I apologize if this question has been asked and answered but

[Raven]

if I'm 50 something and I've paid into Medicare and Social Security for 25 years or so, when they terminate these programs, do I get my money back with the interest I would have earned if I had saved or invested it?

[Luciferous]

1. Yeah, good luck with that.

[JHB]

2. You can send them a bill and wait.....

...and wait, and wait, and wait....

[rurallib]

3. One of the reasons that pukes can make their arguments of

the gummint being broke is that the moneys been spent.
Doubt you will even get a thank you note.

[MineralMan]

4. Doubtful. This is just the GOOPers way to confiscate

your money.

[former9thward]

5. No. The program is set up as a transfer payment.

You and everyone else has no SS or medicare account. The money you paid in was immediately transferred to current beneficiaries. The programs may be changed but they won't be ended.

[Jim__]

10. No. For the last 25 years most of the SSpayments have not been transferred to current beneficiaries.

The SS Admin has been buying T-Bonds with it. They currently have $2.7 trillion in T-Bonds. Our huge debt to China is in the same instrument - T-Bonds. The SS Admin owns more than twice the amount that China does in them. China is going to be paid off. So will the working class in the US who has put in the money that built up that trust fund.

[former9thward]

14. My point was that no one has a personal account with SS.

The money that is taken out of paychecks goes to fund current beneficiaries. People are not paid their retirement from personal accounts.

[bvar22]

17. "fund current beneficiaries".....AND

...also goes to build up a HUGE surplus that will cover 100% payouts until 2037 if NOTHING is done.

[former9thward]

19. The Congressional Budget Office disagrees with you.

$45 billion deficit this year. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-social-security-run-45-billion-defic

[alc]

18. except they aren't T-Bonds, they're "special bonds"

they are special non-negotiable bonds (e.g. only good if/when the treasury decides to pay them back). They aren't currently counted in our debt link China's bonds and lenders won't care if we don't pay them back they way they would care if we don't pay back China.

They claim these are as good as T-Bonds and the government has never failed to pay them back. But it's never been an issue since they've never had to pay back more than the new ones that SS buys every year. Now were at a point where the pay back comes out of the budget rather than a net gain to the budget.

[FreeJoe]

20. Close, but not quite right

Most of the money taken in contributions has been paid out in benefits, but a significant amount has gone into the trust fund. I blieve that in 2008, for example, SS collected 575 billion in contributions and paid out 509 billion in benefits. So most of the contributions were paid out, but a significant amount of money was put into the trust fund in the form of US treasuries.

[alc]

24. not "normal" US treasuries

Yes, they are US bonds but not the same bonds China buys. They are non-negotiable among other differences. Everyone likes to talk about them as if they are just like any other bond but they are not.

To outside lenders, they are a matter of internal bookkeeping. Not paying them back isn't a problem. In fact it could be used to show fiscal responsibility since we are avoiding an increase of our external debt.

[Freddie Stubbs]

6. You need to look at the text of the law which terminates the programs

[Jim__]

7. They'll have to give you something.

There's 2.7 trillion dollars in the SS Trust Fund. Even if they're paying current SS claims out of it, that will grow to 4.2 trillion before it begins to decline. If they (Wall St or gov) claim that trust fund is gone, there needs to be a violent revolution in this country.

[EFerrari]

8. They won't terminate it literally. They will privatize it and gut services

and claim we're getting our money's worth.

[givemebackmycountry]

9. Good question...

I turn 56 on the 29th and I've been working one way or another since I was 16.
One year I earned 32 dollars... lol.

Point being, I haven't been earning 32 dollars a year for a LONG time now.
I've been paying into SS since the 70's and I've seen my statements and I know what's in there.
Same thing with the pension I paid into for 17 years, I want that money too.

I have to track this post to see what the answer is.

[Raven]

12. This is what I'm beginning to think:

The gutting will not affect the Baby Boomers because, if it did, it would not have a chance in Hell. They will exempt the BB's to buy their silence. If they do that, the BB's will still have to be supported for the next 25 years or so and they'll need the younger folks' $. I'm 65 and just enrolled in Medicare and SS. When this whole business of gutting these programs came up, I'm ashamed to say that I first wondered what it would do to me. Then I realized that this is exactly what these monsters want me to do. Any Rand at her finest....me first, me first, me first. Except, in this case they are asking the BB's to screw their own kids. I think I'm gonna be sick.

[damntexdem]

11. If we let them terminate these programs, they will have stolen from us.

Besides their ideological opposition to the programs, a major reason to fiddle with them is in order to steal their resources.

Consider this: The Social Security Trust Fund is INVESTED in U.S. bonds. Many investors, including China, who hold U.S. debt hold it in the form of such bonds. Defaulting on such bonds (something the U.S. has NEVER done before, whether on bonds or on the debt the former colonies owed after the Revolutionary War, which was assumed by the new U.S. government and fully paid off) would bring down much of the international economic system. Yet, GOP yahoos want to default on the Social Security debt -- the debt owed to us, our investment. Whether that could be done without bringing down the international economic system is unlikely, but the GOP vandals think that they can get away with it by declaring that debt different from the debt otherwise owed. In any case, it is premeditated super-grand larceny they propose.

Now, the FICA wage tax does pay part of Medicare, but most of Medicare does come out of general revenues. Thus, destroying Medicare would mostly not be robbery of the FICA taxes we have paid in. Instead, it would be shifting resources based on the income taxes we pay away from us largely to the super rich; and it would be defaulting on the promise made in 1965 by the Great Society to cover basic health coverage for the aged, then and in future.

[SheilaT]

13. It's a pay as you go program and always has been.

That means those currently paying in, are paying for those currently retired. It is emphatically not set up with your personal money set aside somewhere. The underlying idea is that we all help each other out.

It's also very important to understand Social Security was never meant to be the sole income in retirement, rather it was one leg of a three legged stool: pension, savings, and social security.

Sadly, defined benefit pensions have been going away since the 1970's, and most people don't save enough. Every time I look at the annual statement I get from Social Security I'm quite amazed at how relatively little I've contributed compared to what I'll collect down the road.

Which is another flaw in the idea that even a part of our social security money should be privatized. Even assuming the individual made good investments, it wouldn't end up being very much. The current system gives us a guaranteed return.

Also, many people forget that unless they are self employed, in which case they need to contribute the entire amount themselves, their employers have matched their contribution dollar for dollar, only that match does not show up in the yearly statements we all receive.

[zbdent]

15. You're planning on dying before 2037?

(I believe that's the year when SS STARTS running a deficit ...)

[FreeJoe]

21. That depends on how you define deficit

This year, it is expected that social security will taken in less money in contributions than it pays out in benefits. In that sense, it is running a current account deficit. Fortunately, it has accumulated trillions of dollars in savings over the years and has that money to draw on. In 2037 (or thereabouts), the trust funds will be gone. At that point, unless the law changes, benefits will be reduced to match contributions. That won't mean that social security will go away or that people won't get paid. Instead, people will get checks equal to roughly 75% of what they were getting.

Hopefully, sometime between now and then (hopefully sooner), adjustments will be made so that the trust fund won't be completely exhausted. There are a lots of relatively simple options that will eliminate or substantially reduce the current account deficit. These include taxing 100% of social security benefits (instead of 85%) for wealthy beneficiaries, raising or removing the cap on income that is taxed by social security, broading the income base beyond wages to include things like interest and dividend income, raising the retirement age, changing the cost of living adjustments to be based on the inflation rate rather than the rate of wage increases (or some other slower growing metric), lowering the growth in social security payments to high earners relative to the growth for lower earners (i.e., make it more progressive).

A few small tweaks now done in compromise between the parties would be sufficient to make social security actuarially sound in perpetuity. Sadly, that probably won't happen. If we do nothing and wait until the 2030's, the tweaks will have to be bigger and more unsettling.

[Kokonoe]

16. Yes, when total amount is determined it will be assigned to an account

With your name attached.

The account will be accessed through a Goldman Sachs retiree entitlement fund and
be trickled to an appointed overseer, and finally to an account you choose.
You have a choice of three different accounts to invest your money,
The Overseer may move your money in some markets

1.Safe Haven
2.Equity
3.Luxury Limited

S.H.E.L.L.'s.

Just pick the SHELL you want money.

[FreeJoe]

22. The Supreme Court says "No"

In Flemming v. Nestor, the court ruled that you have no property right to your social security payments and that they are not subject to protection under the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment. They can terminate the program and give you nothing.

There is almost no chance of that happening. The current worst case scenario would be that they do nothing to strengthen the system and that you will start receiving about 75% of what they plan to pay you when the trust fund runs out in about 25 years.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. Of course not.