Federal revenues are now expected to be .5 trillion less over the next decade. But, Uncle Sam still owes about .9 trillion in "interest" and the money needed to redeem the I.O.U.s held by the Social Security Trust Fund. Paying the interest and redeeming the bonds will necessitate greater borrowing, new revenues - or, benefits would have to be cut..If Congress does nothing and the Social Security disability trust fund is allowed to become fully exhausted, there will still be payroll taxes coming into the program, but 11 million disability beneficiaries would see their benefits automatically cut by about 20%, according to the Congressional Research Service.[2] The reallocation of payroll taxes from the retirement trust fund is likely to gain increasing attention from Congress in coming months, although it's unclear when or if Congress will act..Many other Democrats on Capitol Hill including President Obama seemed to share his concerns. However, since the budget blueprint is a resolution and not a bill, it will not require the signature of the President, and each of the proposals that appear in it including the repeal of the ACA and the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will require the passage of separate legislation..Effective since 1977, the GPO prohibits retired spouses, widows, and widowers from receiving the full benefits based on his or her spouse's employment. The WEP was passed in 1983 and reduces the benefit of a retired or disabled worker who also receives a federal, state or local government annuity based on his or her earnings by up to 60 percent..The billion could be financed without taking money from the Social Security Trust Fund. One way is through reduction of pork barrel spending and government waste. In the fiscal year 2001 budget alone, pork "watch-dog" Senator John McCain estimated that the government would spend a record billion in pork-barrel projects..President Obama recently announced a series of Executive Actions to protect an estimated 4.9 million illegal immigrants from deportation. This month the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is expected to start taking applications as hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants begin to apply for deportation relief, work authorization, and Social Security numbers..Only last year the Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, warned Congress about this very thing saying, "Doing nothing, means that we are going to head to a precipitous decline in benefits. Remember the Notch Baby problem? This would be a Notch Baby problem magnified multiple times and it should not be allowed to happen.".If signed into law, the Social Security Preservation Act would require that all annual surpluses of the Social Security Trust Funds be invested in marketable interest-bearing obligations of the United States or obligations guaranteed by the United States. It also outlines certain requirements for determining the annual surplus of the Trust Funds. With the Social Security Trust Funds set to expire in 2033, TSCL believes that it is now more important than ever for Congress to protect and secure the program's monies. Rep. Paul's bill would do just that, and we were pleased to see support grow for it this week..How many members does TSCL have?
