republicans wanting to cut social security disability

That's exactly what they would love to do. ACA is permanent. Even Ted Cruz knows that. The big fight now will be over funding it. The Republicans will try to starve it. They'll try to make people have bigger co-pays. Nursing homes that cater to Medicaid patients deliver some deplorable care. The Republicans will want hospitals to have no-frills accomodations for people on basic healthcare plans, while they have more posh accomodations for people on more expensive plans. That doesn't sound like such a wrong idea, until you see how it leads to really substandard conditions in the facilities for people on the cheapest plans. Doctors will compete for patients who can pay the most. The least talented doctors will be incentivized to care for the poorest patients.

I pulled up links that shows the White House's plans to cut this area... and Republicans wanting to cut social security and medicare (esp since Obama/SCOTUS care is in effect and it wouldn't affect those over 55..)

) but where is the data and links on your basis that everyone is cutting SSDI?

I can't get any of it... because of my disability insurance... I can't get SS, SSDI, nor medicare nor medicaid AND I don't make enough money for the ACA... so if anyone should be "fearing" some force or party coming into the WHITE HOUSE, it should be me.... and he's already there and I'm not afraid. Chill.

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Post #7 on this thread provides a link to a relevant article. The original poster doesn't say that "everyone is cutting SSDI," whatever that means.

Okay thanks... I missed the link.

Here's what that told me: So it's not a matter of cutting funds, it's that the funds have been used up...not enough taxes collected for the number of recipients. The requirements were reduced in 1984 so that it was "easier" to become a recipient...one of Reagan's moves.

Or is it? They have funds through 2033--if they continue to wash them across and back and forth... so if this is a real issue, I wonder why the democrat congress did nothing all those years they were in power under Obama...and now the Republicans are taking the hit. (Oh yeah, I know, because it requires a tax increase and no Democrat wants to be accused of that!)

I don't think there's anything to fear... yes Congress has control of the general purse strings, but with the way no one is bothering with the Constitution these days, Obama might sign something into law on his way out, don't you think, and let the rest of the working Americans foot the interest bill with China (which is where he'd have to get the money for such I think---IDK).

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In post # 20, I explained how the funds are not "used up." The wealth of the two Social Security trust funds are held in the form of bonds, which can be cashed in at any time.

As far as who doesn't want to raise taxes: That would be the Republicans. (When average people vote for Republicans, it's mainly because they believe their taxes will be lower if the do.) Not only do Republicans not want to raise taxes, they reduced taxes below what the were, especially for the rich. This was done in 2001 and 2003, when Bush, jr., was president. That cut off billions of dollars that would have come into the Treasury. (Actually, it's more like trillions in revenue that was lost.) By cutting taxes, the Republicans have hoped to starve things like Social Security and Medicare out of existance. They partially succeeded in that now you have to be older to collect full Social Security.

The Middle East wars have cost America trillions. Obama has done his best to cut down what we are spending on wars over there. The Republicans in Congress, who don't want to declare war, like the Constitution says is their job, are mad that Obama isn't sending more and more soldiers to Afganistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea . . . They never say how they want to pay for these military adventures.

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.

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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?)

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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.