If you’re assuming that the federal government can just make-do when the Trust Fund is emptied out, you might need to reconsider.
Forbes post, “Social Security Ending In 2023? No. But What Really Happens When The Trust Fund Is Emptied?”
If you’re assuming that the federal government can just make-do when the Trust Fund is emptied out, you might need to reconsider.
simple…eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes…everyone pays the same percentage…sure, some will get less out of it, but it seems fair enough…after all many get less now by dying too soon…
Elizabeth Bauer’s (JaneTheActuary.com) August 27 article in FORBES, SOCIAL SECURITY IN
2023? NO. BUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN THE TRUST FUND IS EMPTIED?, makes the important point
that the fact that depletion of the funds available in the trust funds for Social Security Disability
and Retirement benefits does not mean that the Federal government’s legal duty and political
incentives to fund those programs goes away. The important distinction between the
government’s obligation to honor entitlements and the government’s obligation to fund those
entitlements was explained by the Supreme Court in last spring’s decision in Maine Community
Health Options v. United States (April 27, 2020). In that case the government had adopted the
Affordable Care Act which among many other provisions provided for a risk corridors program
that offered insurers who sold policies on the online health insurance marketplaces, also
created by the Act, protection from losses they experienced. The risk corridors program
provided for payments to insurers who sold policies through the marketplaces and lost money
(under statutorily specified limitations) would be compensated for those loses by the
government. The rationale for the risk corridors provision was that insurers were being asked
to offer policies with specified policy conditions (such as coverage of pre-existing conditions)
and to populations with which they had no actuarially relevant experience, and they could not
take such an unknown risk without the backstop provided by the risk corridors program.
Maine Community Health Options (and many other insurers) sold such policies and
suffered losses within the statutory parameters. But when they sought reimbursement,
Congress had explicitly decided not to appropriate funds to make the payments possible. So
they sued in the Court of Claims for the billions of dollars due under the risk corridors program.
The Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Federal Circuit (which is the first-level review
court of the Court of Claims) which held that the action of Congress in deciding not to fund the
risk corridors payments terminated their right to payment. The Court said that a decision by
Congress not to fund an obligation was not the same thing as deciding to repeal the obligation.
Therefore, Maine Community Health Options and other insurers in the same positions were
entitled to be paid out of the unlimited and permanent appropriation for the payment of
judgments of the Court of Claims.
The availability of unlimited appropriated funds in the Court of Claims judgment fund
reinforces Ms. Bauer’s point, that whether or not there are funds in the social trust funds and
whether or not there is a payroll tax, beneficiaries of the social security programs will be paid.
It also means that Congressional inaction in the face of the long-anticipated depletion of the
trust funds will not be sufficient to change the right of the beneficiaries to be paid their full
benefit entitlement.
Edmund W. Kitch and Julia Mahoney
University of Virginia School of Law
Authors of: Restructuring United States Government Debt: Private Rights, Public Values, and the
Constitution, 2019 MICH. ST. L. REV. 1283, ACCESSIBLE AT:
https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/lr/vol2019/iss5/
Hello,
What if SCOTUS overturns the Social Security ACR as unconstiutional?
Is ssdi going broke I’m on it and I’m worried
Is ssdi going broke please let me know
Well, first thing is that social security is not an “entitlement” as the author said. We have paid into it and therefore it is ours to collect when we are eligible to. Second, the use of the word “winning” is a jab at our former president Donald John Trump. Leave the political jabs out of your commentary. If the SS fund does go dry, then there will be a change of government, maybe not the way politicians imagined it either. Our ‘leaders’ need to stop funding useless wars and dipping into the SS fund like it is a slush fund for office parties. Remember they work for us, not the other way around.
SOCIAL SECURITY raises do not increase spending income. Each raise is subtracted with an increase by part B, the poor do not get the monthly increase to spend!!! This happens every single time! ! !