[sauciershadetree]

Hi, I want to say that first i'm not trying to scare anyone, just inform those that aren't aware of what is going on. The republicans in congress are trying to pass legislation that would cut disability benefits by 20 percent. If you are on disability, like i am, you know how hard it is to pay your bills now on what little money you get. If they were to cut my disability check by 20 percent, there is no way i could make my bills. I would have to consider moving in with my brother or my father. Some people do not have that option. I am concerned for people who are disabled, and would like to know what everyone thinks about this. President Obama has already stated that he wants to cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. Hillary Clinton is the only candidate running for president who would not cut social security, she wants to increase benefits for disabled people, and make cuts to other things. The American people are totally against them cutting these programs, whether they are Democrat or Republican. We will see what happens.

[ChipperMonkey]

Republicans are stupid if they think that they can cut disability checks by 20% and get re-elected! BWAHAHAHAHA. (No offense to other members, I am referring to republican law makers.)

I had panic attacks every day up until Obama's re-election because of Romney's threats against social security. Lets just say I was doing cartwheels when Obama won.

I am on the bottom end of SSDI since I received it so young. Then again, if they cut my SSDI, I wonder if I'd be low enough for SSI to kick in? It still wouldn't make up for the difference. (I can't afford to live on my own. It would be a major financial hardship to live on so little.)

[Hellion]

If Obama has actually stated he wants to cut disability, then I cannot very well give him the benefit of doubt anymore. I figured he was more about the people, and more or less had hands tied by republican congress and what not....but based on what you say, he's just as much on that band wagon as they are. A pity.....and that must also mean Obama care never was an attempt at moving towards universal healthcare or anything like it insurance companies still get to profit off peoples suffering.

That said one of the big things that would prevent me voting for a presidential candidate is if they want to cut disability, I don't really like Hillary....but if she wont screw with my income or try and turn back the marijuana/hemp legalization which I think is a good thing for a number of reasons I might prefer her to any of the other candidates I've heard of. What is her position on for profit prisons and other screwed up things about the system I wonder.

What really pisses me off specifically about the republicans is they seem to like creating division amongst people...like division between the working poor and poor who are not currently employed, so then people vote contrary to their interests because they think Republican Joe will stop their neighbor Lazy George who's abusing their welfare wilst helping them have better chances of moving up the financial heirarchy cause their tax money wont go to Lazy George on welfare. When its more Republican Joe wants to just cut disability across the board hurting the people who really need it and are disabled whilst not doing much damage to the frauds who have other incomes aside their fraudulent welfare payments they can fall back on like lazy george in my example.

[Nobodyandnothing]

The issue is not a democrat or republican one. The social security trust fund will run out of money within the next year or so. It is questionable whether congress will authorize that funds can be transferred from SS to the SSDI fund.

The title to this thread may mislead some. As I said, both parties are making it clear that the cut may be the only option available if no money is transferred from SS to SSDI. And it is a fact that he numbers of SSDI recipients is growing at a rate hat cannot be covered by the current amount in the SSDI trust fund.

[Fuzzybear]

[Hellion]

Originally Posted by Nobodyandnothing

The issue is not a democrat or republican one. The social security trust fund will run out of money within the next year or so. It is questionable whether congress will authorize that funds can be transferred from SS to the SSDI fund.

The title to this thread may mislead some. As I said, both parties are making it clear that the cut may be the only option available if no money is transferred from SS to SSDI. And it is a fact that he numbers of SSDI recipients is growing at a rate hat cannot be covered by the current amount in the SSDI trust fund.

And why cant they cut something that isn't a public service instead and take money out of that? I don't accept cutting funding for the social safety network is the 'only' option since money is wasted on other things...and why do those in the government get paid so damn much anyways? maybe congress should cut their own paychecks before things like disability money and ebt disabled and poor depend on. Of course its not specifically a democrat vs. republican issue, certainly a mismanagement issue though.

Thanks for this. What I've read said that Republicans are using the threat of not voting to allow money to be transferred as a way to try to get concessions on other issues. It seems like a very bad choice for them, PR-wise, but that's the situation.

I don't think SSDI should be treated any differently from regular Soc. Sec. retirement money. It goes to people who worked and paid into the system but couldn't continue doing it until retirement age.

article with more info:
Social Security disability payments will be cut by a fifth if Congress doesn’t act

Since seemingly every Republican in the United States is running for president, I will too.

Within my first 100 days in office, I will cut corporate welfare instead of social welfare, for the government spends nearly TWICE as much on corporate welfare than social welfare.

Kindness for president!

Corporate Welfare is Almost Double Social Welfare - Ben Swann's Truth In Media

[Nobodyandnothing]

We are a group of people with similar psychological issues giving us a common focus. Every interest group thinks they are special and that their funding should not be cut. Who is to say who is most deserving? Everyone looks at what they consider "waste" including federal (and sate) employee benefits. If anything this "wasteful" spending accounts for a minuscule part of the budget.

Every government program may need to be reduced in order to create a viable budget. Maybe SSDI may end up with a cut of less than 20%, and other programs may also be cut. It's called sharing the pain and we should recognize that our priorities may be different than others, and who is to say which is correct.

[TheNakedBanana]

They should begin by cutting the fat starting with their own ridiculous and unearned salaries, I believe then all social programs will find more than enough free funding and a reduced deficit to boot.

[Rose76]

Thanks for bringing this up, as I keep forgetting about it. And I am very concerned, as I depend on SSDI. I would find some consolation in the following possibilities: For people like me - living totally on SSDI checks at the lower to middle end of the range in check size: If my SSDI check were cut, then my Section 8 Voucher subsidy would go up and my food stamp allowance would go up. Despite extra help in these areas my overall standard of living would go down. My rent wouldn't change, thanks to HUD, but I probably would eat less well and have less of everything else.

As mentioned above by ChipperMonkey, some people would get enough in SSI to compensate them for what they lose in SSDI. So it wouldn't save the government as much as one might think. It would mainly reduce outflows from the Disability Income Fund, if disability checks were cut 20%.

I will now have a much greater interest in Hillary's candidacy.

If they cut all Social Security retirees' benefits by 20% and not just the disabled ones, then I wouldn't complain. That's a huge voting and lobbying bloc, though, so that's very unlikely to happen.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by Hellion

What really pisses me off specifically about the republicans is they seem to like creating division amongst people...like division between the working poor and poor who are not currently employed, so then people vote contrary to their interests because they think Republican Joe will stop their neighbor Lazy George who's abusing their welfare wilst helping them have better chances of moving up the financial heirarchy cause their tax money wont go to Lazy George on welfare.

You are so right about this. Here's another angle: People are mad about having to pay taxes and blame the democrats for that reduction in their take home pay. What they are forgetting to look at is the reasons why their wages aren't going up despite improvements in labor's productivity, (thanks to improving technology.) That's due to corporations and the financial sector skimming all the increased income that improving technologies bring, grabbing it for the people at the top, leaving wages of ordinary working people stagnant. Taxes wouldn't sting so much, if earnings were going up for everybody, not just those at the top.

As you say, Repubs are geniuses at the "divide and conquer" game. Cutting disabled recipients of Social Security off from the main herd is potentially a very smart strategy. They wouldn't dare propose cutting regular Social Security by 20%. Their dream is to somehow back Democrats into being the ones to reduce that, and Obama even offered to do that and take the heat (by eliminating the automatic cost of living increase.) But they got too darn greedy, so Obama told them to screw off and withdrew his offer.

[krisakira]

The other democratic nominee, Bernie Sanders, wants to increase social security benefits.

[CopperStar]

What drives me kind of nuts is that between the two parties, all I ever seemed to hear/read was:

1. We have to raise taxes or we won't be able to help people!
2. We can't raise taxes, it would hurt too many people, so we can't help more people!

When in reality there is already more than enough money to actually help people, but it gets wasted by the billions trying to police the entire friggin planet, instead of focusing only on defense.

Both parties are full of it, and they both know it. They may as well just come on out as being in cahoots already, because they basically are. With these nonsense, deceptive debates.

We don't have to raise taxes, and we can still help people.

I think too many people think the U.S. is way more flourishing than it really is, both on the inside and out. We are not all that special in terms of quality of life compared to other first world nations. We may have the most powerful military in the world, but that doesn't mean our own regular civilians are living like super stars over here. We have millions of people homeless, millions in poverty. We even have millions of children living in poverty. So I am sick of this delusional notion that we have it so wonderful over here and have all of these excess resources to spread around the planet, while most first world countries barely contribute jack to this crazed mission to transform the whole planet into America. We don't have that level of resources. Our people are suffering because we need those resources back here.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by Nobodyandnothing

We are a group of people with similar psychological issues giving us a common focus. Every interest group thinks they are special and that their funding should not be cut. Who is to say who is most deserving? .

SSDI and social security retirement is paid for by money taken from income of people working. SSI is not an "earned" benefit.

One of the biggest problems is that the government repeatedly has "borrowed" money from the SSDI and social security funds to pay for other things they want to fund.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by krisakira

The other democratic nominee, Bernie Sanders, wants to increase social security benefits.

Yeah, Bernie!

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by CopperStar

What drives me kind of nuts is that between the two parties, all I ever seemed to hear/read was:

1. We have to raise taxes or we won't be able to help people!
2. We can't raise taxes, it would hurt too many people, so we can't help more people!

When in reality there is already more than enough money to actually help people, but it gets wasted by the billions trying to police the entire friggin planet, instead of focusing only on defense.

Both parties are full of it, and they both know it. They may as well just come on out as being in cahoots already, because they basically are. With these nonsense, deceptive debates.

We don't have to raise taxes, and we can still help people.

I think too many people think the U.S. is way more flourishing than it really is, both on the inside and out. We are not all that special in terms of quality of life compared to other first world nations. We may have the most powerful military in the world, but that doesn't mean our own regular civilians are living like super stars over here. We have millions of people homeless, millions in poverty. We even have millions of children living in poverty. So I am sick of this delusional notion that we have it so wonderful over here and have all of these excess resources to spread around the planet, while most first world countries barely contribute jack to this crazed mission to transform the whole planet into America. We don't have that level of resources. Our people are suffering because we need those resources back here.

May I compliment you on your uncommon level of intelligence.

[Nammu]

SS had 2+trillion in a trust fund and the interest was to pay out the checks. What happen? The federal government "borrowed " that money and never replaced it. So yeah there's no money in the trust fund to pay out. But the government has a responsibility to see to it that the SS gets paid and get cost of living adjustments. They can do this by cutting overseas military bases, cutting military spending and increasing taxes of the 1%. But those with money don't want that and their money is power, they are fewer real votes but very vocal ones.
However congress is very aware that if they cut SS now they are going to lose many votes. So currently I think it's in status quo. What I fear is the republicians winning the presidency and the house and getting their way, cutting SS, Social services and finding away to cut ACA benefits. I doubt they will slash ACA but they would put holes in it here and there until it collapses and then say see, it was no good.

[Rose76]

Actually, the law mandates that the Social Security Administration "invest" any money it has, which it doesn't immediately need, in U.S. treasury bonds. (And those bonds earn interest for the two trust funds.) So it's not like the federal government inappropriately raided the trust funds (one for regular Soc. Sec. and the other for SSDI.) In that sense, it is true that the government did borrow the money, just as it borrows money from anyone who buys treasury bonds - like you or me or the banks in our neighborhoods or the Rockefeller family . . . or the Chinese. But that's what was supposed to happen.

So, while the money exited the trust fund, it was replaced by valuable securities, the U.S. treasury bonds, which earn interest for the fund. The fund owns these bonds, which investors all over the world agree are one of the safest investments you can have. (At least, that's been the consensus and still is.)

So very much money comes into the Social Security program that they haven't needed to cash in those bonds. They just pay checks out of the money they get every month in social security taxes. The money coming in from workers has been a lot more than the money going out to retirees and the disabled. (Because the economy has generally kept growing and the size of the working population has kept expanding.)

However, we expect that a time will come when the size of the pool of retirees will be large compared to the size of the working population paying in. Then they got to start cashing in those bonds. The federal government will, most certainly, pay the fund what is owed on those bonds. It will get the money from taxes, or from selling more bonds to other parties who want to buy them. OR it will simply sell bonds to the Federal Reserve, who will purchase the bonds with money it prints on the printing presses - which has been done before and is no big deal.

We don't have to worry about the Social Security trust fund getting back the money it loaned to the government. We do have to worry about the government having some tough financial decisions to make, when money that it would have for other stuff starts going to buy those trust fund bonds. At that point, the government has to either raise taxes, sell more bonds to other parties, or cut things like Medicare or military spending.

You could say that the money in the trust fund was borrowed to pay for those wars in the Mideast and for Medicare/Medicaid because there wasn't enough tax revenue to pay for that stuff - mainly because Pres. Reagan and Pres. Bush, jr. didn't believe in making people, especially rich people, pay taxes.

One last point: A lot of the money that rich people saved by not paying a lot of tax has been sitting around in private and corporate bank accounts doing nobody any good. That means that rich people literally have more money than they even know what the heck to do with. A President Bernie Sanders would tax that idle money and put it to good use.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by sidestepper

What I fear is the republicians winning the presidency and the house and getting their way, cutting SS, Social services and finding away to cut ACA benefits. I doubt they will slash ACA but they would put holes in it here and there until it collapses and then say see, it was no good.

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.

[(JD)]

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.

[Rose76]

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.

[(JD)]

Okay thanks... I missed the link.

Here's what that told me:

Social Security has two components, the disability insurance program and the much larger Old Age and Survivors Insurance program, for which almost all Americans become fully eligible when they reach retirement age. Congress has historically treated them as one system, moving money between one pot and the other if one is running short on funds and the other has plenty of money.
That's the situation now, as the disability pot is expected to be empty late next year. There is enough money in the larger pot to last until 2034, or to keep both programs solvent through 2033, according to the Social Security Administration.

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).

[Rose76]

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.