Category Archives: Social Security

May 19, 2012

Government Parties While Social Security Burns

Posted on May 19, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Where did all the money go? Certainly not to America’s seniors who depend on Social Security. And not to the more than 10 million disabled Americans who depend on disability benefits. Their benefits are now projected to run out of money in just 4 years.

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Comedian Jimmy Kimmel high-fived President Barack Obama after his hosting gig at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

While the Obama administration scrambles to explain why taxpayer dollars were wasted on lavish Las Vegas parties with clowns and mind-readers, the government has a new fire to fight: Social Security running out of money faster than ever before.

According to the annual report of the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, Social Security – which 45 million Americans depend upon – will be insolvent 3 years earlier than the government projected just last year. That means the wildly overspending Obama administration has knocked 3 years off the life expectancy of Social Security in just 1 year.

Social Security does not provide security. It provides looming insecurity for Americans.

Where did all the money go? Certainly not to America’s seniors who depend on Social Security. And not to the more than 10 million disabled Americans who depend on disability benefits. Their benefits are now projected to run out of money in just 4 years.

No money for seniors, no money for the disabled, and certainly no money for today’s workers and their children, who have long-since given up hope that Social Security will be there for them when they retire.

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Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Entitlements, Government, Radicals, Social Security

May 7, 2012

2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010; Fraud Explains Falling Unemployment Rate

Posted on May 7, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Since mid-2010, precisely at the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed.

The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

The participation rate — the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one — was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

“How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.”

More than 99 percent of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age, David Greenlaw, a managing director in New York at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a March research note, citing government data. The program provides an average of $1,111 in monthly income to eligible workers with a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or result in death, according to Social Security.

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Posted in Employment, Entitlements, Fraud, Social Security

April 28, 2012

Harry Reid’s Plan to Underfund Social Security and Create a GOP Senate Majority (Video)

Posted on April 28, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democrats are pushing the same old message regarding taxes and spending. But will the Democrats’ payroll tax cut result in higher taxes later? Could Sen. Harry Reid’s shiftless Senate message actually turn the Senate over to the Republicans?

[Note: This article was originally posted on December 21st, 2011. The IFNM website was attacked by hackers and many articles are now gone from the archives. As a public service, IFNM is now reposting said articles.]


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Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Government, Radicals, Social Security

April 24, 2012

Social Security heading for insolvency even faster

Posted on April 24, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

America’s aging population — increased by millions of retiring baby boomers — is straining both Social Security and Medicare. Potential options to reduce Social Security costs include raising the full retirement age, which already is being gradually increased to 67, reducing annual benefit increases and limiting benefits for wealthier Americans.


Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner listens during a news conference on the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports, Monday, April 23, 2012, at the Treasury Department in Washington.

Social Security is rushing even faster toward insolvency, driven by retiring baby boomers, a weak economy and politicians’ reluctance to take painful action to fix the huge retirement and disability program.

The trust funds that support Social Security will run dry in 2033 — three years earlier than previously projected — the government said Monday.

There was no change in the year that Medicare’s hospital insurance fund is projected to run out of money. It’s still 2024. The program’s trustees, however, said the pace of Medicare spending continues to accelerate. Congress enacted a 2 percent cut for Medicare last year, and that is the main reason the trust fund exhaustion date did not advance.

The trustees who oversee both programs say high energy prices are suppressing workers’ wages, a trend they see continuing. They also expect people to work fewer hours than previously projected, even after the economy recovers. Both trends would lead to lower payroll tax receipts, which support both programs.

Unless Congress acts — and forcefully — payments to millions of Americans could be cut.

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Posted in Economy and Debt, Population, Social Security

March 11, 2012

Rasmussen: The Real ‘Entitlement Mentality’

Posted on March 11, 2012 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Over the past 58 years, voters have consistently elected presidents, senators and congressman who promised to cut government spending, but it has never happened, not even once.

Many Republicans talk of an entitlement mentality that threatens the character and finances of the United States. In their view, the problem is that too many voters feel entitled to goodies provided by the government and financed by taxpayers.

It is true that so-called entitlement programs are growing as a share of the federal budget and the national economy. Along with spending on national defense and interest on the federal debt, spending on entitlement programs consumes the overwhelming majority of the federal budget. But a close look at the data shows that it’s not a voter sense of entitlement that is driving the process. Quite the contrary.

The two biggest entitlement programs — Social Security and Medicare — are seen by voters as trust funds they pay into during their working lives and then get back in their retirement years. That’s what President Franklin D. Roosevelt sold voters back in 1935. He wanted the “contributors” to have a “legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions.” That’s what voters still want today. Seventy-three percent believe the best way for the program to operate is to protect the trust funds and make sure there is enough tax revenue to pay the promised benefits. Just 10 percent want to scrap this approach and have the government pay benefits out of the general operating budget.

There are problems with the public perception, of course, starting with the fact that the way our politicians have defined “trust funds” is fraudulent. But those problems reflect the failings and deceptions of politicians rather than voters. In Social Security and Medicare, voters are not looking for a handout. They are looking for a return on money invested.

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Posted in Entitlements, Government, Republicans/Neo-Cons, Social Security

September 15, 2011

Setting Grandma’s Hair on Fire by Pat Buchanan

Posted on September 15, 2011 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Is political correctness more important to Americans than hearing the unvarnished truth about the condition of their country?

Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme for these young people,” said Gov. Rick Perry in his first debate as a presidential candidate. “The idea – that the current program is going to be there for them is a lie.”

Pressed by the moderator, Perry did not back down. He doubled down, calling Social Security a “monstrous lie to our kids.”

Is not such language provocative, Perry was asked. Retort: “Maybe it’s time to have some provocative language in this country.”

Since Barry Goldwater suggested the program be privatized and LBJ ran an ad of a Social Security card being scissored in half, the issue has been “the third rail of American politics.” Touch it – and it kills you.

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Posted in Pat Buchanan, Social Security