Mitch says a report last week from the CBO says that Social Security is in terrible trouble. David Gregory lets him blather on and doesn't challenge him to present his sources for that remark. I go to the CBO website and the most current item they have published is this in on the director's blog dated October 22, 2010 in which he summarizes the latest study and that is not last week:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=1498 As detailed in the first eight exhibits, CBO projects that:
Over the next few years, the program’s tax revenues (that is, the trust funds’ receipts excluding interest) will be approximately equal to its outlays. However, starting in 2016, as more of the baby-boom generation enters retirement, outlays as scheduled under current law will regularly exceed tax revenues. As a result, under current law, both trust funds will gradually be depleted.
The DI trust fund will be exhausted in 2018 and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2042. It is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds in combination. CBO projects that, if legislation to shift resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund was enacted, as has been done in the past, the combined trust funds would be exhausted in 2039. However, because of the uncertainty surrounding the various factors that affect the program’s revenues and outlays, that date could vary quite a bit.
The resources dedicated to financing the program over the next 75 years fall short of the benefits that will be owed to beneficiaries by about 1.6 percent of taxable payroll. In other words, to bring the program into balance over the next 75 years, payroll taxes would have to be increased immediately from 12.4 percent to 14.0 percent and kept at that higher rate, or the benefits specified in law would have to be reduced by an equivalent amount, or some combination of those changes and others would have to be implemented.
But ole Mitchy makes it sound like we won't get to 2012 without "fixing" (meaning privatizing) the program.
So it seems disability is in trouble in 2018 and old age retirement is in trouble in 2042 and if you combine the trust funds, which probably will happen they will be in trouble in 2039 and NOT BEFORE! We have plenty of time to fix that before then by either increasing the FICA tax to 14 percent as suggested by the director or raise the cap on the wealthy which has been suggested as well. So people we are in good shape!
Please write MSNBC that David Gregory is not prepared to challenge these assertions by his lying guests and should be replaced maybe by Lawrence O'Donnell who really will wring the truth out of them. Here is a link to their contact information:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/