You're viewing a single thread.
Reposting from another thread:
Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it's calculated.
When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren't allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.
It would be more accurate to say "if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent."
The people pushing this bullshit know it's bullshit. They do it to make people think they'll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they've been trying to do for 88 years.
Don't fall for it.
Apologies, but your specific example is incorrect. The cap on social security taxes is adjusted every year not by act of congress, but by existing law that indexes the cap to inflation. Therefore, it is already baked into the way it is scored and is not ignored.
You are correct that scoring cannot take into account any actions congress may take.
This time is a little different though than history. From 1984-2020, Social Security took in more in revenue than it paid out on benefits. It is now running at a deficit. Since being formed, it has run at a deficit less than 15 total years, and most of them earlier on. The social security trust fund has never been depleted during that time either. Without any changes to law, it will continue to run at a deficit until the late 2030s when the trust fund would be depleted and taxes alone would cover a projected 80% of benefits.
That 80% is why it's bullshit to your point. There are so many simple, easy ways to solve this and if they do nothing, we could continue to pay out 80% of benefits with no other changes but that'll never happen. It would be political suicide to literally starve our retired population. My favorite way to address it is removing the cap, but there's other small adjustments that make a huge difference. Things like changing the inflation adjustment to a similar but lower index, raising the retirement age, raising the tax by less than a percent, means testing, etc ... and the thing that pisses me off is the sooner we take one of these actions, the more of the trust fund is preserved, and the impact is so much greater. I don't like the other solutions and would strongly prefer raising the cap, but I'd take most of them over inaction, depleting the trust fund, and reducing benefits.
I was trying to keep it short and simple by skipping a step but yes, the SSA follows a formula to raise the cap. But anything the executive does must be authorized by Congress, including the current formula which was set in a reauthorization bill back in the 80s (I think, maybe the 70s, apologies, but I'm not able to look it up right now). So far, every time a budget is passed and every few years when the SSA needs to be reauthorized, they've left them alone. Despite the occasional bill messing with the SSA getting introduced, they never get out of committee.
As far as the CBO goes I don't recall ever reading about cap increases in their report summaries on the trust fund. Although I have read their reports on the effect of various proposed changes to the way the cap is calculated. I'll have to do some more looking when I have the time, but I was definitely under the impression cap increases were in a category the CBO didn't anticipate future changes to when evaluating the health of the trust fund. I thought normally the COLAs would also fall into this category but that is overridden by them being mandatory spending, as opposed to discretionary, so they have to be taken into account. I'm certainly no expert and wouldn't be surprised to find out I missed something.
It's still time to scrap the cap of $168,600 income that has to pay in. Pay the full amount on all our income, or GTFO of the US.
Says the kender? An entire RPG culture based on "innocent" theft and misappropriation? Hunh.
edit: Ah tes, the downvoters are, yet again, too young to know better. When will Reddit stop leaking? 🤦🏼♂️
Ok, I will engage as a Kender.
First of all, me calling myself a Commie is actually superfluous here as evidenced by the Siberian natives that were so damn communist that the USSR couldn't deal with them.
Secondly, the fact that you use the artificial concept of ownership to describe Kender society, shows that you know nothing of Kender. We own nothing, we don't understand ownership at all, unless you big folk explain what you mean.
The biggest crime one can commit as a Kender is not having children. That comes because we are afflicted with wanderlust. I'm a perfect example of this having lived in 49/50 states in the US, and planning to "'retire'" on a ship that I own, but pay for with charter cruises to everywhere else I can get to. I digress.
If you don't return to Kenderhome by your 60th birthday and have at least two children with your council chosen betrothed, or a romantic partner, then we will dispatch bounty hunters to bring you back, alive, and deposit you in the "palace" of Kenderhome. You are then on house arrest, and not able to leave the grounds. This is possibly the worst possible punishment one could give a Kender, other than solitary confinement, thankfully all your locks are trivial for us to pass through, so no one has ever held a Kender in solitary confinement.
The Kender on the whole are an annoyance to those of you primitive races that understand the concept of ownership, but that's not our fault. You should learn the concept of belonging.
Edit, I didn't downvote you.
Edit 2: I'm less than 20 years from having to have podlings, if Krynn has a direct connection to us.
Edit 3: while I have created a Hoopak and a Chappak, IRL, I don't own them. If you need to borrow the Hoopak, or the Chappak,.or pretty much anything else in my possession, I will happily lend it to you, knowing you'll give it back to the community as good, or better, than you got it. It's a real shame I can't rely on normal humans to do the same.
Edit 4: All Weapons should also be tools and musical instruments.
Edit 5: Yes I'm an angry Kender. We only use money because you force us to. We have/had a society that works so damn well the biggest issue we have is forgetting to have kids. I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of progress, despite the insane amount of wealth that human society has produced.
Ah, the inherent sovereign citizen BS in kender "culture". Color me surprised.
Hardly. You're too big to understand us little folk.
That's populism, and left populism is pretty strong here.
Your logical fallacy is showing, and your comment is wholly bullshit. Bye, Felicia.
True men of culture watched the credits and know it's spelled Felisha.