Almost 18 years ago I wrote my first column for The Irish Echo. It concerned an official projection that in order to stay solvent Social Security benefits would need to be cut in 2034.
Back then in 2007 we were about to enter the Great Recession that would continue until Barack Obama brought some stability to the economy in late 2009.
Small wonder that the Social Security crisis of faraway 2034 was put on the back burner.
We could all be dead by then.
Some of us are. But after two Trump administrations, with a Biden one in between, and a Covid pandemic, the latest projection is that we are now only seven years away from what could well be a social Armageddon in 2032.
I sometimes wonder if I’m living in a different universe than the vast majority of American politicians and political commentators. I appreciate a little titillation as much as the next person, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least that two American presidents had close relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.
The rich, the famous, and the depraved often move in the same circles. Nor does it surprise that almost every person I know above the age of 62 really depends on their monthly social security benefits.
Politicians and the chattering classes seem to believe that these benefits are the icing on every retiree’s cake; when in reality, that monthly SS bank deposit tends to be the main part of their cake.
In an economy where working people have been fleeced by high prices, rents, education and health costs, few have amassed much of a retirement cushion.
And yet when President Trump’s Big Bad Beautiful Bill was recently passed by both houses of congress, did you hear one mention of the coming Social Security reckoning? I did – but it was the projection that tax breaks, new and old, had moved the SS date of reckoning up to 2032!
Indeed, there was scarcely a mention of the $3.4 trillion dollars addition to the national debt that the BBB Bill had bestowed upon us.
There’s an old saying, “Each country gets the government it deserves.”
Americans voted for the King of Debt, so we must accept the consequences. However, I’m not sure how many of us realized we were also voting for a rubber-stamp congress only too ready to relinquish the power of the purse.
It’s hard to believe now that the U.S. Federal Budget was not only balanced but delivered a surplus in the Clinton years between 1998 and 2001.
That’s just 24 years ago. With the current national debt over $36.2 trillion, when you add the $3.4 trillion cost of the BBB Bill, that will bring us within shouting distance of a $40 trillion debt in 2035.
And that’s at current interest rates with absolutely no room for any national emergencies over the next climate-changed ten years.
All hail the glorious Republocrats!
The once debt-haunted Republicans have completely caved to their master in the White House, and does anyone believe that if the Democrats regain Congress in 2026 they will announce, “First things first, let’s come up with a credible plan to reduce this unsustainable National Debt!”
In the recent BBB Bill debates, the main argument seemed to be - we have to extend the tax breaks because the electorate doesn’t have the stomach to pay higher taxes.
Imagine if we ran our households like that? But back to Social Security benefits. Unless we get our ship in order by 2032, many more millions of senior citizens will join those already mired in poverty.
Is that the kind of America we wish to live in?
I don’t have any easy answers but here’s a gradual solution over ten years that could return the Social Security Fund to some form of solvency by 2032: Raise the taxable maximum amount of earnings from $176,100 to $250K.
Raise the current Social Security (FICA) tax rate from 12.4% to 13.4%.
Raise the full retirement age for Social Security Benefits from 67 to 68.
I know, that’s a lot of pain to go round.
But we allowed the Social Security Fund to approach insolvency on our watch, we can begin to deal with it now or face a tsunami of pain in seven years.
Oh, and one other small thing. Why not elect politicians who are more interested in saving Social Security than pontificating about conspiracy theories?
You’ll have an opportunity in 2026. Use it! Time is tight.
