Social Security has a surplus
It is not a government handout. It is an earned pension benefit
Biden and his cheerleaders in the media are pretending Donald Trump is going to cut your Social Security. Here is how CNBC reported his phone call to the news channel:
Phoning into CNBC's "Squawk Box," Trump was pressed on how he plans to resolve the long-term solvency problems of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” Trump responded. “And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements — tremendous bad management of entitlements — there’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
The former president didn’t get specific about how he'd change the retirement programs. A Trump campaign spokesman said he was referring only to “cutting waste and fraud,” but did not provide additional policy details on how he’d go about that or how much can be saved.
Trump did not have a Nikki moment. The story was the result of a silly question — Social Security has a surplus and it is not in trouble — by an outlet dedicated to re-electing Biden. In other words, the story was what passes for journalism in the 21st century after Christ’s birth.
But this nonsense gives me an excuse to once again remind readers that the hysteric and pathetic cry that Social Security is running out of money is a neocon diversion from the real problem of a gargantuan federal debt of $34 trillion, which was used to fund neocon wars and to keep the appearance of a strong economy, ramped up after DC broke the economy with a 15-day shutdown over covid that lasted 15 months.
We the people fund Social Security directly through a 7.65% income tax named FICA that is matched by employers, making it 15.3% of your gross income. It is not a tax. It is an insurance policy. FICA is an acronym for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. Many people consider it a Ponzi scheme but if that were true, so is my car insurance. Maybe it is.
Income exceeded payouts for most of Social Security’s 79-year history. Recently, payouts exceed income, but so what? Its surplus was still a robust $2,777 billion at the end of last year. That was down $28 billion (1%) from the previous year but actuaries say it will run out of money in 10 years.
So what? The rest of the government ran out of money long ago and no one asks Donald Trump or Joe Biden about what he will cut to save the government, you know like reporters claim they want to save Social Security. Such questions are concern trolling.
Where can we start to cut government? Federal pensions would be a great place to start.
Every CRS Report said, “The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimates CSRS to cost an amount equal to 36.6% of employee pay. Of this amount, the federal government pays 29.6% and employees pay 7.0%. CSRS employees do not pay Social Security taxes or earn Social Security benefits.”
Well, well, well. They have something Social Security does not have: a federal tax subsidy.
Cut that 29.6% the government gives to the 7.65% the rest of employers pay and you cut the tax subsidies of federal employee pensions by 22%. It should not be cut lower because federal employees deserve the same treatment private employees get, but they do not deserve better treatment. It is bad enough that they have lifetime job security. Why should we treat them better than we treat ourselves?
Why not cut the payouts as well? I was told I had until I was 70 before I got full Social Security benefits, why shouldn’t federal employees face the same thing? Make them wait until they are 62 to collect too.
The big money, though, is in the War Department, which we euphemistically call the Department of Defense. Over the years, the agency has protected us from the Vietnamese, the Iraqis (twice) and the Afghans. The agency is 0-for-4 in those wars. Oh, our soldiers kicked ass but each time our politicians got bored with the war and surrendered to the enemy.
It could stand a 25% cut without making America less safe. By the way, my advocacy for Israel is for moral support, not financial. Parking aircraft carriers in the Med costs us nothing because the carriers are always somewhere. Why not off the beautiful coast of Gaza?
Eliminating the Department of Education entirely would improve education because all it has done is add a meddlesome bureaucracy to each of the nation’s school systems. Congress created a system in which schools must obey Congress and hire unnecessary administrators to get the money to pay those administrators.
I know that makes no sense at all but this is how the government works.
Meanwhile not only can’t Johnny read, but now he doesn’t know what sex he is.
HUD? Don’t make me laugh. It spent trillions over time to help finance Democrats turning American cities into Haitian-like towns filled with looters and drug zombies. Some may say that at least Chicago does not have cannibals. That’s next.
Hey, we went from gay marriage to transsexual operations for kids. Legalized pedophilia is on the horizon. Ending federal funding of some tranny surgery would save us only a few million bucks but just as every litter bit hurts, every little bit helps.
Lady Bird’s anti-litter campaign may be the last federal program that worked.
Oh wait. I overlooked the EPA. Water pollution and air pollution are gone. I know this because in recent decades, in order to justify its continued existence, the EPA has villainized carbon dioxide, without which there is no life on Earth. Dump the EPA and save money.
I will refrain from advocating the elimination of the FBI because it is the biggest threat to our liberties. I don’t want the bureau getting on me. I may be brave but I ain’t dumb.
And because I am not dumb, I reject the panic over Social Security. If Congress can borrow money to give to Zelensky, it can borrow money to give to Surber. Unlike the elfin warlord, I am an American and I pay taxes.
We need to reduce the size of most government agencies to the size of a walnut and then lose the nut. What holds us back are the ties that bind Congress to these agencies, such as the hiring of their friends and family.
Agencies must be eliminated, jobs eliminated, people fired, contracts and leases cancelled and buildings sold before I will believe there is any reduction in government spending.
It infuriates me when people refer to Social Security as an "entitlement." Every dollar I expect to receive from Social Security is MINE; it came from my paycheck year after year. Unfortunately, I will never get back even what I paid numerically - and with the debasement of the currency that has reduced every dollar's value from $1.00 to 3 cents since Tricky Dicky Nixon took us off the gold standard in the fall of 1971, the theft of my money is staggering.
When I first started working, an accountant friend nearly my same age called me one day. "I know you are interested in investing; I had a few extra minutes today and ran some numbers. If one were able to opt-out of Social Security and simply dropped that money into a market index fund, the average worker in America would retire with a million dollars." That was 1983, when a million bucks would be nearly ten million in today's currency.
Think about that. And now they are complaining about giving me back a small fraction of my own money.