Accounting Critic Says Biggest Problem
Facing Social Security, Medicare
Are Trillions in Unfunded Debts
The Epoch Times,
by
Mark Tapscott
Original Article
Posted By: Heil Liberals,
9/2/2021 2:14:02 PM
Social Security and Medicare trust funds are in dire financial condition due to rising benefit costs, but the biggest problem facing the two largest federal entitlement programs is how they are funded, according to a non-profit that advocates greater government transparency and accountability.
“Our bottom line is the trust funds are all a shell game, there is no money in the trust funds. As [former U.S. Comptroller-General] David Walker says, trust funds have no funds and should be distrusted,” Truth in Accounting (TIA) President Sheila Weinberg told The Epoch Times Thursday.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
stablemoney 9/2/2021 2:23:33 PM (No. 902081)
Obamacare raided Medicare funds for $500B. And now, Biden is trying to expand Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing. No one has paid in anything for any of that, so that is a problem. Both Social Security and Medicare have allowed people onto the program that never paid in, and did not qualify, according to the criteria of these plans, as sold to the public when these programs were established. There are no funds sitting in Social Security. All are spent by the government, since funding was required by the Viet Nam War. The programs would be fully paid for, if the administrations would quit spending trillions in the Middle East, supporting the Palestinians, paying the Democrats and their friends.
13 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
AmericaYes 9/2/2021 2:31:25 PM (No. 902095)
All those who are getting their student debt cancelled are in for a big surprise. They will have to work until they are 90 before they qualify for Social Security.
Rationing will solve the socialized medicine problem. "You need a hip replacement. You are scheduled 6 years from next Tuesday." And "Death Panels" will solve the rest of the funding shortfall.
17 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
itsonlyme 9/2/2021 2:34:43 PM (No. 902101)
Let us ask Joe "Dementia" Biden how to solve the situation.........
October 28, 2020
"Joe Biden told Oprah Winfrey that his son Hunter 'is the smartest guy I know' during a Zoom event."
Go ahead Hunter, tell us your words of "wisdom"
11 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
TJ54 9/2/2021 2:40:20 PM (No. 902106)
Duh
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
moebellini3 9/2/2021 2:50:30 PM (No. 902114)
You work for over 40 years paying into the funds only to find out they're going broke because politicians stole the money. You see the hard working tax payers have been supporting all of the losers in this country who refuse to work. And Obama stole the 500 billion to support his Obamacare. We knew this was coming for years and nobody lifted a finger to do anything about it. It gets better, now we're supporting all of the illiterates crossing our border plus the Afghans Biden just brought in. This country is imploding. Get it yet..
17 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Corndoggies 9/2/2021 3:06:21 PM (No. 902126)
I plan on working till full retirement. My husband says he’s retiring at 62 which is 14 more years. I doubt SS will be there for either of us. I just say “ok baby”. At least I’m aware but sometimes I’d like to be more like him. He’s not dumb, just isn’t a political junkie like I am.
8 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Blackbird 9/2/2021 3:08:00 PM (No. 902128)
All of this has been well known for years, but all the D Rats want to do is continue spending more & more money we don’t have and probably never will.
8 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Quigley 9/2/2021 3:10:44 PM (No. 902131)
I thought gender identity was the biggest problem.
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Blue-Z-Anna 9/2/2021 3:14:21 PM (No. 902134)
40 years ago Republicans proposed that the SSA trust fund buy into the stock market.......which was a brilliant idea.
The Dems said "Too risky !" And they spent all the money on stupid stuff instead.
8 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
TXknitter 9/2/2021 3:14:40 PM (No. 902135)
Both parties allowed parents of immigrants to be on SS that regular Americans had to work hard to receive and then, not one penny more than absolutely EARNED! This is dishonest and unjust. I well remember the 60 Minutes story less than ten years ago where senior Cubans and Latinos were interviewed. They boldly said their kids got all the elderly relatives over here for the “free retirement.” By the time they explained all the goodies they received, I was sick.
9 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
padiva 9/2/2021 3:17:00 PM (No. 902136)
Today, i got thru to a local SSA office. I'm at the age where I need a benefit re-evaluation. My appointment (via phone) is scheduled for 50 days from now.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Son of Grady 9/2/2021 3:19:23 PM (No. 902137)
And they think Jan. 6, 2021 was an insurrection?
5 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
jinx 9/2/2021 3:21:05 PM (No. 902140)
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. One has to pay into it when working. The government will take money out of your check for Medicare before it is put into your account. Pres. Johnson took the money out of SS "trust fund" and put it into the general coffers. The government has spent it all. There is no Trust Fund. If there were, it would be huge! Our government just steals our hard earned money and lies about giving it back.
6 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 9/2/2021 3:28:05 PM (No. 902143)
No shinola Sherlock. Like this hasn’t been know since the 60s. Work all my life and pay thousand and just when I might see a little of my cash back, their broke. So glad as a young man I assumed the goobernment would throw away my money. Planned to retire without Socialist Insecurity & Mediscare
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 9/2/2021 3:34:04 PM (No. 902147)
No problemo, feds. Just add another six or so zeroes to the unfunded liabilities, then party on.
3 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
red1066 9/2/2021 4:06:43 PM (No. 902171)
So what else is new? At one time, social security money was off limits to other federal spending. Then the demosluts, including Biteme, decided they couldn't live with that amount of money to spend left lying around. So they've used that SS money to fund the budget, then Biteme decided to offer a bill to tax said SS benefits.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 9/2/2021 4:11:38 PM (No. 902178)
Actually the problem is old people live too long. When SS started most didn't live long enough to collect their fair share. So they bring us Obamacare with Death Panels and now Covid, to be part of the solution.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Muguy 9/2/2021 4:28:20 PM (No. 902192)
The whole basis for Social Security is that more people would be paying in than taking out-- a classic "Pyramin Scheme"
The plan works like insurance in that the person who would eventually get the money would in most cases, pay about half of what he would get back while the others behind would pay the other half. When conceived, the retirement age of 65 was a stretch as people lived on average to be age 67...... With people living longer these days, many into their late 70's and into their 80's, this requires even more money because the dollar "ain't what it used to be" due to inflation and rising costs.
Add on Medicare and that takes even more money to fund. During LBJ's time, $$$ was taken out to fund the Vietnam War with the promise it would be paid back. If all the money that was taken was paid back, it STILL would not be solvent because of all the add-ons which end up becoming UNFUNDED MANDATES.
People think that Social Security will pay for nursing home care, but the SAD TRUTH is that the person has to be down to about their last $2000 TO THEIR NAME to qualify.
Now the Demonrat Socialists want to GIVE all these "benefits" to person who are invading our border who never paid a dime into the system.
The result is the printing of money, the further devaluing of the dollar, rampant inflation, and EVERYTHING going up in cost so that even households with a fair living standard are PRICED OUT OF THEIR WAY OF LIFE due to rising taxes and giving welfare to illegal aliens.
Printing more money only makes things worse-- this $15/hr makes everything go up in prince too-- Have you been to Walmart lately? Cheap crap from CHYNA costs a small fortune!!!
Time to learn how things work-- there will be those who say that all these NEW people will be paying into the system to refresh the bottom of the pyramid for the older folks, but don't bet your life on it!
3 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 9/2/2021 5:21:47 PM (No. 902252)
Well, DUH! This has been known for two or three decades.
0 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
danu 9/2/2021 5:47:13 PM (No. 902288)
The biggest problem is that Americans paid throughout their lives for these 'trust funds'
...it's not an entitlement or demonicrat slush fund.
House and Senate plutocrats: time to sell off a few mansions and return your ill-gotten gains to replenish the public fisc.
1 person likes this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
DVC 9/2/2021 6:29:40 PM (No. 902363)
Bigger cooling systems for the printing presses at the mints will handle it.
Just print more ......like they've been doing for years now.
0 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
paral04 9/2/2021 7:42:37 PM (No. 902446)
It should be a crime to raid trust funds. If a company did that it would be actionable. Corporations that have set up pension funds have strict rules about that and our government should obey them as well.
2 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
DVC 9/2/2021 11:23:02 PM (No. 902624)
#22, NONE of the "trust funds" has a single penny in them. ALL of the money collected each year is spent, and about that much more that we don't have.
And for each "trust fund", each year, a nice, fancy piece of paper, actually an IOU, but called a "bond", but without ANY dollar value other than as a theoretical claim on future "excess revenues". That's rich when we spend a HUGE and increasing amount more than we take in every single year. So....ALL those "trust funds" will never be redeemed. Just a convenient fiction to permit the DC criminal class to get approval for more taxes "ONLY to be spent on XXXXX".....and spend it on any damned thing that they choose, while looking us right in the eye and telling us "that money is safe in the Highway Trust Fund" (or SS trust fund, etc.)
All an elaborate fiction, concocted by elaborate thieves.
3 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
judy 9/3/2021 6:06:42 AM (No. 902752)
Did they mention the millions who never paid into Social Security draw SSI from the social security fund????
3 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
MickTurn 9/3/2021 10:46:58 AM (No. 903064)
NO, it's the FACT that the MONEY is given to those that didn't earn it, and most of the supposed 'Trust Fund' has been STOLEN by Congress and replaced by Leftist IOU's.
0 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
mifla 9/3/2021 1:01:01 PM (No. 903208)
Today's politicians care little for future generations.
0 people like this.
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Comments:
For decades, government has refused to deal with the $200 trillion gorilla in the room. Social Security (a Ponzi scheme) and Medicare (promise more than you take in to cover) were virtually designed to bankrupt our nation. How will the "problem" be "sovled?" Monetize the debt, just like They are doing right now.