thebigp

This really bothers me. Our government acts like Social Security money belongs to them. The money belongs to the people and companies that paid into it. The government has NEVER paid a penny into it. They are really good at stealing from it. I call it stealing because they have never had any plan to repay what has been taken from it. Please pass this on so everyone knows that the government is stealing our money. I'm sure some way it will end up being given to those i******s that get more free stuff from the government then our own citizens. By the way Democrats AND Republicans both have done this.
Jim H. 50hl.,b30



NEW SS PAYMENTS

The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a

*Federal Benefit Payment*?


This puts all we older folks in the Food Stamp/EBT card group.

I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it

Because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you.

Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal

Benefit Payment." This IS NOT a benefit. It is our money paid out of our

Earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our

Employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to

$180,000 invested in Social Security.

If you calculate the future value of your monthly invest-meant in social

Security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions)

At a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working

You'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved!

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3%

Per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit

Of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration.

(Google it it's a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if

You retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most

Average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just

Invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington--Both Parties- pulled off a bigger *Ponzi scheme* than

Bernie Madoff ever did.

They took our money and used it elsewhere. They "forgot" (oh yes, they knew)

That it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to

Ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay

Interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the

Money won't support us for very much longer. (Isn't it funny that they

NEVER say this about welfare payments?)

But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult

To injury, they're calling it a *benefit*, as if we never worked to earn

Every penny of it.

Just because they borrowed (Read "Stole") the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and

Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that

92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

99% of people won't forward this. Will you?

Homestead

Social Security has already been l**ted by Bill Clinton.
There's nothing in there except government IOU's.
The money has already been spent and not on retiree's

BILL CLINTON L**TED SOCIAL SECURITY TO CREATE HIS FEDERAL BUDGET SURPLUS

What we've been doing, Mr. Chairman, in all reality, is taken a hundred billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund, t***sferring it over to the spending column, and spending it. Our friends to the left here are getting their tax cuts, we getting our spending increases, and hollering surplus, surplus, and balanced budget, and balanced budget plans when we continue to spend a hundred billion more than we take in.

It should be obvious from the above that the government has for decades been taking the money intended to pay Social Security benefits and spending it as general revenue. The Social Security trust fund is filled with Government IOUs, and those people who insists Social Security is solvent are operating in the faith that T-bills are always good, because the taxpayer can always be forced to redeem them.

But there is a problem. There are so many T-bills in the Social Security fund that when the baby-boomers start applying for benefits, the sudden surge of T-bills being presented for payment would collapse the Federal System, because there are not enough young taxpayers to carry the extra load.

Regardless of the mechanism, the bottom line is that the government l**ted the retirement funds of Americans, and that means one of two things has to happen (and maybe even both). Either Americans will be taxed twice for the same benefits, or the benefits will be cut.

Read more: www.whatreallyhappened.com http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE2/budget.php#ixzz4Ef8T27PR

Kevyn

Your calculations are nonsense, if you take your example of 375 a month for 40 years and front loaded every nickel the end result after forty years would be $280,000 how you come up with 1.3 million is unclear. Here is an exercise for you, call around and find out where you can get an annuity that will pay you $1230 a month for life and have provided you generous disability benefits for your entire career for that 280K. Social security should be left untouched in a trust fund but dollar for dollar the benefits are a blessing to most Americans. That aside Social Security has been very successful at greatly reducing the shameful legacy of the 19th and early 20th century in our nation of widespread abject poverty among the elderly.

QuestGirl Loc: Jayhawk Country

This "Federal Benefit Payment" name is news to me. The plundering however has been occurring for decades now. One day this payment will simply cease to exist. Most especially if Obama and Hillary are not removed from our nearly lost civilized society.

I read the other day in a post that Trump wants to privatize Social Security. I vaguely recall baby Bush campaigning the same. I suspect Trump will get'er done so long as he makes it to the White House.

Homestead

The Social Security program was not a benefit program, in that you paid into it directly.
Whereas things like welfare are taken out of taxes and the beneficiary doesn't have to put anything in, to get anything out.

Of course Social Security was changed from the beginning, in that the money you put in, didn't go to your account, you just got a credit for it, but, it went to pay those people that are all ready retiring.
So that was the first smoke and mirrors. It worked only as long as there was an expanding work base.

Then they emptied the account and replaced the cash with government IOU's. You don't earn interest on IOU's. So that's the second smoke and mirror.

Changing the name to, "Federal Benefit Payment," is the final smoke and mirror. The cash that's paid in the name of Social Security, no longer goes to Social Security. So those that pay in are no more entitled to Social Security than anyone else that wants to claim it, even if their an i*****l a***n that's put nothing in.

So it's now just another welfare scheme and the name change is to get the public to think of it in that way.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

So much of what is posted on this thread is wrong... Won`t cover it all..

"federal benefit payment"... This is not new.. my bank statement has shown this term for several years. If it was that way when I started collecting? I do not recalll.

If you are blaming one President for stealing the trust fund.. His name is Ronald Reagan... in 1980 something, he got a bill passed to "fix" the SS. But instead it wound up in the general fund and was used to fix the Tax cuts VS expense when his Reaganomics was failing..

No one who has not worked and paid into the SS get to collect any SS benefits..

My math would not arrive at any of the figures posted.. Maybe I suck at math..

The fund is not yet near going broke... But does need to be tweaked.. All those Baby Boomers are stressing the structure of the program..

The money collected never went directly to payment for already retired. At present it goes into the fund, purchased by the Treasury dept. Does receive interest, then back to the fund as needed..

But as I said, the fund needs to be adjusted...

Homestead

If it was Ronald Regan that bankrupted Social Security, then where did Bill Clinton and Harry read get the money to get their so called, surplus?

You can't steal the money twice.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Clinton had that surplus due to careful balance of revenue and spending.. not a lot of programs that were not given financeing and a bit cooperation between congress and the President.. Pretty hard to do. I would say impossible with the views we have now

No, you can not steal the money twice. not even Washington has managed that yet.. Reagan used the full trillion and half or so to bail out the trickle down tax program and nothing was left..

Clinton did his surplus act all by his own.

Ricko Loc: Florida

tfhebigp-the reason our SS Retirement Trust fund is being exhausted is the constant drain of our money to shore-up the SS Disability Fund. There are too many people, young and old, on SS disability and in their infinite wisdom congress sees fit take money from the retirement fund to make those payments. We need Trump to get this straightened out as it amounts to billions yearly. PS. The SS Disability Fund is scheduled to run out of money by the end of this year. Good Luck America !!!

Ricko Loc: Florida

permafrost-not true. Clinton benefited from Newt Gingrich's Contract With America which balanced the budget and provided those surpluses. Clinton's contribution was that he had to good sense to go along with Newt. The democrats have never balanced a budget nor have they proposed one that would balance. The guy who did much of the leg work for Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich was John Kasich. Clinton was a by-standing onlooker who happened to be president at the time . Good Luck America !!!

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Ricko,

Cllinton was much more than an onlooker.. But I believe i did mention congress cooperation in my post, It was a mutual deal..

You are right about SS disability... I should have had that in my post...

Homestead

BILL CLINTON L**TED SOCIAL SECURITY TO CREATE HIS FEDERAL BUDGET SURPLUS
https://matrixbob.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/bill-clinton-l**ted-social-security-to-create-his-federal-budget-surplus/

The Untold Story Of How Clinton's Budget Destroyed The American Economy
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-bill-clintons-balanced-budget-destroyed-the-economy-2012-9

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Ronald Reagan and the Great Social Security Heist
by Allen W. Smith / September 24th, 2013

Ronald Reagan was one of the most popular presidents in modern history. As a former Hollywood actor, he had an uncommon degree of charisma. The conservatives absolutely loved Reagan for his efforts to reduce the size of government, but most liberals h**ed him with a passion. Reagan is still revered by a lot of Americans. This reverence for Ronald Reagan helps to explain how he was able to fool most of the American people to a degree unparalleled by any other modern president. With the help of Alan Greenspan, Reagan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people.

Instead of being a proud day for America, April 20, 1983, has become a day of shame. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30-years of federal embezzlement of Social Security money in order to use the money to pay for wars, tax cuts and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money went to Social Security.

The 1983 legislation was sold to the public, and to the Congress, as a long-term fix for Social Security. The payroll tax hike was designed to generate large Social Security surpluses for 30 years, which would be set aside to cover the increased cost of paying benefits when the boomers retired.

Let’s have a look at the events leading up to this proposal. Reagan and the government had big financial problems. Supply-side economics was not working like Reagan had promised. Instead of the lower tax rates generating more revenue as the supply-siders claimed would happen, there was a dramatic drop in revenue. Something had to be done, so Ronald Reagan set for himself a new mission. He would have to figure out a way to get the additional revenue he needed from another source.

The mechanism, which allowed the government to t***sfer $2.7 trillion from the Social Security fund to the general fund over a 30-year period, was the brainchild of President Ronald Reagan and his advisers, especially Alan Greenspan. Greenspan played a key role in convincing Congress and the public to support a hike in the payroll tax. A few years later, Reagan appointed Greenspan to become Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Since Greenspan’s new job was one of the most coveted positions in Washington, many observers have wondered whether or not this appointment represented, at least in part, payback for the role Greenspan had played in making vast sums of new revenue available to the government.

President Reagan and his advisors knew, from the very beginning, that the government would soon face a severe cash shortage. Budget Director, David Stockman, had deliberately r****d the computer at the Office of Management and Budget to generate bogus revenue forecasts in an effort to convince Congress to enact Reagan’s unaffordable proposed tax cuts. When Stockman first fed the data from Reagan’s economic proposals into the computer, he was shocked. The computer forecast that, if Reagan’s proposals were enacted into law, massive budget deficits would loom ahead for as far as the eye could see.

Reagan needed a new source of revenue to replace the revenue lost as a result of his unaffordable income tax cuts. He wasn’t about to rescind any of his income-tax cuts, but he had another idea. What about raising the payroll tax, and then channeling the new revenue to the general fund, from where it could be spent for other purposes? An increase in Social Security taxes would be easier to enact than a hike in income tax rates, and it would leave his income tax cuts undisturbed. Reagan’s first step in implementing his strategy was to write to Congressional leaders. His first letter, dated May 21, 1981 included the following:

As you know, the Social Security System is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy…in the decades ahead its unfunded obligations could run well into the trillions. Unless we in government are willing to act, a sword of Damocles will soon hang over the welfare of millions of our citizens.

Reagan wrote a follow-up letter to Congressional leaders dated July 18, 1981, which included:

The highest priority of my Administration is restoring the integrity of the Social Security System. Those 35 million Americans who depend on Social Security expect and are entitled to prompt bipartisan action to resolve the current financial problem.

Social Security was definitely not “teetering on the edge of bankruptcy” in 1981 as Reagan claimed in his letter to Congressional leaders. The 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform, headed by Alan Greenspan, issued its “findings and recommendations” in January 1983. The Commission accurately foresaw major problems for Social Security when the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But that was nearly two decades down the road. In addition to the long-term problem of the baby boomers, the Commission found a possible short-term problem for the years 1983-89. But the outlook improved and became favorable for the 1900s and early 2000s. The possible minor problem for the years 1983-1989 was based on very pessimistic economic assumptions. So, at the time Reagan informed Congressional leaders that Social Security was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the actual condition of Social Security funding was fairly sound for the next two decades.

Furthermore, Social Security was certainly not Reagan’s “highest priority.” Reagan had never been a friend of Social Security. He was a hardliner when it came to all government social programs. He called unemployment insurance “a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders.” He said the progressive income tax was “a brainchild of Karl Marx.” And he called welfare recipients “a faceless mass waiting for handouts.” Reagan referred to Social Security as a “welfare program” and, during the 1976 Republican P**********l Primary, Reagan proposed making Social Security voluntary, which would have essentially destroyed the program. There is no way that anyone who knew Reagan’s record would accept his claim that Social Security was his highest priority. He had always wanted the program eliminated, or at least privatized.

Reagan’s scare tactics worked. Congress passed the Social Security Amendments of 1983, which included a hefty increase in the payroll tax rate. The tax increase was designed to generate large Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years. The public was led to believe that the surplus money would be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury Bonds, which could later be resold to raise cash with which to pay benefits to the boomers. But that didn’t happen. The money was all deposited directly into the general fund and used for non-Social Security purposes. Reagan spent every dime of the surplus Social Security revenue, which came in during his presidency, on general government operations. His successor, George H.W. Bush, used the surplus money as a giant slush fund, and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush l**ted and spent all of the Social Security surplus revenue that flowed in during their presidencies. So we can’t blame the whole problem on Reagan. Reagan was the one who figured out a way to use Social Security money as general revenue, and his successors just followed his example.

The $2.7 trillion, which is alleged to be in the trust fund, was all spent for wars, tax cuts for the rich, and other government programs. If the money is repaid at some point in the future, we could say is was just “borrowed.” But no arrangements have been made to repay the money, and nobody in government is suggesting that the money should be repaid. So, if it is never repaid, the money will definitely have been stolen.

This would not be such a serious problem if Social Security was still running annual surpluses. But Social Security ran it last annual surplus in 2009, and began running permanent annual deficits in 2010. The cost of paying full Social Security benefits for 2010 exceeded Social Security’s total tax revenue by $49 billion. So how did the government pay full Social Security benefits in 2010? They borrowed $49 billion from China, or one of our other creditors. And the amount that will have to be borrowed in future years will become larger and larger. If the trust fund had not been l**ted, there would be $2.7 trillion of marketable U.S. Treasury bonds in the fund that could be sold in the open market for cash. But the trust fund doesn’t hold a dime’s worth of marketable real assets of any kind.

That’s why President Obama warned during the debt-ceiling crisis of 2011 that Social Security checks could not go out on time unless the dispute was settled, because “their might not be enough money in the coffers.” The grandiose lie that the Social Security Administration, the AARP, and the NCPSSM, repeatedly tells the public is outrageous. They continue to say that Social Security has enough money to pay full benefits for another 20 years without any government action, when Social Security cannot pay full benefits for a single year without borrowing money. The IOUs in the trust fund are not marketable, and they have no monetary value. They are worthless!

We can easily understand why the SSA continues to repeat the big lie. That is what they are told to do by top government officials, who are trying to keep the Social Security theft a secret from the public. But why do the senior organizations continue to repeat the lie? They are supposed to be representing the best interests of their members, but, in my opinion, they are betraying their members.

So the great Social Security fraud, which began under Ronald Reagan in 1981, is still alive and well 32 years after it began. Republican and Democrat presidents and Republican and Democrat members of Congress, all share in the blame. There is nothing broken about Social Security. If the government had not stolen $2.7 trillion from Social Security, or, if the government would make arrangements to repay the stolen money, Social Security would be able to pay full benefits for at least 20 more years without any other action. But crooked politicians, who do not want to repay the money, are trying to convince the public that Social Security is a flawed system, which needs to be replaced with private accounts.

Social Security is a sound program that has worked well for more than 75 years. It ain’t broke, so why try to fix it? The government—not Social Security—is what is broken and needs to be fixed. It is time for the American people to stand their ground and fire the crooked politicians. President Obama, and every member of Congress know that everything in this article is true. But they have succeeded in fooling the people for three decades and seem to think they can continue to do so. Don’t let them get by with it!

Dr. Allen W. Smith is a Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of seven books and has been researching and writing about Social Security financing for the past ten years. His latest book is Raiding the Trust Fund: Using Social Security Money to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich. Read other articles by Allen, or visit Allen's website.
This article was posted on Tuesday, September 24th, 2013 at 8:00am and is filed under GWB, Obama, Social Security.

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Homestead

You know it's congress that writes and passes the laws.
All the president can do is sign them.
In all that writing, did your man mention whether the congress was dominated by Democrats or Republicans, during Regan's term?

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

No matter, it was Reagan s watch, Reagan s policy put together by his cabinet and he signed it.. He gets the blame.. If you like anything a president does, give him credit, it you do not like what he does, blame him...