Related: US Government Stole Social Security Surplus
I just thought you should know why they need to cut your benefits.
"Top Senate Democrat proposes Social Security panel, March 21, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s number two Democrat said Wednesday that he is preparing a plan to create a commission to study Social Security’s fiscal problems and send a proposed solution to Congress for guaranteed votes in both the House and Senate.
Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said he has bipartisan backing for the idea, which is patterned after President Obama’s 2010 deficit commission.
Social Security currently is spending more than it collects in payroll taxes and relies on savings from previous surpluses to pay benefits. Those savings are estimated to run out in 20 years.
It's all gone. Nothing but IOUs issued by a criminal and bankrupt government that broke the trust and now gets along by cooking the books.
Durbin told reporters at a Washington breakfast sponsored by The Wall Street Journal that he wants the commission to make recommendations to make Social Security solvent for 75 years. The panel would be expected to consider increases in the payroll tax, a higher retirement age, and a lower annual cost-of-living adjustment for beneficiaries....
I think it is SAD when DEMOCRATS are leading the looting lynch mob.
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"Touching the third rail of politics; Democrats balk at a new formula for calculating Social Security" by Tom Keane | Globe Columnist, April 21, 2013
Tea Partiers are accused of being the intransigent face of the right, the brook-no-compromise folks who’d rather accomplish nothing than give an inch on their principles. But the current dustup over President Obama’s new 2014 budget suggests the Tea Partiers have more than their fair share of counterparts on the left — with the Massachusetts congressional delegation prominent among them.
At issue is the president’s proposal to change the formula for calculating Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. Most of us are familiar with the Consumer Price Index — the CPI — which measures the price inflation of a “basket” of goods and services that people typically buy. The CPI is flawed, however. In the real world, it should be based not only on how much prices inflate but also on how we, as consumers, respond to that inflation. Thus, if the price of oranges goes up, I may decide to buy less expensive apples instead.
Which means YOUR STANDARD of LIVING just took a DROP!
That “substitution” effect is poorly captured by the traditional CPI, and the feds have developed an alternative — called “chained CPI” — they think is better. Under chained CPI, cost-of-living increases are generally lower than under the traditional CPI. That makes sense. In that switch to cheaper apples as the price of oranges rises, I’m still getting my federally recommended servings of fruit per day. But my overall cost of fruit wouldn’t increase.
Just the price of the poisoned and pesticide-laden food is.
The Obama administration argues that chained CPI is “more accurate,” and so the budget uses it instead of conventional CPI to figure future increases to Social Security. You might think this is common sense. Yet that change has provoked a political firestorm.
Obama and Republicans like chained CPI because, since it shows a slower rise in the cost of living, it will save money over time. But for Democrats and advocates like AARP, the inaccuracy of the conventional CPI is, in fact, its virtue. Because the CPI overstates the effect of inflation, each year’s cost-of-living adjustment is a real (that is, noninflationary) increase in benefits. The president now threatens to take that goodie away.
Doctrinaire progressives such as the Daily Kos, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and MoveOn.org are howling with anger. So too are Democrats in Congress....
The two Bay State Democrats battling to succeed John Kerry are also loudly opposed, portraying Obama as some hapless, witless tool of the right....
Is there any doubt about who he is a tool for anymore?
Overheated rhetoric notwithstanding, chained CPI doesn’t “cut” anyone’s Social Security. It just reduces future increases....
Which is portrayed as a cut when it comes to war contractors and the Pentagon budget.
“We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits” reads an open letter to Obama signed by more than 36 House Democrats. That raises the question: If not Social Security, then where do any future savings come from? The answers offered up are the usual nostrums: undefined “common-sense reforms” and requiring “the rich and giant corporations to pay their fair share.” In other words, from nowhere.
“If we’re serious about deficit reduction, then these reforms have to go hand in hand with reforming our tax code,” Obama told NPR. But Social Security has always been the so-called “third rail” of politics, and Democrats (and a fair number of Republicans) have pandered to crowds for years at the slightest hint of belt-tightening. That’s what makes Obama’s genuine leadership on the issue particularly courageous, while the behavior of progressives and Democrats particularly embarrassing.
The left delights in ripping into Tea Partiers for refusing to negotiate, claiming they’re betraying the nation by making America ungovernable. Et tu, Democrats?
Time for this guy to take a cold drink.
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"House investigators fault disability rulings as lax; Say many claims approved were initially rejected" by Stephen Ohlemacher | Associated Press, June 25, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration is approving disability benefits at strikingly high rates for people whose claims were rejected by field offices or state agencies, according to House investigators.
Compounding the situation, the agency often fails to do required follow-up reviews months or years later to make sure people are still disabled.
Claims for benefits have increased by 25 percent since 2007, pushing the fund that supports the disability program to the brink of insolvency, which could mean reduced benefits. Social Security officials say the primary driver of the increase is demographic, mainly a surge in baby boomers who are more prone to disability as they age but are not quite old enough to qualify for retirement benefits.
The disability program has been swamped by benefit claims since the recession hit a few years ago. Last year, 3.2 million people applied for Social Security Disability or Supplemental Security Income.
In addition, however, management problems ‘‘lead to misspending’’ and add to the financial ills of the program, investigators from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee say.
‘‘Federal disability claims are often paid to individuals who are not legally entitled to receive them,’’ three senior Republicans on the House committee declared in a March 11 letter to the agency. Among the signers was the committee’s chairman, Representative Darrell Issa of California.
Social Security acknowledges a backlog of 1.3 million overdue follow-up reviews to make sure people still qualify for benefits. But agency officials blame budget cuts for the backlog, saying Congress has denied the funds needed to clear it.
Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle said the agency follows the strict legal definition of disability when awarding benefits. To qualify, people are supposed to have a disability that prevents them from working and is expected to last at least a year or result in death.
‘‘Even with this very strict standard, there has been growth in the disability program, and the primary reason for this growth is demographics,’’ Hinkle said.
The most common claimed disability was bone and muscle pain, including lower back pain, followed closely by mental disorders, according to the program’s latest annual report.
‘‘Pain cases and mental cases are extremely difficult because — and even more so with mental cases — there’s no objective medical evidence,’’ said Randall Frye, a Social Security administrative law judge in Charlotte, N.C. ‘‘It’s all subjective.’’
Nearly 11 million disabled workers, spouses, and children get Social Security disability benefits. That’s up from 7.6 million a decade ago. The average monthly benefit for a disabled worker is $1,130.
An additional 8.3 million people get Supplemental Security Income, a separately funded disability program for low-income people.
If Congress doesn’t act, the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money in 2016, according to projections by Social Security’s trustees. At that point, the system will collect only enough money in payroll taxes to pay 80 percent of benefits, triggering a 20 percent cut in benefits.
Congress could redirect money from Social Security’s much bigger retirement program to shore up the disability program, as it did in 1994. But that would worsen the finances of the retirement program, which is facing its own long-term financial problems.
The House oversight subcommittee on entitlements is scheduled to hold the first of several hearings on the disability program Thursday. Most Social Security disability claims are initially processed through a network of local Social Security Administration field offices and state agencies, usually Disability Determination Services, and most are rejected. If your claim is rejected, you can ask the field office or state agency to reconsider. If your claim is rejected again, you can appeal to an administrative law judge employed by Social Security.
The hearing process takes an average of a little more than a year, according to Social Security statistics. The agency estimates there are 816,000 hearings pending.
So far this budget year, the vast majority of judges have approved benefits in more than half the cases they’ve decided, even though they were reviewing applications that had typically been rejected twice by state agencies, according to Social Security data....
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This is either a way to cut off benefits to people who deserve them, or an illumination of this corrupt carcass of a federal government -- and neither is good for the people.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Disabling Social Security
That would seem to be the point, yeah.
Also see: Social Security Has a SWAT Team?
Because the American people are going to be even more furious when they find out government stole the tru$t fund.