Report: Social Security Depletion Rate Increasing
by Ed Thomas
May 2, 2006
(AgapePress) - - There's sobering news in the new annual report of the board of trustees for the Social Security and Medicare funds. In just the past year, the amount of time previously forecast before both funds run out of money has shrunk.If anyone was hoping the Social Security dilemma would go away, Monday's trustee report proved that it will not. Associated Press broke the news about a bleak forecast that Medicare could go broke in just 12 years, with Social Security following behind in several decades. Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at The Cato Institute, offers this observation.
"Social Security's finances have not gotten any better," he notes in reference to the report. "In fact, Social Security will begin to run a deficit in just 11 years. The Social Security trust fund is scheduled to be completely exhausted by 2040. That's a year earlier than projected last year."
Tanner warns that Social Security's unfunded liability totals more than $15 trillion -- a number that was affected exponentially by the failure of politicians to act during the Social Security debate last year.
"Because we failed to act last year, the cost of Social Security's unfunded liabilities increased by at least $550 billion," he says. Action on Social Security was blocked by President Bush's political opponents last year, and was eventually taken off the front burner. "That means because of the president and Congress, we've passed on an additional $550 billion bill to our children and our grandchildren," Tanner offers.
The Cato Institute analyst says it is vital that voters use this year's mid-term election season -- when politicians return home to campaign in the fall -- to put them on the spot concerning the gloomy prediction about Social Security.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
