SS Trustees Report

[Yo_Mama]

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/TR/2012/tr2012.pdf

This needs to be an issue in the election. The current projection is for Disability to be exhausted and benefits cut over 20% in 2016, and for Social Security to be exhausted and benefits cut over 20% in 2035. Combined (which would allow payment of full disability benefits longer), the exhaustion date is 2033.

Legal changes will have to be made in the next President's term to continue full disability benefits, and I want to hear backing on that from President Obama's mouth.

[HiPointDem]

1. no legal changes need to be made. the various SS subfunds have borrowed from each other in

the past & can still do so in the present. Which is why the trustees write about the combined funds being solvent until 2033.

Focus on the important: repaying the debt owed to the SS Trust Fund, most optimally by rescinding Bush's tax cuts on wealth, and save the worry over "exhaustion" of the fund for 2030 or so, when it may or may not be close to exhaustion.

[Yo_Mama]

2. No, Congress has to pass a law to authorize it.

Congress can and probably will, but I don't think we can assume anything. The allocations between the OASI and DI funds are set by law, and of course it can be changed:
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/ProgData/oasdiRates.html

I think we are going to be fighting for these two programs very hard.

[HiPointDem]

3. it's been done before.

Interfund borrowing

The borrowing of assets by a trust fund (OASI, DI, or HI) from another of the trust funds when the first fund is in danger of exhaustion. Interfund borrowing was permitted by the Social Security Act only during 1982 through 1987; all amounts borrowed were to be repaid prior to the end of 1989. The only exercise of this authority occurred in 1982, when the OASI Trust Fund borrowed assets from the DI and HI Trust Funds. The final repayment of borrowed amounts occurred in 1986.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/TR03/VI_glossary.html


They can also reallocate the percent of income going into each fund.


But of course, the best fix for SS would be some decent jobs.

[eyewall]

4. Raise the cap

problem solved.

[Yo_Mama]

5. The fact that the report did not mention this option

is one of the things that raised my eyebrows.

Raising the cap is a relatively easy way to make SS finances more stable. It's one that President Obama has backed before (I remember this from the 2008 campaign). I want this to be a campaign issue, because I am afraid that these programs are being deliberately undermined.

[eyewall]

6. You're right, it is troubling that the most obvious solution

was not even mentioned.