SSA email this morning

[ThePosterFormallyKnownasbfd]

...provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples. Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.

Well it is ensured until we bleed the fund dry which will happen sooner than it would have without those "senior bonuses"… heh-heh.

And then, you will get nothing - but don't despair, with the unadvertised $490 billion in cuts to Medicare that will automatically be triggered by the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 from 2027-2034, you won't be around much longer anyway.

-Sincerely, SSA

…and God bless these United States of America

[RAMd®d]

More of the CFDT administration saying 'Be grateful for what we give you, it could (and will) be worse'.

You don't get to keep everything that you earned, that's crazy talk. But we'er letting you keep a little more of what you earned. You'll probably need it for your medical expenses and food budget.

[special]

Besides this being political, isn't this good news for those receiving SS benefits?

I am still 10+ years away from collecting SS so a lot of this does not matter to me (yet). I don't even know if SS will be there when I retire. I will be really pissed if I paid 30+ years into SS and I get the middle finger.

[Lemon Drop2]

Besides this being political, isn't this good news for those receiving SS benefits?

I am still 10+ years away from collecting SS so a lot of this does not matter to me (yet). I don't even know if SS will be there when I retire. I will be really pissed if I paid 30+ years into SS and I get the middle finger.



It's just political gamesmanship. Grandma and Grandpa vote and tend to be reliable Republicans. Don't want them turning.

So throw them a few more dollars a month for groceries and prescriptions, so it doesn't look so awful that billionaires and huge corporations are getting big tax breaks they do not actually need. 

Personally I'd rather pay taxes on my upcoming SSA than have neighbors going without food and healthcare.  

[ThePosterFormallyKnownasbfd]

Besides this being political, isn't this good news for those receiving SS benefits?

I am still 10+ years away from collecting SS so a lot of this does not matter to me (yet). I don't even know if SS will be there when I retire. I will be really pissed if I paid 30+ years into SS and I get the middle finger.

It's really not. In order to pay for the 3 years of "Senior Bonus", the SS fund gets cut into even more than before. The goal is to end all of these "entitlements". What's behind the window dressing of these 'increased benefits' will be gone before they do anyone much good. 

Social Security became the pension of choice for too many people. Only the already wealthy stand to gain from any of this. They don't need Social Security to begin with, but they're still getting it. They won't feel a cut to their benefits - even though they'll be mad that they paid into the fund and won't get what they feel like they deserve. They already have plenty of other wealth to fall back on. The real losers are the lowest 1/3 of earners in the population - and they can hardly afford any cuts. So they better save up the few thousand they'll see over the next three years. After that, all bets are off, and so are the guardrails.

Statistics suggest there will be increasingly more old, poor, and unhealthy/infirm people over the next 20 years. Gotta cull the herd if they're going to keep the top 10% from having to pay for all of them. This is how it starts.

[Acer]

Some people see the glass as half full, others see Social Security's trust funds are projected to run out of money by 2034, which could lead to a reduction in benefits to about 81% of current levels unless Congress takes action to address the funding shortfall.

[Grateful11]

I haven't seen anything from the Railroad Retirement Board yet.

[RAMd®d]

I've read many times that Social Security was never meant to be a sole retirement fund, and that it's not self-sustaining.

Yet it has become the de facto retirement for millions of people, and for people depending on it to augment whatever other retirement they might have.

So making the benefits 'tax free' looks good, but other cuts down the road will significantly outweigh this minuscule offering.

Now, to avoid actual government wasteful spending, the Federal Government could completely cut benefits to The Rich.

To be fair, previous administrations could have done so, but didn't.

But there's no way in Hell this administration would ever even consider it.

It'd be great to see a journalist ask CFDT 'Why not cut off benefits to The Rich' and watch him protest 'targeting hard working people who are equally deserving...' BS.

Of course instead of cutting benefits to those who actually earned them, he could just raise the eligibility age to 80.

It doesn't matter if his EOs are illegal, since nothing he does as Prez is illegal.

By the time it's settled in court, he gets the nod, and if he doesn't, it's too late anyway.


We're all in this together.

Till we're not.