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Social Security to Start Paying Out More Than It Takes In (Again)

Posted by ralph on March 19, 2010

Ida May Fuller

Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont received the first Social Security payment on January 31, 1940.

I have never had any expectations I that ever will collect Social Security … let’s see how Congress deals with this crisis (again). This entitlement system (from an accounting standpoint) sure does hope you die before you get old…

STEPHEN OHLEMACHER writes on the AP via Yahoo News:

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It’s time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn’t be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Read More on the AP via Yahoo News

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  • emperorreagan

    I'd like to thank Ronald Reagan, for starting the huge upswing in the US debt. Way to go, a-hole.

  • Hadrian999

    does anyone in this generation even think they'll see a dime
    of all the social security tax we pay?

  • tauro60

    If you never receive a return on your Social Security taxes it will because your generation has been politically inactive and inept and allowed the banksters and their accomplices in the political class to steal the public pensions. There is no reason the Federal Treasury can't bail out the SS system just like they bailed out AIG, Citibank, Goldman Sacks and the rest. The difference is that while bankers sit on the cash and wait for good investment opportunities, SS pensioners normally spend it all immediately thereby adding to effective demand and keeping the economy going.

  • Hadrian999

    people who would actually need their social security will never hold any sway over the political system,
    people are giving choices to ratify, the actual decisions are made before elections start, do i choose bankers choice #1 or bankers choice #2……..in the end it doesn't even matter

  • Mr. Man

    My generation is just now getting out of college or the Military. Politically inept? We're in our early to mid twenties! Some of the people you directed your little diatrabe there aren't that old, gramps. I would like to point out it was your generation that started us down this slope of overconsumption and consumerism.

    So oil up that hip and shuffle on down to the early bird at the Sizzler.

  • Rich

    That's a bloody disgrace. It amazes me that over a period of 60 years the US has gone from world beater to train wreck, I really feel for you all.

    tauro60: Don't play the generation game for christs sake, you would know far less about politics than the current generation anyway, and you have had it pretty damn easy.

  • 5by5

    Don't forget to thank George Bush for dipping into the Social Security trust fund (wicked illegal) to help pay for his spending spree.

    The system does need to be adjusted simply to account for our longer lifespans. Additionally, you could easily pay for the Social Security obligations if only you re-routed some of the 55% of the federal budge that we waste on the DOD to helping defend the elderly.

    But what must NOT happen is that the system be abandoned, or worse, placed into the hands of the greedy bastards on the stock market. The latter has already been tried in Milton Friedman/Kissinger World, otherwise known as Chile, to disastrous results.

    Social Security is a PUBLIC trust fund that should be preserved.

  • ebwolf

    Nope.

  • Anonymous

    I want ALL my money back from the people who stole it, with interest.

    Nice fantasy….

  • GoodDoktorBad

    I want ALL my money back from the people who stole it, with interest.