Trump payroll plan would deplete Social Security by 2023: Administrator

[left-of-center2012]

Source: The Hill

President Trump's proposal to eliminate payroll taxes would deplete the Social Security retirement trust fund by 2023, and its disability insurance fund by the middle of next year, according to the Social Security Administration. Absent other sources of revenue, the programs would stop paying out benefits when the funds were depleted.

In early August, President Trump signed an executive order permitting companies to stop withholding payroll taxes from their employee paychecks, a gambit to increase take home pay. But Trump also went a step further, promising that he would cancel the tax altogether if he were to be reelected in November. Federal payroll taxes fund Social Security.

In a response to a letter from Congressional Democrats asking how such a policy would affect the trust funds, Social Security Administration Chief Actuary Stephen Goss said it would lead to their quick depletion.

“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 [Disability Insurance] Trust Fund asset reserves would become permanently depleted in about the middle of calendar year 2021, with no ability to pay DI benefits thereafter," he wrote in a letter to the Democrats. "We estimate that [Old Age and Survivor Insurance] Trust Fund reserves would become permanently depleted by the middle of calendar year 2023, with no ability to pay OASI benefits thereafter,” he added.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/513556-trump-payroll-plan-would-deplete-social-security-by-2023-administrator

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[George II]

2. That's less than three years from now. Thankfully it won't pass in the near future but they keep....

....whittling away at benefits that people have paid into ALL THEIR LIVES!

This is why we need to gain a majority in the Senate and Biden has to win.

[crosinski]

4. Amen to that.

[turbinetree]

3. See comments from yesterday............

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213966789

a fucking deadbeat president that hasn't paid one die me into the system...........but since his kid is under eighteen and he is over 70 , guess what he get's / can get a check form SS to help him with his kid...............

[left-of-center2012]

6. Interesting, but ...

That thread address Lawrence O'Donnell.

This thread concerns the SSA administrator.

[turbinetree]

11. Understood, O'Donnell warned the audience after the JR speech of what JR said that night

if his father gets re-elected and he gets the power he wants, and he will try to make permanent and gut that payroll tax...........prior to this article coming out and O"Donnell said it in his comments first and he also explained it in the same format what the SSA commented on in this article...............so it is in essence a confirmation that O'Donnell was correct in his reporting the day before.............. and I for one do not trust Andrew Saul, even though he is not mentioned in the article....................

[CrispyQ]

5. The cult won't believe this cuz he's told them he's going to protect the SS.

on edit: I know people who are qualified for early for full retirement right now who will still vote for him. They will not believe this report.

[Evolve Dammit]

7. destroy all vestiges of FDR's New Deal; burn to the ground. Good night America. Back to serfdom.

[Texin]

14. That's the idea. Has been since the second SS passed under The New Deal.

[SheltieLover]

8. K&R!

[Lonestarblue]

9. Republicans are salivating over the very idea of destroying SS and Medicare.

That has been their goal since the law was passed. And if they’re too afraid to kill it outright, they will try once more to privatize it so that most of the money goes to billionaires to “manage” the program through fees, with peanuts left for the people who work their whole lives relying on the promise that SS will be there for them.

If Trump is reelected, we will not recognize our country in another year.

[SergeStorms]

10. See, the republicans DO have a platform!

I knew they had one laying around someplace.

[Lasher]

12. Let's remember this would not cut taxes just for employees alone.

Employers have to match employee contributions.

[soryang]

17. That's a key point

It's one tax of all the federal income taxes they haven't been able to get out of thus far. That's why they're doing it.

[Lasher]

18. Low information voters think this is the same as getting another Caronacheck

It is not. The GOP, whatever it is they stand for today besides Trump allegiance, want to throw this enormous bone to employers while selling the move to MAGA knuckleheads.

[DENVERPOPS]

19. EXACTLY

Is the employer share 7%???????? It drops straight thru to the Corporation's bottom line........
The SSI also covers "disabled people" if I am not mistaken.
The Corporations will also weasel out of un-employment, and worker's compensation, for sure......

[Warpy]

13. He's evil. This would net pennies for workers, millions for corporations

and kill one of the most popular programs ever devised by government.

He can't be allowed to do any of this.

[Texin]

15. This is classic Robber Baron era so-called Republican *Conservatism*.

They seriously want we people who have to work for a living to all to be rendered to the level of serfdom and live in the modern equivalent of the fictional Pottersville, i.e., the corporate-owned housing of the largest corporate employer in the area.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. You are still receiving Social Security. The check's in the mail!

Oh, that's not working either? Well, you'll be ok, just eat less.

[mdbl]

20. and Trump doesn't give a shit

But he still has an approval rating?

[lordsummerisle]

21. k&r n/t

[DeminPennswoods]

22. There is NO trust fund

The SSA admin should know better than to say this. SSA is a pay-as-you-go program that's paid out of current employee/employer payroll taxes (FICA) to current beneficiaries. Right now there is more coming into SSA than is going out, but those excess funds are, by law, invested in US Treasury bills. When less money comes in from taxes than is being paid out, those T-bills will be cashed in. When all current T-bills are cashed in, then the difference between income and outgo would need to come from general tax revenues.

Americans need to stop thinking that SSA is like a personal savings account. It isn't.

The easiest way to ensure more resources for SSA is to lift the cap on income subject to SSA FICA tax. If that was done, maybe the payroll tax percent actually could be reduced a little for everyone.