republicans wanting to cut social security disability

I think the budget itself, and the overspending beyond the budget without Congressional oversight are different than this funding running out. There are wars "out there" and we will pay for our involvement or non-involvement one way or the other, imo. (Especially when they come home.)

Congress together must fix the problem, not just throw money at it. Some process of certifying who is disabled (and I would surmise that only the most recent recipients would be under scrutiny imo, and whether we can continue to have such a broad allowance should also be considered...especially since there is Obama/SCOTUS care now that will cover everyone for everything... healthcare-wise....

I doubt there is anyone in Congress that want to defund truly disabled and needy people in this country! They'll fix it, but whether they will do it sooner or later, or a patch or a real fix is still up in the air. I wouldn't fear.... Republicans have always been around for the "little guy" and against the Big Business that crushes us. It's the Democrats that want the sick, infirmed and disabled to "go home and take the little blue pill (that will put us to sleep permanently) instead of the medicine to help us" they say...and they fund Margaret Sanger's idea of a perfect society (without black babies)... also reducing population.

Here's a link to another article on this topic: Social Security Disability Benefits May Be Cut by Nearly 20% | Blog | Nash Disability Law

Here's an excerpt:

Here’s how it happened: Social Security has two funds – one to pay old-age retirement benefits and the other to pay disability benefits. The two funds have routinely borrowed from each other as needed. This accounting procedure has been done 11 times in the past and even was done four times during the Reagan presidency. However, just one day after the new Congressional members were sworn into office, conservative Republicans passed a rule that prohibits any transfer of money to the Social Security Disability Trust Fund unless it is accompanied by “benefits cuts or tax increases that improve the solvency of the combined trust funds.”

It is Republicans who are pushing to cut benefits to the disabled.

I've always had the impression that Republicans (talking politicians, not voters) are highly imperialistic. They would rather devote funds to imperialism than to home-based quality of life causes. However, I have also always had the impression that Democrats don't do so well when it comes to overseeing and managing domestic programs.

I have often had the impression in general that Republicans are extremely strategic but kind of ruthless, while Democrats are generally trying to improve quality of life at home, but tend to flounder really badly when it comes to strategy.

So I have never been able to bring myself to "pick a side" because I don't have much confidence in either side, but for different reasons. I wish we as a nation could tackle individual topics/issues without any party loyalty interference. But then I'd also like magical powers that let me fly.

Unfortunately they are all in the "gray area" of politics if you ask me. Democrats were historically for the big businesses and Republicans for the little guy... now it's like no one is really for the little guy because everyone has moved so far left of what has "always" been considered "center".

I think it's something to watch, and to voice your fear or opinion on to your Legislator... to be sure that the funds that are not renewed are used more wisely for the same needy people. (NOT cutting funds, just not renewing the same-ole same-ole program?)

I hate to break the news, but substandard conditions/care is already taking place. For those who are paying for insurance, premiums are going up and so are co- pays. The fight all along has been about funding it. Doctors have always competed for those who can pay the most, they have to because their own insurance rates and expenses are so high now. The least talented doctors have always been the ones that take care of the poor or low paying patients, nothing new there. Good luck finding a doctor who takes medicare too or some of the lower paying plans.

People who pay more get more, that has been going on for a very long time and probably always will.

I don't think any of the politicians are "all that" or actually have "fair" solutions. All they do is argue and put on a show because I don't think "any" of them really know what to do.

Yesterdays first class drug treatments are today's low class drug treatments, that is where the improvements are. A doctor told me that the Cancer patients on plans like mine don't get the better drugs, they are simply not approved and that upsets him as "he" is the one who get to see/know these patients first hand.

Shame on them.

There is a lot of deceit in the political arena and it's in both parties too. The wealthy are wealthier than ever before, the gap has gotten bigger in the past 8 years, what does that tell you? And there is "still" segregation. Even right in DC where there is this area where they all play and have wealth yet there it still is, the segregated poor and African communites.

If my ssd is cut then my rent will also be decreased as it is based on my income. However what I don't know is if ssd is cut then does my VA pension increase because that is based on income also. It's possible it may work out to the same amount of money coming in with or without the cut for me.

The Social Security Amendments of 1983: the payroll tax hike of 1983 was proposed allegedly to save programs administered by the Social Security Agency. It was alleged that SSA was or soon would be on the brink of bankruptcy. Yes, Reagan, or some might say Greenspan raised taxes in order to save Social Security. The surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held by the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire and deplete SSA assets. By 2013 close to 3 trillion dollars in surplus revenue had been generated. Not a dime actually went to SSA. It went to the general fund and was spent. That wasn't borrowing. It was theft. Reaganomics worked even worse than we were told. The Reagan tax cuts didn't work. The US government was facing large deficits due to Reaganomics according to the OMB forecasts. Americans (and Reagan) weren't about to raise income taxes back to the previous levels. Somehow an increase in Social Security taxes was more palatable. Scaring the hell out of people who were vested in Social Security certainly helped the plan gain the needed support of the public. Still, during those 8 years of voodoo economics, taxes were raised 11 times and still the deficit tripled. Imagine what it would have been w/o that $2.7T stolen from the SSA.
BTW I'm pretty sure SS retirement, SSDI, and SSI are all funded through FICA taxes.
Also on the subject of taxes, the U.S. has one of the world's lowest marginal income tax rates, Compare that to Germany with a marginal tax rate of 45%, an extensive (and expensive) social safety net and yet has a flourishing economy.
Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with this picture?

Any surplus revenue that the SSA raises must, by law, be invested in U.S. Treasury bonds. There was no "theft." The only way for money to move from the SSA fund to the general fund is through the sale of government securities. It is true that Congress has massively relied on borrowing from the SSA to fund the deficit. But they don't sneak in and steal the money. That is a huge and popular myth. The government borrows from the SSA in exactly the same way that it borrows from the Chinese. It trades bonds for cash.

The only way the SSA will ever be "stolen" from is if, when the SSA goes to redeem some bonds, the U.S. treasury fails to pay on the bonds. So far, the United States has never failed to pay on government bonds. It could happen though.

SSI is funded from general tax revenues.

I think we disagree Rose... but I'm not 100% sure
They don't sneak in and steal the money you say. Not literally, no. That isn't their money. It's ours... meant to be set aside for the future of SSA. Did anyone ask you if it was okay to use it to replace revenue lost to tax cuts and corporate subsidies? Did anyone ask you if it was okay to use it to fight wars or provide arms to other nations or any of the other nonsense reasons it has been used for.
No? They didn't ask or tell me either. I found out through members of congress who knew it was happening and didn't like it... Daniel Moynihan and Harry Reid to name a couple.
That money was raised through FICA taxes for a non existent crisis we were told existed in funding Social security at the time and possible worst case scenarios that loomed in the future. It was promptly used for everything else. George W Bush alone used $1.52 trillion of the trust fund from 2001 to 2008.
Money raised for one purpose based on lies and exaggerations and then used for entirely different purposes. That isn't theft?
BTW, I use W only as an example that is easily researched. Every congress and every president from the first day revenue from the Act of 1983 began to roll in has done it.
You don't want to call it theft. Okay. How about scam? It was presented as a plan to save Social Security. It wasn't really meant to save SS and I think Reagan knew that and I am almost sure Greenspan knew that. Both hated Social Security and all social safety net programs if you go by their own historical statements.

"Since all money is green, the cash that the Treasury received from the Social Security surplus was not earmarked for any specific government program."
Andrew Eschtruth, former GAO Social Security research analyst.
You are right. Blame it on my lysdexia

I'm curious if the money the postal service has to pay to fund their pensions 75 years into the future is treated in the same way. Does that go into the general fund too and is borrowed from?

You may have a point, George, in regards to the public being deceived. I'll have to read some history. Your knowledge of American history is more extensive than mine. My academic training is in economics. In that area, you do have some confusion.

Some politicians have gone around demogoguing, saying that Social Security revenue (FICA taxes) was supposed to be put in a "lock-box" and "saved." They are being disingenuous and exploiting a common hole in people's knowledge base. What's true from a microeconomic perspective is often not true from a macroeconomic perspective. That can be hard to grasp, but I know you can get it.

Think about it: If all the income that comes into the SSA every week from FICO taxes were actually "set aside" in something like a lock-box, the country would go into instant recession. At the micro level, you can put $100 in a savings account at the bank, and, 6 months later, it will still be $100, with a little interest added on. From your point of view, money is something real, like an actual asset . . . even sort of like gold. From a macro perspective, money is nothing but paper. From that perspective, the only way money can be saved by some parties is IF other parties are willing to borrow AND SPEND that same money. Otherwise, the "money" represents a hunk of economic output for a given interval that is not being claimed. When that happens, the economy reduces its output in the next time interval by the amount of the unclaimed output, or even more.

Here's an intuitively graspable scenario. Let's say you want to make sure you'll have enough potatoes to eat ten years from now. You can't go saving a bunch of bags of potatoes because, in ten years, they'll all be rotten. If you have extra potatoes that you want to save long-term, there is a way to save them. Find someone who wants to use those potatoes now who will promise to buy you that same amount of potatoes in ten years. You can only save, if someone else wants to borrow. Everything the economy produces is a little like potatoes. It all goes bad, or out of fashion, or rusts, or becomes obsolete. You can't save today's purchasing power. All you can do is trade it for someone else's future purchasing power.

So the SSA has got to do something with the excess revenue it receives. It has to loan it to somebody. If it put it into regular bank accounts, the banks would have to find someone to borrow it. Otherwise, the economy shrinks by the amount of those funds. So the SSA has to loan that money to someone, either to busnesses, or to banks, or to another branch of the government. By law, that money must be loaned to the United States government. That's the way it was set up. Every day, any SSA revenue that is over and above what is needed to pay benefits is invested in U.S. Treasury bonds. That's the way it has always been.

Any money the U.S. Treasury receives from the sale of any bonds to anyone anywhere becomes immediately available for the payment of the governments bills. That's how it has always been. And you would want that money immediately spent - in some fashion - or you would be taking purchasing power out of the economy, and the purchading power of today cannot be "saved" - not at the macro level. It's use it, or lose it.

Yes, the money is ours, yours and mine. We long ago chose, through our laws, to loan it to the U.S. Treasury. Our elected representatives, chosen by us, spend the money that the Treasury holds as they detemine through the legislative process. While we may not like deficit spending, we would never, ever want the Treasury to simply sit on a bunch of funds because that would reduce aggregate demand and immediately contract the economy. Macro Principal #1: Some can save money ONLY if others borrow and spend the same amount of money. (Saved money must be immediately loaned to someone who spends every bit if it OR the value of the savings disappears into thin air and the society, as a whole becomes poorer.) Economists call that the "paradox of thrift." You can't "set aside" purchasing power, as a nation. You have to transfer it to someone, who better use it now. Individuals can save, but the nation - as a whole - can not . . . not in any big way. (Grain and oil can be put in government owed silos and tanks, which does represent some macro savings, but those assets are pretty small in the grand scheme if things.)

Now I've got to learn some history to look at the point you made about deception in 1983.

No, it doesn't, Iowa. (It used to be, but they changed that in 2001, when they set up a trust empowered to invest in other ways.)

"The sole purpose of the Trust is to manage and invest Railroad Retirement assets. The Act authorizes the Trust to invest the assets of the Railroad Retirement Account in a diversified investment portfolio in the same manner as those of private sector retirement plans."

From: http://www.rrb.gov/mep/nrrit.asp

By the way, George, it's conceivable that we could change our laws and do something similar with the Social Security trust fund. But that raises huge, huge issues, which are a whole other story for another day.

"They" are us. We are not a direct democracy, but, rather, a respresentative democracy. "They" have the power that we gave them when we elected them. Blame those among your fellow Americans who voted for war hawks and supply-sider tax cutters. Our real adversary is the ignorance of the American people.

Politics is all about exploiting people's ignorance.

Now, I'll have to read what did happen in 1983.

I've tried very hard to find out what happened in 1983 that is striking you as so nefarious. I've researched Moynihan and Reid, as to where they stood on the related issues. Maybe you can give me more specific information on the history, as you followed it.

What I learned is that, in the early '80s, Social Security was, indeed, facing a solvency crisis. Everyone agreed they had to either increase revenues or decrease benefits. What they did, through the Social Security Amendments of 1983, was to solve the immediately threarening cash flow problem and, also, to set revenues high enough - providing enough surplus funds - so that it would be a long time before this problem would come up again.

Yes, that did allow the Social Security trust fund to really bulk up. They could foresee that with the retirement sunami of baby-boomers coming, combined with the relative shrinking of the workforce, related to declining reproductive rate (my grandmother had 11 kids; my mother had 5; I've had none) there would be a very expectable imbalance, eventually, between money coming in and money going out. What they did forestalled that eventuality until the mid 2030s, much to the benefit of baby boomers and post-boomers, like you and me.

Moynihan wanted to only boost up revenue to Social Security just enough to keep it on a pay-as-you-go basis. That would have doomed people my age (age 63) to a horrible political battle with younger Americans over keeping the benefits my age cohort expected. Call me selfish, but I'm glad Moynihan's view did not prevail. He wanted working American's to keep more of their income, so they could invest it in privately held retirement funds. (Who else thinks along those lines?) He died in 2003 and didn't experience the great recession that depleted a lot of privately held wealth. That might have changed his view.

I'll let them speak for themselves as much as possible from congressional debates. The following is from the late 80s early 90s after the higher FICA taxes had brought in far more revenue than SSA needed and the excess had become a fund for other purposes.
“Of course, the most reprehensible fraud in this great jambalaya of frauds is the systematic and total ransacking of the Social Security trust fund in order to mask the true size of the deficit…The Treasury is siphoning off every dollar of the Social Security surplus to meet current operating expenses of the Government…The hard fact is that, in the next century, the Social Security system will find itself paying out vastly more in benefits than it is taking in through payroll taxes. And the American people will wake up to the reality that those IOU’s in the trust fund vault are a 21st century version of Confederate banknotes." Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) 10/13/89

“The discussion is are we as a country violating a trust by spending Social Security trust fund moneys for some purpose other than for which they were intended. The obvious answer is yes…
The trust funds resources are there for the well-being of those who have paid into the Social Security System. We should use those resources to see that Social Security recipients are treated well but also treated fairly and treated equitably.
It is time for Congress, I think, to take its hands—and I add the President in on that—off the Social Security surpluses. Stop hiding the horrible truth of the fiscal irresponsibility that we have talked about here the past 2 weeks. It is time to return those dollars to the hands of those who earned them—the Social Security beneficiaries and future beneficiaries…
I think that is a very good illustration of what I was talking about, embezzlement, thievery. Because that, Mr. President, is what we are talking about here…On that chart in emblazoned red letters is what has been taking place here, embezzlement. During the period of growth we have had during the past 10 years, the growth has been from two sources: One, a large credit card with no limits on it, and, two, we have been stealing money from the Social Security recipients of this country. I think that is a very good illustration of what I was talking about, embezzlement, thievery. Because that, Mr. President, is what we are talking about here…I publicly commend and applaud the vigorous activity generated by the Senator from New York because… on that chart in emblazoned red letters is what has been taking place here, embezzlement.” Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) 10/9/90

Moynihan did in fact want to cut FICA taxes for a "pay as you go" system. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was for noble reasons... the main reason being that the excess SSA funds had become a slush fund... rather than cut spending or raise corporate and individual taxes. every penny of excess funds was going to the general fund to help run the government.
“Mr. President…If there is a problem of dissimulation, I would suggest that it resides with the present practice of using Social Security trust funds as general revenues. My distinguished friend, the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Heinz, has used a very direct word for this. He says it is called “embezzlement.”
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 10/9/90
This article gives a little history of Moynihan's position.
THE BUDGET BATTLE - Senate Kills Moynihan's Proposal To Reduce Social Security Taxes - NYTimes.com

I'm not understanding what you said in another post about "real money." Why isn't this real money? Why isn't the excess SSA fund invested the way other trust funds are invested? I know you mentioned Treasury bonds but doesn't that seem a little odd? The government is in effect just skimming money from the SSA fund off the top into the general fund.
I don't understand complex economics but I think I can recognize a scam when I see one. When private funds are invested, a return is expected from profits made by whatever the investment is made in. Is the US government turning a profit?

And I agree that Gore's lockbox plan didn't make any sense.

This discussion has been stimlating, and I've learned so much over the past few days from reading and thinking and considering your point of view. There is an awful lot to be thought about. And the moral uprightness of developing huge reserves in the S.S. fund that became conveniently available to finance war and tax cuts for the rich deserves careful analysis that doesn't yield easy conclusions.

What I'm coming to conclude is that there is plenty of criticism one can make of everyone involved, and that includes the general public. This way of doing our nation's business has prevailed because we were all getting over . . . which can't go on forever.

To begin with, Social Security has been a sweet deal for the nation's elders and disabled and survivors of those with benefits. Even back when I was in high school, history teachers (mine were left leaning) told us that most people got way more in benefits than they put in. Anyone can verify that with a little on-line research. It kinda is a Ponzi scheme. That's not as ugly a truth as the Right tries to make it. My father's generation didn't mind all that much having some income redistributed from their incomes to those of my grandparents generation. My grandparents generation had suffered terribly during the depression. Many had fought in WWI and/or lost sons in WWII. Many had endured very tough working conditions, when they managed to have jobs. Women my grandmother's age got brown lung and TB working in textile mills. Often this generation started full-time work at the age of 14. It wasn't hard to sell the idea that the country kind of owed them something. Also, back then, the alternative for many would have been depending on support from their children. So there there was no hue and cry raised by the public when my grandparents' generation got back 14 times what they paid in. Besides, my parents' generation were slated to get back way more than they put in. And they did get it. I'll get back way more than I put in, given a normal life span.

Supporters of Social Security, back in the day, optimistically and sincerely believed that the value if the U.S. economy would keep on growing by leaps and bounds. Paying FICA taxes was sort of like buying stock in America. Someday it would pay off better than most stocks were likely to.

You correctly identify 1983 as a turning point. By then, it was impossible to ignore that Social Security couldn't keep paying out as generously as it had. It was facing insolvency. So there was a crisis. However, they more than fixed it. The motives were not dark, IMO. They didn't want to have to keep coming back to this issue every few years. So they made sure there would be enough of surplus accumulation to handle the baby boom retirement. At this point, it was also apparent that my generation was barely replacing itself with new kids. The economy certainly wasn't as robust in the 70s and early 80s as it had been in th 50s an 60s.

Moynihan, himself , said that young people were starting to realize that S.S. wouldn't be the eventual bonanza for them that it had been for their grandparents and parents. Meanwhile, they saw housing and stock values zooming up. So they wanted to keep more income to buy bigger houses and put more in their IRAs. Moynihan wanted to accomodate that. I do believe his motives were decent. So he wanted to stick with pay-as-you-go.

When we hear about Social Security fixing to go less than perfectly solvent in 2033, that's not to do with anyone stealing. That is expected to happen even if the Treasury makes good on paying every single one of those Treasury Bonds that are in the trust fund.

The surplus funds were invested - in Treasury securities, which do pay interest. That is how the law requires them to be invested. Sure, there is a chance that the Treasury will default on paying off the SSA when it goes to cash those bonds in. Maybe they won't pay the Chinese, either, who hold a lot of U.S. Treasury securities. But I don't see the Chinese worrying. So I'm not too worried either.

The Treasury has been paying interest on Treasury securities to the SSA, which is currently being used to help pay the benefits folks are currently receiving. When the time comes that the SSA has to start cashing in those bonds, it is entirely likely that the U.S. government will find the money to do so by selling more bonds to China and everyone else who likes to by U.S. Treasury bonds. When those people want to cash in their bonds, they will sell them to the Federal Reserve. Guess where the Federal Reserve will get the money. (?) It will come directly out of the thin air. Yup . . . they just turn on the printing presses.

I guess the whole thing kind of is a scam.

Thanks for the link above to the article about Moynihan's proposal. The more I think about it, I do see real shadiness going on toward a specific group of Americans. I am thinking of those 10 years, or more, younger than me. They'll pay more into S.S. than me and, most likely, get less out of it down the road. Moynihan's proposal was to avert that injustice.

They'll get less partly because they'll have to wait longer to collect full benefits. Also, benefits are likely to be cut.

One big reason why the stream of revenue into S.S. has slowed is that the portion of GDP paid to labor has gone down. Capital has been taking a bigger hunk of the pie. Real wages have been stagnant for so long, despite the fact that, as workers use newer, better technology, they are producing more and more. That increase flows to giant profits. Also, some of the money that could have increased wages - and thus gone toward fatter FICA revenue to the SSA - has been used, instead, to fund increasingly expensive health insurance paid for by employers. What the healthcare industry sucks out of the economy is ridiculous. (Considering that many Europeans get better healthcare for less money.)

Had those funds in the S.S. trust fund not been there, the massive tax cuts for the rich probably would have been politically impossible. I guess I would agree that there has been a kind of theft - in the massive transfer of wealth from the laboring classes to the capital owning richest class. That theft will have occurred despite even if the Treasury makes good on replacing every dime it took from the S.S. trust fund, which I expect they will do.

I've learned over the past few days that there is an awful lot to think about here.