About Social Security Solvency - FOX Business
Over the past couple of years, we’ve reported numerous times on this page about the looming financial dilemma facing Social Security – depletion of the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds in the early to mid-1930s, and the resulting 23% automatic cut to everyone’s SS benefit. Sadly, it’s not a new warning because Social Security’s Trustees (and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)) have been sounding the alarm for decades to multiple sessions of Congress, all of which have chosen to simply ignore the warnings or, at most, suggest a highly partisan solution which goes nowhere in a bicameral legislative body. What’s needed is a bipartisan fix, which seems particularly elusive in today’s political climate, especially when any serious talk about sorely needed Social Security reform is used as a weapon against those simply speaking the truth – Social Security reform is urgently needed, and the solution will likely include elements at least a bit distasteful to both sides of the Congressional aisle. It’s high time for our legislators to put politics aside and fix Social Security’s financial woes, thus protecting those who they purport to represent from a devastating loss of retirement income.
There is a sobering view in this FOX Business News article by Eric Revell: Social Security is “tremendously endangered” and both spending and revenue must be on the table when discussing a solution. For Congress and the Executive Branch to simply continue kicking the Social Security can down the road for political gain is shameful and a disservice to every American citizen. Click on this link to read about how Social Security (and Medicare) are on a path to insolvency, and what needs to be done.
As an example of the leading thoughts on reforming Social Security, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, Inc.) believes Social Security must be preserved and modernized. This can be achieved without tax increases by slight modifications to cost of living adjustments and payments to high income beneficiaries plus gradually increasing the full (but not early) retirement age. AMAC Action, AMAC’s advocacy arm, supports an increase in the threshold where benefits are taxed and then indexing for inflation, and calls for eliminating the reduction in people’s benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age. AMAC is resolute in its mission that Social Security be preserved for current and successive generations and has gotten the attention of lawmakers in D.C., meeting with many congressional offices and staff over the past decade.