Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:53:37 PM
Four years ago, George W. Bush attempted to reform the entitlement
program Social Security, warning that the system was accelerating into
collapse and would soon run deficits. Democrats scoffed and claimed
the Social Security system was solid and wouldn’t have problems for at
least 50 years, as Harry Reid told PBS’ Jim Lehrer
in June 2005. Just last year, the CBO — under the direction of Peter
Orszag, now budget director in the Obama administration — claimed that
the first cash deficits in Social Security would not come until 2019.
Now, however, the CBO has determined that Social Security will run
cash deficits next year and in 2011, and by 2016 will be more or less
in permanent deficit mode.
As we can see, this trend reverses itself temporarily from 2012-15, but
the surpluses are minimal. By 2016, the deficits return, and begin to
accelerate again. By 2019, the primary surplus runs $63 billion in the
red, almost triple the deficit in 2017, showing the rapid decline of
the Social Security system.
The situation at Social Security is much worse than this administration
and Democrats in Congress want to admit. They want to continue busting
the deficit and creating new entitlements while the existing ones
careen towards collapse. The new data shows that time has almost run
out for reform. Seniors will still get their checks, but those will
increasingly rely on injections from the general fund and not revenues
from Social Security payments. At this point, one has to wonder when
SSA becomes a flat-out Ponzi scheme, and who the suckers will be when
it blows up.