Re:Disability and Administration

[Guest guest]

This was a program on CNBC. They were discussing the fact that government

programs such as SS and Disability are headed toward insolvency, and that this

type of " means " testing was in our future and was being driven by the Democrats.

The conservatives on the show said that if you start penalizing achievement,

there are plenty other countries that will welcome people that are making good

incomes with open arms and not tax the hell out of them and take benefits away.

It has been my observation that the new administration is big on " soaking " the

" wealthy " . They have to have ways to resolve the state that our country is in,

and things like these mentioned may be an avenue they pursue.

Amy Hodge    

[Guest guest]

Of course SS is headed toward insolvency. It's the nature of a " pay as

you go " system that it will be insolvent at some point depending on

the parameters used to make the prediction.

Changes to SS are needed, but there's no urgent reason to change.

Politicians just like to jump on this high profile bandwagon.

Current predictions are that SSA can meet it's obligations with the

current trust fund and predicted contributions throught 2041:

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10055.html#current

Minor changes made now can significantly change that date. For

instance the max contribution can be raised or eliminated all together.

Despite much political posturing, I don't see any change in benefits

coming down the pike. The President did say he has to take a look at

entitlement programs, but that includes everything from welfare and

food stamps to workman's comp and medicaid as well as SS and Medicare.

Having a " means test " would be too much of a hot button for the people

with enough income to have some clout. Anyway, it already is " means

tested " because people above a certain income pay taxes on their

benefit. Means testing SS only turns it from social insurance to a

welfare program. This was never the intent of SS.