Trump Launches Final Attack on Social Security

[RVN VET71]

4. The actuaries at Social Security project a payment debacle in 2035

According to their projections, there will only be enough money in the trust fund will only be sufficient to cover 75% of payments due recipients.

I thought that this coming disaster included the I.O.U.s that congress has left when it borrowed/pillaged the actual trust fund itself. The assumption being that Congress would have to pay back the money it took out of the fund when the bill came due. In other words, from what I’ve been led to believe, the trust fund, even if it had been locked up tight from greedy and oily congressional hands, would be in a worsening, troubling situation over the next 15 years as more people applied for benefits and fewer actually paid into the system. (It was Lyndon Johnson, incidentally, who opened the doors of Social Security’s trust fund to the hands and pockets of Congress.)

Am I wrong about this?

Incidentally, I know recommendations have been made to do away with the so-called “taxable income ceiling” altogether -- as well as raising the payroll tax from it’s current 6.2% (actually 12.4% because it includes the employer’s share) to 7% or higher. It was raised from 5.7% to 6.2% in, I think, the late ‘80s, so I see no reason why it wouldn’t be raised again. And I have no problem with that as long as it comes with a modification of the taxable income ceiling, or its elimination altogether.