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WAIT ONE COTTN PICKN MINUT!
 
HOLD YOUR WATER RIGHT HERE!

MOP UP IN AISLE 2!

I SAID HOLD YOUR WATER, YOU MORON...
NOT PEE ALL OVER THE FREAKEN FLOOR!


Before we the people trust the sleight of hand going on here, we want to see the books, year after year going back 50 years.

Before we the people accept the bull being slung our way is even considered...before even thinking about presenting this bull feces to our accountants, let us see exactly what has gone on for the past 50 years.   

Each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on the current and projected financial status of the two programs. This message summarizes our 2012 Annual Reports.

The long-run actuarial deficits of the Social Security and Medicare programs worsened in 2012, though in each case for different reasons. The actuarial deficit in the Medicare Hospital Insurance program increased primarily because the Trustees incorporated recommendations of the 2010-11 Medicare Technical Panel that long-run health cost growth rate assumptions be somewhat increased. The actuarial deficit in Social Security increased largely because of the incorporation of updated economic data and assumptions. Both Medicare and Social Security cannot sustain projected long-run program costs under currently scheduled financing, and legislative modifications are necessary to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

Lawmakers should not delay addressing the long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare. If they take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits.

Social Security and Medicare are the two largest federal programs, accounting for 36 percent of federal expenditures in fiscal year 2011. Both programs will experience cost growth substantially in excess of GDP growth in the coming decades due to aging of the population and, in the case of Medicare, growth in expenditures per beneficiary exceeding growth in per capita GDP. Through the mid-2030s, population aging caused by the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment will be the largest single factor causing costs to grow more rapidly than GDP. Thereafter, the primary factors will be population aging caused by increasing longevity and health care cost growth somewhat more rapid than GDP growth.

Social Security

Social Security’s expenditures exceeded non-interest income in 2010 and 2011, the first such occurrences since 1983, and the Trustees estimate that these expenditures will remain greater than non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to expenditures was about $49 billion in 2010 and $45 billion in 2011, and the Trustees project that it will average about $66 billion between 2012 and 2018 before rising steeply as the economy slows after the recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Redemption of trust fund assets from the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset the annual cash-flow deficits. Since these redemptions will be less than interest earnings through 2020, nominal trust fund balances will continue to grow. The trust fund ratio, which indicates the number of years of program cost that could be financed solely with current trust fund reserves, peaked in 2008, declined through 2011, and is expected to decline further in future years. After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2086.

A temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax rate reduced payroll tax revenues by $103 billion in 2011 and by a projected $112 billion in 2012. The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers of revenues from the general fund to the trust funds in order to "replicate to the extent possible" payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those general fund reimbursements comprise about 15 percent of the program's non-interest income in 2011 and 2012.

Under current projections, the annual cost of Social Security benefits expressed as a share of workers’ taxable earnings will grow rapidly from 11.3 percent in 2007, the last pre-recession year, to roughly 17.4 percent in 2035, and will then decline slightly before slowly increasing after 2050. Costs display a slightly different pattern when expressed as a share of GDP. Program costs equaled 4.2 percent of GDP in 2007, and the Trustees project these costs will increase gradually to 6.4 percent of GDP in 2035 before declining to about 6.1 percent of GDP by 2050 and then remaining at about that level.

The projected 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds is 2.67 percent of taxable payroll, up from 2.22 percent projected in last year's report. This is the largest actuarial deficit reported since prior to the 1983 Social Security amendments, and the largest single-year deterioration in the actuarial deficit since the 1994 Trustees Report. This deficit amounts to 20 percent of program non-interest income or 16 percent of program cost. The 0.44 percentage point increase in the OASDI actuarial deficit and the three-year advance in the exhaustion date for the combined trust funds reflect many factors. The most significant factor is lower average real earnings levels over the next 75 years than were projected last year, principally due to: 1) a surge in energy prices in 2011 that lowered real earnings in 2011 and is expected to be sustained, and 2) slower assumed growth in average hours worked per week after the economy has recovered. An additional significant factor is the one-year advance of the valuation period from 2011-85 to 2012-86.

While the combined OASDI program continues to fail the long-range test of close actuarial balance, it does satisfy the test for short-range financial adequacy. The Trustees project that the combined trust fund assets will exceed one year’s projected cost for more than ten years, through 2027.

However, the Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the long-range test nor the short-range test. DI costs have exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the Trustees project trust fund exhaustion in 2016, two years earlier than projected last year. The DI program faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds; thus lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries four years from now.

Well, there you have it! We is po!

Those fux have finally figured out how to explain how/why we need to concern ourselves with the
social security trust fund! If we're lucky, the s.s. trust fund might pay out...if they are really, really careful....for the next ten years...if we're lucky...and if we don't ask too many questions. Then? It's Coitins!