Social Security: The Closer You Look, the Worse It Appears; Media Has Ignored for Months
Thanks to info “steveegg” at No Runny Eggs linked me to earlier today, I had to add the word “Annual” before “Cash Flow” at this post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that originally appeared Wednesday.
That’s because the system is already running monthly deficits, and significant ones.
Back in February, the system also ran a deficit. It was bad news, but because February is an unusual month containing a full month of payments but only 20 days of collections (actually 19, since Presidents’ Day is a federal holiday), I didn’t think it was an indicator of a near-term problem when I noted it in early April. I was wrong.
The degree of the decay is obvious when you look at July’s and August’s results. The drastic decline in year-over-year collections noted in Wednesday’s post indicate that September is certainly going to be no better, and will probably be worse.
Go to this link and you’ll be able to replicate the tables that follow (simply type “7″ or “8″ at Item 3):
As you can see, the Old Age program was somewhat positive during July, but the Disability program’s deficit pushed the overall result into the red.
August was much worse:
Both programs ran a cash deficit in August. I have to think that the $5.76 billion cash shortfall might be the worst performance in decades, and maybe ever. Given how poor overall September collections were through Monday compared to the similar period in 2008, September will almost definitely be worse.
What I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, now the POR Recession/”Repression” As Normal People Define It, since July of last year explains why things have gotten so bad so fast. But the more fundamental problem is that any and all attempts at reform have been stymied by the Democratic Party and the establishment media (but I repeat myself) for the better part of 15 years. Now that the fiscal chickens are coming home to roost, there is dead silence about all of this.
I suppose any mention of Social Security’s scary decay would jeopardize the chances of passing state-run health care. We can’t have that.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
Democratics have also chafed at the thought of all the unclaimed capital gains out there. At present you don’t pay cap gains until you sell a stock; they would like us to pay capital gains on some kind of market value at year-end. They have even discussed the concept of ‘unreceived income’, whereby for example if you live in a house that is larger than you need, you should pay income tax on the income that you would receive had you taken a boarder, even if you don’t. There is no end to how imaginative the democratics can get if we let them.
Comment by Bestcelebrity — September 25, 2009 @ 5:53 am
[...] disaster, and I fear that this will happen in the next few years. With the enormous debt, the imminent collapse of Social Security, the massive increase in government spending, and the second housing bubble burst, liberalism is [...]
Pingback by Housing Bubble, Take 2 | Axis of Right — September 25, 2009 @ 8:36 am
Which brings us to an interesting set of questions. When OMB director Orszag fabricated, I mean created Obama’s budget did he take into account the cash flow at SS? Since SS receipts for years have been used to hide the size of the budget deficit to the point Clinton and Dems crowed (lied) they balanced the budget. I submit the farce budget by Orszag not only had unrealistic economic growth numbers, but also unrealistic SS receipts both of which affect the projections of the budget in all years.
Are we led to believe that Orszag didn’t consider or vet the SS trust fund numbers that are integral to the creation of a budget? So what did Orszag know and when did he know it? The conclusion I draw (and eluded to) is that Orszag knowingly submitted a budget he knew was wrong in order to give cover to Obama’s and Democrats prolific spending policies.
Furthermore, given the information I posted before on the Federal Reserve buying US financial instruments of all kinds to the tune of over $1.5 trillion since last September has Obama embarked on an attempt to finance his liberal utopia while breaking the market system in the process? You know if I was a foreigner, especially Chinese or Japanese I would be very angry with the US if I concluded that Obama was deliberately running up the debt in order to devalue the dollar and then default on all the financial instruments to start the new world order. The Dollar is the US and the US is the Dollar, break the Dollar and you break the US. You can’t have utopia as long as the OLD ORDER exists and Obama said he wants to transform the country. You can’t transform without destroying the old. Nothing good can come of this.
Comment by dscott — September 25, 2009 @ 9:18 am