This Tired Old Scare Tactic

The Democrat Party has been relying these last few years on two basic canards: that abortion is a noble cause, and that Republicans are hell-bent on destroying Social Security and Medicare.

President Biden repeated the claim in his State of the Union Speech, “Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.”

And he doubled down on that the following day in Florida: “I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

You’re going to hear that over and over again, but it’s not true. Even NBC News, an arm of the Democrat Party, said, “There is no bill with GOP consensus to change those programs.”

Still, the beat goes on. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week if Congress doesn’t approve an increase in the debt ceiling, “It is unlikely that the federal government would be able to issue payments to millions of Americans, including our military families and seniors who rely on Social Security,” she said.

Social Security shouldn’t even be in that mix. Social Security was set up to be an independent, self-funding, untouchable lockbox … until President Lyndon Johnson and every president thereafter raided it to cut deficits.

But really, there are other places the government could cut spending. Those $15 billion worth of earmarks in the Omnibus Spending bill come to mind. Nobody was worried about spending too much lo these two months ago.

So if you can’t believe the President, and you won’t believe NBC, where do you go for information? Go straight to the source: “The 2021 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds.” These reports are put together by a Board of Trustees that currently includes only Biden-appointed members.

(Side note: By law, there are six Trustees, four of whom serve by virtue of their positions in the Federal Government: the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Commissioner of Social Security. The other two Trustees are public representatives appointed by the President, subject to confirmation by the Senate. The two Public Trustee positions have been vacant since 2015.)

So you can’t say these conclusions are produced or even influenced by Republicans. Here’s the latest from the 2022 report:

“The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivors benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2034, one year later than reported last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.”

And, “The Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, or Medicare Part A, which helps pay for services such as inpatient hospital care, will be able to pay scheduled benefits until 2028, two years later than reported last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing total program income will be sufficient to pay 90 percent of total scheduled benefits.”

So is Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) and others so out of line that they suggest we might want to take a look at these programs to determine if they are or are not healthy enough to continue providing what seniors have paid for all their working lives? I mean, we’re talking a mere five years down the road that Medicare will begin to die, or three years if we go by the 2021 Board of Trustees report.

(Side note: Despite rampant inflation that has just recently decreased to 6.1 percent year over year, despite reductions in real family income, and despite 5.2 million in the labor force who could work but don’t want to, the financial situation of both these funds improved year over year. Believe that if you want to.)

President Biden’s solution, as is his solution to virtually all economic problems, is to tax the rich. That is a solution that Biden and the Democrats, with majorities in both the Senate and House for two years, declined to pursue. Now, Biden thinks it’s a good idea.

Congress tinkers with the Social Security program nearly every year. Some changes were consequential; some were not. One decision that has great impact on my generation (geezers) was made in 1983 when Social Security payments began to be treated and taxed as income. Then Sen. Joe Biden voted for it. President Ronald Reagan signed it into law.