Obama Cuts Social Security

by JASmius



The first of many if the actuarily unsustainable entitlement program is ever to be put back on a sound financial footing.  It's just so cynically entertaining to see the ultimate leftwingnut Democrat be the one to pull the trigger while naturally claiming he's doing the diametric opposite:

A popular Social Security benefit that has allowed seniors to boost their lifetime payments by as much as $60,000 is being phased out April 29th, and that may leave millions with significantly lower retirement incomes than expected.

The elimination of the so-called “file and suspend rule” takes away what some have called a loophole that has allowed seniors sixty-six and older to boost their Social Security benefits by 8% each year. Some experts say the cut — one of several Social Security benefits cuts contained in the budget act passed by Congress and signed by Barack Obama last year — could be the first of many made to the program in the years ahead.

The Social Security trust fund is projected to expire in 2033. With an estimated ten thousand Baby Boomers turning sixty-five every day for the next nine years, costs for the program are being stretched thin because fewer younger workers are paying into the system.

The file and suspend rule applies to married couples, allowing one spouse at full retirement age (sixty-six) to file for benefits but immediately suspend collecting them. That enables that person to grow his or her own benefits by 8% a year until age seventy, when benefits max out. But it also allows his or her spouse to file for spousal benefits based on the filed-suspended-record that are higher than they’d otherwise be.

Or it will for another month.  A deadline for a policy change that has flown vastly below the media radar in glaringly inverse proportion to what would have been the Democrat/Media Complex howling bloody murder reaction if a Republican POTUS had signed any Social Security cut of any way, shape, or form into law.  But that is the way it is going to be - unless a real Republican ever makes it to the White House again, in which case it will once again become impossible.  Must less the privatization that is the only true way to preserve Social Security.

But who knows?  Necessity can make all kinds of things possible, after all.  Just not in time for me to ever see a dime out of it.