alarm and barely any media reports that they have...

I'd like them to be more aggressive but it's not how they work ATM. They do inform but rely on emails, snail mail and the Republican controlled MSM to help get the word out.

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/08/aarp-is-asking-president-trump-to-explain-his-plan-to-replace-social-security-pennlive-letters.html

There recently was an email with the top paragraph mentioning this and a link to a petition to sign...
https://action.aarp.org/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=00000000.app20067b?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=8629&cmp=EMC-ADV-NLC-ADV-EML-null-null-082620&s_src=202008_E1W&NONCE_TOKEN=86A8E652408A8046FB1020D1C0A641D6

[appalachiablue]

48. #43, AARP is mainly a marketing & insurance selling organization.

[appalachiablue]

49. #43, AARP is mainly a marketing & insurance selling organization.

[notKeith]

15. This threat by the orange criminal in the WH

..is the opposite of what should actually happen.
Currently the 2020 cap on SS taxes is $137,000. So the millionaire/billionaire class pay off all their SS taxes by the first week of January. If the cap were to be removed, and ALL income was subject to this tax, Social Security would never go broke.
I'm looking forward to a President Biden, with a Democratically controlled House and Senate, making such a change in SS taxes.
One can dream, eh?

[Delmette2.0]

35. I with you on that! nt

[bucolic_frolic]

16. Workers have paid into SS Trust Fund

Payments are a fiduciary responsibility. You can't just walk away from expected future cash flows.

If this is allowed to play out, what is to prevent them from exacting the same confiscatory policy on private pensions, stock holdings, dividend streams?

This is Grand Larceny. If anyone did this on Wall Street, SEC lawyers would be on the case in 48 hours. People with or without securities licenses go to jail for years for stealing clients accounts.

[Mariana]

52. "Payments are a fiduciary responsibility."

The Supreme Court has said otherwise.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html

[bucolic_frolic]

54. Supreme Court ruling or not

The promise of benefits and non-delivery of said benefits? Theft, confiscatory tax policy, all under guise of lies. Moral outrage.

Social Security itself pays a termination benefit to heirs. It's a token amount, I don't remember, somewhere between $67-177 if I had to recall off the top of my head. Don't even remember what they call it, a death benefit, end of payments bonus, who knows. But they are required by law for some reason to notify spouses and heirs. Someone in Congress or SSA thought it a good idea.

End of Social Security would mean Depression, resistance. Seniors would no longer cooperate with anything the government does. But of course like everything else the Republicans do, well-off citizens would be fine because they have other retirement assets - IRA, Roth, Annuities, 401-Ks, houses. It's the poor who will be slammed. Typical GOP.

Trump may be trying to buy younger voters here with a fatter paycheck argument. It might prove a popular idea in a time of a rapidly growing economy. Just buy Tesla shares when you're young and you too will retire like a Republican. It surely couldn't have been sold to America in the 1930s.

[Mariana]

55. I'm just saying it's not illegal to cut off people's benefits.

It was decided long ago that we have no legal right to receive Social Security benefits, regardless of how much OASDI tax we have paid.

It is definitely the wrong thing to do. The Republicans don't have the power to even try it at this time. I don't believe Speaker Pelosi, or any other Democratic Speaker, would entertain for a second any bill that ends or reduces Social Security benefits to current recipients. I don't believe any Democratic Representatives or Senators would vote for any such bill.

[Kaleva]

17. It will be a challenge to live on a $140 monthly VA pension plus $200 a month I make babysitting

[Cha]

24. Please put that in an Ad, TLP, MeidasTouch, Biden/Harris!

[BBbats]

26. I'm dependent on SS,

I had a bad arm injury about five years ago
Actually played bass with a broken humerus bone & worked a part time job. It took a year to settle the insurance snafu's to get coverage. Some things I paid out of pocket.I had to go broke to get coverage. Was willing to leave my arm the way it was{limited movement but not painful) but was told that if infection gets inside the bone it could leak out into my blood stream & shutdown my immune system.Had to get surgery on my arm & they didn't know if I would be able to use it after the surgery.
Was told that I should collect Social Security since I was 62. I don't collect disability,It's regular SS. Now that I'm 67 I'm on Medicare as well,

I still work part time for a small business & have been gigging a bit again. The gigs are going to dry up by late fall/winter(they are outside}& the small business is struggling especially now with the post office mess.(we sell a lot of small guitar pedals,vinyl records & CD's by mail). I don't have family to take me in if the shit hits the fan. The SS payment I get really helps.I was paying into it since I was 12 & had a paper route. Paid in for 50 years.

If Trump gets in again & this corona virus stays on it's path,I'm as good as finished. So are a lot of other people. I'm amazed that people can't see Trump for what he is! He has a lot of support in my part of the planet.

[colorado_ufo]

38. I hear you, loud and clear.

Hubby and I don't have enough saved to live the rest of our lives, especially since his family is very long-lived. (I will likely check out a lot sooner.) Can't afford whole life insurance, and our term life insurance ends about age 82.

You see, the reason so much of the public doesn't care is because of the attitude toward education they are fed being property of the "terrible elites." (And yet they elect the true elites! Duh!)

They want to destroy education, to make the populace more easily deceived and malleable.

They want to destroy the elderly and disabled, as they no longer contribute to the economy that gives them more and more wealth.

They want the poor to get poorer, so that they will take any jobs - even the ones currently filled by unpapered immigrants.

A new feudal system, with the ungodly rich and the pitiful poor, who sustain them.

Think I'm kidding? I saw this start under G.W. Bush, and it is just picking up speed.

[bobbieinok]

29. Fast, easy way to kill old people!!

[bronxiteforever]

32. Kick and recommend for visibility

[oasis]

39. No so fast Trumpie Boy. Joefolk gonna put the freeze on your ass. nt

[Shrike47]

41. Ads, people, clear, concise ads. Lots of them. 2023 is real soon.