Another supergenius, Charles Krauthammer, is concerned about the nigh-imminent social security crisis.
Yes, that’s right: Not only does he believe that there is a crisis, he believes it’s coming far sooner than President Bush suggested in his State of the Union address.
GET THE (FRIGHTENING) STORY.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
Yay, my generation gets shafted again by the government!
I wonder if the people who originally set up Social “Security” as a pyramid scheme accused those who were opposed to it at the time of denying “Catholic Social Teaching”.
Goes bankrupt in 13 years. Gosh, that’s exactly the number of working years I have left. I retire when SS goes bankrupt. How cheering.
Is anybody really surprised by this? I knew that Social Security was in trouble back in 1989! I remain firmly convinced, the reassurances of my Senators (Kerry and Kennedy) notwithstanding, that I will never see a penny of Social Security.
Something I don’t understand is that if this is a “pay as you go” system as this article suggests, why would doing ANYTHING now (besides setting up an actual trust fund) matter?
Why would a reduction in benefits now change anything besides freeing up more money for other items in the federal budget since this trust fund doesn’t actually exist?
We have more than enough income to support Social Security payments now, it’s not until 2018 that the problem starts. So, assuming we stick to the “pay as we go” system, wouldn’t that mean that we won’t have to make any changes to the payment/taxing of social security until then to solve a problem that doesn’t exist until then?
It sounds like what we really need to do is actually setup that trust fund and take “real” loans out for the debt we’re actually running up in the rest of the budget. At least that way things remain more transparent.
Once we’ve done that we can talk about solvency and benefits with more clarity.
That trust fund was already established, back in 1983 I believe. Social Security has been receiving more money than it has been paying out ever since in order to provide the same level of benefits as now once payments exceed taxes.
The problem with Social Security is that while it was meant as a pay as you go system, people wanted it to be a defined benefits pension irregardless of current revenue. People wanted to believe they paid for their own retirement.
The original Social Security system was a stop-gap measure to keep people living under roofs and not have to eat dog food or rats to live during the Great Depression. By that criteria is one of the most succesful government programs ever.
However, eventually there came a time when something more permanent was needed. Obstensibly, there should have been a serious reform sometime in the 1960’s, but that never happened. I don’t trust the President or the GOP to come up with a proper solution, but the Democratic party needs to accept that the status quo is not acceptable. I wish we had a real opposition party in this country rather than this gaggle of fools and charlatans which does exist.
It sounds like what we really need to do is actually setup that trust fund and take “real” loans out for the debt we’re actually running up in the rest of the budget. At least that way things remain more transparent.
What bank- or group of banks- in this world would ever float that big of a loan?