Social Security cure: procrastination

[reprehensor]

It's a crisis cuz fearless leader sez so! He's a 'crisis management' prezdint.

Social Security cure: procrastination

snip

That's right. Ignore the doomsayers. Wait for a decade or two, and see if the gloomy predictions are coming true.

It's not as crazy as it sounds because of one simple fact: No one really knows whether the forecast of a solvency problem will come true or just gradually fade away.

Why? Because economists have great difficulty making accurate long-term projections. And 75-year economic forecasts - upon which all the current alarm is based - are about as reliable as the Farmers' Almanac.

A little history helps to clarify the picture. In 1995, the Social Security Trustees said the program would be unable to pay full benefits in 2030. Now, a decade later, the date is 2042.

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[mulethree]

1. "13 years (or 37 years) to reach that stage"

Fine up til the end - then

"The last major reform of the Social Security system was done in 1983. It was within months of not being able to pay all promised benefits. Today, projections say it has 13 years (or 37 years) to reach that stage."

13 years = 2018 - again with the supposition that the trust fund
bonds could, concievably, not be redeemed. A benefit cut, tax increase, or economic surge before 2018 could postpone that date. But the trust fund represents 'surplus' fica taxes collected over - by 2018 - 35 years. Push it off too far and you have over-taxed a generation.

Sure - put it off 20 years - for the retirement portion. I don't think the disability and survivors part of SSA can wait quite that long.