What House Speaker Mike Johnson has said about Social Security and Medicare

[libertybele]

Yet another issue he is backpedaling on and  seniors on fixed incomes would be hit the hardest.  If his ideas are put into play, I predict this will cause the GOP to lose the House in '24.

What House Speaker Mike Johnson has said about Social Security and Medicare

Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is on record making bold and dramatic proposals to cut and reform Social Security and Medicare.

And his ideas are likely to have a key role in the coming political battle over both programs, which face major financial crises in the years ahead that may only be resolved by deep cuts to benefits or by higher taxes.

Johnson was the chair of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative House caucus, when it laid out a blueprint for reforming both programs in 2019. Since then he has publicly doubled down on the need for urgency in reforming both programs — although he has also significantly backtracked on one of his key proposals.
Johnson’s staff did not respond to messages left at all four of his offices seeking comment.

In 2019, Johnson and his committee proposed sharply scaling back the future cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits for higher-income and even middle-income people. He also proposed a total overhaul of Medicare, switching it over to private insurance companies and drastically cutting how much the federal government spends on better-off seniors. The proposals would move both programs more toward means-tested benefits, targeting them to the people who need them most, rather than to all seniors.

Johnson and his committee also proposed raising the age of eligibility for both Social Security and Medicare by several years and ensuring that age would keep rising in the future as U.S. life expectancies rise.

Since Johnson’s election as House speaker on Oct. 25, those proposals have been slammed as extremist by liberal critics and many in the media.

But Johnson says they are an attempt to balance the programs’ books without having to raise taxes. The trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds revealed in their latest annual reports that the two programs have a total funding gap of $25 trillion, almost equal to the annual U.S. gross domestic product. This is on top of the official national debt, which is also about equal to GDP.

That $25 trillion figure doesn’t include the future funding needs of Medicare’s nonhospital benefits, which will be paid out of general taxation. Nor does it include the present value of the two program’s unfunded liabilities beyond the next 75 years, which amount to trillions more even in today’s dollars..................

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/what-house-speaker-mike-johnson-has-said-about-social-security-and-medicare/ar-AA1jlnJk?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=d9290369436848e188cf5c6defc45b54&ei=14

[LMAO]

All Republicans, and politicians in general,need to face the reality of the insolvency of the so called entitlement programs. It may be unpopular, but the math and economic reality can no longer be ignored

For one, people need to have the mindset flushed out of them that these are programs they paid into for themselves

The era of demagoguery when it comes to both programs for short term political advantage is over. Time to face the harsh reality

[libertybele]

All Republicans need to face the reality of the insolvency of the so called entitlement programs. It may be unpopular, but the math and economic reality can no longer be ignored

For one, people need to have the mindset flushed out of them that these are programs they paid into for themselves

You and I continue to disagree on this-- I'm not going to revive that debate with you.

[LMAO]

You and I continue to disagree on this-- I'm not going to revive that debate with you.

You can disagree all you want

But that doesn’t make you right. I can disagree that the sun rises in the east. But that doesn’t make me right

When that money is taken out of your check, it goes to pay current retirees. It does not go into a fund for your future. This is one of the gross misconceptions when it comes to SS

And this mindset is why any reforms are politically unpopular.

[libertybele]

You can disagree all you want

But that doesn’t make you right. I can disagree that the sun rises in the east. But that doesn’t make me right

When that money is taken out of your check, it goes to pay current retirees. It does not go into a fund for your future. This is one of the gross misconceptions when it comes to SS

No it doesn't mean that I am right, nor does it mean that you are right. Perhaps you misunderstood; right, wrong or indifferent, we debated back and forth over this before; I'm not going to debate this particular issue of SS with you yet again.

[LMAO]

Perhaps you misunderstood; right, wrong or indifferent, we debated back and forth over this before; I'm not going to debate this particular issue of SS with you.

Show me were in the SS program that any money taken out of your check is yours for your future which Congress can’t touch. The law and a USSC ruling make my case

You can disagree, you can be mad, you can scream and shout about it but the law and math are against you

I say bravo to the new speaker.

[Drago]

Yet another issue he is backpedaling on and  seniors on fixed incomes would be hit the hardest.  If his ideas are put into play, I predict this will cause the GOP to lose the House in '24.

Which choice do you prefer? "Do nothing" = initial 2033 23% cut in benefits with more cuts to come. Increase SS taxes rather drastically. increase the retirement age rather drastically. Some combination of those? Other?

The social Security Trust Funds ("Old Age & Survivors" and the "Disability Fund") were essentially "pay as you go" (current employees paying SS taxes at about a 1-1 rate to benefits being paid out) for years until the early 1970's when the funds had enough excess reserves to earn substantial interest payments from the "Special Treasury Bills/Notes" purchased for the interest income. But now with deficit spending from the funds the interest on the remaining balance is going down. See the 2nd table here:  https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a3.html 

Trust fund balances over time:  https://www.ssa.gov/history/tftable.html   and a summary:   https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.pdf

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA:

And his ideas are likely to have a key role in the coming political battle over both programs, which face major financial crises in the years ahead that may only be resolved by deep cuts to benefits or by higher taxes

How about we first stop funding:   the Military-Industrial Complex, foreign aid,  welfare, health care, SNAP benefits and lodging for illegal invaders, the green new deal, and a militarized IRS?

Let's see how this goes before sending grandma to the pet aisle for groceries.

[LMAO]

FTA:

How about we first stop funding:   the Military-Industrial Complex, foreign aid,  welfare, health care, SNAP benefits and lodging for illegal invaders, the green new deal, and a militarized IRS?

Let's see how this goes before sending grandma to the pet aisle for groceries.

You either haven’t heard of, or don’t know, or don’t care to learn what unfunded  liabilities are. You also don’t seem to know the difference between mandatory and discretionary spending, either. That’s ok. Most Americans don’t, either


The “if we just cut things I hate we can afford the promises of SS and Medicare” position is a myth. The unfunded liabilities with just SS and Medicare is roughly 98 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “T.” Throw state and military pensions on top of that and that number goes up

We either deal with meaningful reforms now and try to salvage something from these programs so grandma isn’t forced into the pet food aisle or we just continue the Trump/ Democrat plan of borrow and print to fund them so grandma still gets her SS check, but her savings are worthless

The responsible ones on this issue are those willing to take it on even at some political risk. The irresponsible ones are people like Trump and his Democrat buddies

I’ll look out for @Kamaji to chime in on this issue.

[Drago]

FTA:

How about we first stop funding:   the Military-Industrial Complex, foreign aid,  welfare, health care, SNAP benefits and lodging for illegal invaders, the green new deal, and a militarized IRS?

Let's see how this goes before sending grandma to the pet aisle for groceries.

Your budgetary reallocation sounds good, except for maybe the "health care" one...Grandma might have to be sent to the "veterinarian aisle" without Medicare. Or perhaps you meant "medical" for illegal alien invaders?  As a side note, does anyone know if it is "legal" to provide general fund federal (income) tax dollars to the SS/Medicare system? I think it has to stand on it's own with FICA taxes and retirement age/disability rules? Will have to research that unless someone here knows.   UPDATE: It looks like Medicare draws part of it's funding from Federal general fund revenues, while Social Security can only use it's own FICA funding (no "general revenue").  https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/what-to-know-about-medicare-spending-and-financing/  and  https://fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/financial-report/2021/social-insurance.pdf  and https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/HowAreSocialSecurity.htm  So "budgetary reallocation" won't cut it w/o new laws to allow for "Right_in_Virginia's" reallocation of general fund tax revenue to help bail out Social Security.

[LMAO]

So "budgetary reallocation" won't cut it w/o new laws to allow for "Right_in_Virginia's" reallocation of general fund tax revenue to help bail out Social Security.

And even if you did do that, how long would that last before you had to bail out Social Security and Medicare again? And Medicare is in worse shape than Social Security.

Any budgetary reallocation scheme would just be kicking the can further down the road when it comes to the crisis facing Social Security and Medicare

[Bigun]

"Social Security" is, and always has been, nothing more than a government-run Ponzi scheme which, like all such schemes, will eventually die of its own weight.

[LMAO]

It’s abundantly clear from some of the responses here that people don’t know how Social Security and Medicare are funded, the true unsustainable costs, or even what  the programs really are. They are not money withdrawn from paychecks to fund individual retirement programs. They are nothing more than government programs like Food Stamps. They are a tax.

And the misconceptions when it comes to both programs are going to  have to be work through before we tackle any meaningful reforms

Voting against people who propose reforms doesn’t make the problems that both programs face go away. It would be just a further denial of reality.

[Fishrrman]

LMAO writes:
"I say bravo to the new speaker."

If Speaker Johnson wants to try wrestling with that third rail, well... have at it. He'll soon find out about the current running within.

He's probably too young to have considered what happened to George W. Bush and the Republicans the last time they tried to spend their "political capital" on Social Security in 2005 -- who won back Congress in 2006?

Social Security won't get "fixed" in Congress until the DCommunist party hollers for the fixin' to get done. The Pubbies will have little say until then.

And even then, the system will have to actually BREAK -- not the "threat of" a break, but a REAL collapse -- before anyone does anything substantial about it.

The fixes will probably involve a minor reduction in benefits (say 7-10%), an increase in the payroll tax (by about 3-5%), and perhaps SOME "means testing" (I can't see how the Pubbies could support the latter and retain their constituency).

The retirement age WILL NOT be raised.

Social Security and Medicare ARE NOT going to go away.
The debt that funds them WILL eventually go away.
How, you ask?
The Party will do what the Bolsheviks did when they first came to power:
Simply renounce all debt, and be done with it.

I don't think I'll be here when that happens.
I'm not going to worry about it.

[LMAO]

LMAO writes:
"I say bravo to the new speaker."

If Speaker Johnson wants to try wrestling with that third rail, well... have at it. He'll soon find out about the current running within.

He's probably too young to have considered what happened to George W. Bush and the Republicans the last time they tried to spend their "political capital" on Social Security in 2005 -- who won back Congress in 2006?

Social Security won't get "fixed" in Congress until the DCommunist party hollers for the fixin' to get done. The Pubbies will have little say until then.

And even then, the system will have to actually BREAK -- not the "threat of" a break, but a REAL collapse -- before anyone does anything substantial about it.

The fixes will probably involve a minor reduction in benefits (say 7-10%), an increase in the payroll tax (by about 3-5%), and perhaps SOME "means testing" (I can't see how the Pubbies could support the latter and retain their constituency).

The retirement age WILL NOT be raised.

Social Security and Medicare ARE NOT going to go away.
The debt that funds them WILL eventually go away.
How, you ask?
The Party will do what the Bolsheviks did when they first came to power:
Simply renounce all debt, and be done with it.

I don't think I'll be here when that happens.
I'm not going to worry about it.

I don’t disagree with you in theory. You are right that the political risks are great. But that doesn’t mean we ignore the issue. And unfortunately, it will take a major financial crisis before the issue is dealt with in a truly meaningful manner and it will be too late by then

Too many people, Donald Trump included, believe that the US will never run into financial problems because we can print the money we need to pay for these programs. But our current inflation is a prime example of the folly of that type of thinking.

There were other issues in the 2006 midterms that affected the fortunes of the GOP, such as the ongoing war in Iraq, and the issue of corruption

[Smokin Joe]

Those on Social Security and Medicare might be more willing to discuss changes in COLAs etc..if the starting point with all this was a reduction in Welfare and foreign aid, neither of which were paid for by their respective recipients.

Argue all you want that this was 'just another tax', but the 'tax' was collected for a stated purpose. Mishandling those funds does not change that original agreement.

[LMAO]

https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-sweden-saved-social-security#:~:text=Sweden%20introduced%20partial%20privatization%20of,it%20into%20individual%20pension%20accounts.

Granted, Sweden has a smaller and less diverse population than the US.  But there are other options than just letting the system collapse.

[berdie]

Those on Social Security and Medicare might be more willing to discuss changes in COLAs etc..if the starting point with all this was a reduction in Welfare and foreign aid, neither of which were paid for by their respective recipients.

Argue all you want that this was 'just another tax', but the 'tax' was collected for a stated purpose. Mishandling those funds does not change that original agreement.

Correct. And I'll add the funding to the illegals.

[LMAO]

Those on Social Security and Medicare might be more willing to discuss changes in COLAs etc..if the starting point with all this was a reduction in Welfare and foreign aid, neither of which were paid for by their respective recipients.

Argue all you want that this was 'just another tax', but the 'tax' was collected for a stated purpose. Mishandling those funds does not change that original agreement.

Yeah, would be hard to convince someone who worked for 40 years that he has  to take a cut in  his Social Security to help pay for Juan Hernandez’s, who ran over the border illegally, healthcare and housing.

[jmyrlefuller]

Please go find me an itemized federal budget that shows what money goes to what department, because the vast majority of you have no clue.

Here's a nice chart.



Socialist Security and Medicare add up to nearly $2 TRILLION. The payroll taxes used to fund them only bring in $1.5 trillion. That's a massive 25% shortfall, and it accounts for roughly 3/8 of our national deficit. Until Obama, that figure was in surplus.

For comparison.
Our military, including all veterans benefits, costs about $1 trillion.
Medicaid and all other health programs also cost $900 billion.
Income security programs—I assume that's food stamps, unemployment and welfare—run $900 billion.
The Department of Education eats up $700 billion.
Interest on the debt was about $500 billion.
Everything else comes up to slightly over $300 billion.

So if you think you're going to be able to fix our structural deficits without touching the entitlements, you're sadly mistaken. Our country has made a bunch of promissory notes it can't cash and didn't have enough kids to cover it—a problem that is only going to get worse as less and less of our economic gains come from labor subject to those taxes.

[Hoodat]

For one, people need to have the mindset flushed out of them that these are programs they paid into for themselves

You got that right.  All ponzi schemes are paid for exclusively by new enrollees.

[Hoodat]

Please go find me an itemized federal budget that shows what money goes to what department, because the vast majority of you have no clue.

$3.7 trillion in direct and indirect cash payments to other individuals.  Wealth redistribution on steroids.  And not a penny of it coming from some lock box that someone paid in to.

[Hoodat]

Yet another issue he is backpedaling on and  seniors on fixed incomes would be hit the hardest.

As opposed to the current system where people who work their asses off are hit the hardest.

[LMAO]

So if you think you're going to be able to fix our structural deficits without touching the entitlements, you're sadly mistaken. Our country has made a bunch of promissory notes it can't cash and didn't have enough kids to cover it—a problem that is only going to get worse as less and less of our economic gains come from labor subject to those taxes.

Sit down with a group of people and ask them what they would do to try to fix Social Security and Medicare, and their “solutions” revolve around getting rid of programs they personally don’t like as a way to free up more money for the entitlement programs

For many on the left, they will tell you that getting rid of military spending would help shore up Social Security. For many on the right, they believe getting rid of illegal immigrants and food stamps will fix the insolvency issue.

There will be plenty of debate on what to do regarding these programs. But politicians who are more interested in demagoguery instead of solutions, need to step aside and let the grownups try to at least figure this out

[Hoodat]

The ONLY way to 'fix' Social Security is to remove Government from the equation.