According to Newsmax.com, the number of people receiving Social Security disability benefits have increased to the point that the system is going broke.
Excerpt:
Federal funding from other sources, including incoming payroll taxes, covers 79 percent of disability insurance payments, which average $1,111 a month. But that leaves 21 percent uncovered if the disability insurance fund runs out of money.
Nearly 11 million Americans currently receive disability benefits and last year the program cost taxpayers $132 billion — more than the combined annual budgets of the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Justice, and the Interior.
One in 18 workers receive disability payments from Social Security. The Social Security Administration will run out of money for disability at this rate in about 4 years in 2016.
Excerpts:
The disability rolls have grown 23 percent since 2007, in large part because of the bad economy. Unemployed Americans who exhaust their unemployment benefits have been seeking disability benefits for assistance.
The disability program formerly benefited people with debilitating conditions such as strokes and cancer. But Congress expanded the benefits pool to include such claimed ailments as depression, back pain, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
The program allows disabled workers to switch to Medicare after two years regardless of whether they are 65 years old or not! This leads to low-income workers without insurance trying to get disability and they remain in the program once they qualify for these benefits.
Excerpt:
Disability status also makes recipients eligible for food stamps and other benefits. Fewer than 1 percent of those who start collecting benefits return to work.
Really?
Congress could curb spending on the program by demanding more aggressive screening of applicants and more incentives for them to go back to work. Until then, disability under Social Security, with poor incentives to leave the system, results in high costs and an unsustainable future.
SNuss
Your dependence upon Fox and the odd ball ramblings of online printed materials is appauling short-sighted in your efforts to attempt to convince anyone of your position.
May I remind you this President invited the Tea Party/Conservatives to the table for cuts in all programs, plus what they felt were restrictive business operating laws, and you failed to appear? Love it when you hand out the bull about all the new retrictions and fail to add they were scheduled years ago to come on line now and your team had the ability to stop them and didn’t make a move to do it.
Were you too inept or too lazy or was it just inconveneint in a an election year?
When you need to run comment after comment in a row jumping from one topic to another, it becomes rambling to no purpose. How we handle those truly disabled is an important topic. Not a place for politics as usual which is all you’ve offered here.
July 9, 2012 at 6:30 am
JRM, please refer to a dictionary before commenting. Anyone who thinks I used police anything other than “a : to supervise the operation, execution, or administration of to prevent or detect and prosecute violations of rules and regulations ”
Must be some kind of (name called) person with ZERO common sense.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/police
@wilson:
I knew exactly how you used “police”. Please do some research on how the IRS audits tax returns before you make assumptions or try to throw an insult around.
Anyone who thinks that IRS auditing (policing in the digital world) is still done by people and therefore a ton of people have to be hired to audit the Obamacare tax penalty must be a (no name called) person with ZERO undertstanding of the roll computers play in today’s processes.
One to five lines of code or a couple of new objects added to the computer tax audit apps will accomplish 100% 0f the initial audits and raise the flags. Adding the code or objects to the tax preparation packages like Turbotax will take less time than it will take to test the code. That testing should add a couple of good paying jobs in the private sector.
Carol sez: “SNuss
Your dependence upon Fox and the odd ball ramblings of online printed materials is appauling short-sighted in your efforts to attempt to convince anyone of your position”.
Carol, can you prove that CBS news, or any of my other sources are ” odd ball ramblings”? The truth is the truth, no matter the source.
Fortunately for you on the Left, truth isn’t an issue in YOUR ” odd ball ramblings”. It is so much easier to make things up as you go along.
So tell me, JRM, do the computers come out and arrest you, if the books don’t match up? Not if your name is Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, or Charlie Rangel.
JRM, you are a mind reader besides being so full of yourself. So computers come to your business and confiscate your records? So they don’t have auditors meet with you, instead you talk to HAL? In addition, did I use the words audit? (read my mind) So as they beef up their policing I am sure there are no IT developers being hired, server admins etc.
You really are an oxymoron, call yourself commonsense, but have none.
21% increase IT, 7.59% increase enforcement
http://www.irs.gov/pub/newsroom/budget-in-brief-fy2013.pdf
Thanks Wilson, you just proved my point….. Figure it out!
I just did, go look in the mirror you will see the (quoting you) the MORON. In the mean time go soak that swollen head of yours.
Wow, great come back. When all else fails, call names and make snide remarks. You have taken your lessons from SNuss really well. However, you still need to read the link you used as your defense for the IRS having to hire a large amount fo people for ACA tax implications. Hint, footnote 2 tells you where to look. However, I fully expect you to continue your name calling approach to proving your point because that is the only defense you have. Keep chirping away with your boogeyman, chicken little appraoch to reality. It is amusing! SNuff said to you!
“God what a moronic comment” I guess you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.
Maybe it would be best if we looked at Amish communities. They pay taxes, but I don’t believe they are a burden to the government. Generally, these are self-sustaining communities that take care of each other through all situations.
One person’s loss is a loss suffered by the entire community. A fire ~ the community rebuilds, a death ~ the community assists, purchases are made with cash ~ no credit. They have their own schools and provide for those qualified for higher education.
By no means an easy life, but at least they care for each other. Is there a Mayberry out there anywhere?
Angie,
Years ago people did help each other and you still see some of that in the south. Last time in Rockford I was shocked by the drivers, no regard for anyone but themselves. Go to the East coast and you’ll quickly see it is all about ME. They drive like lunatics and no one returns their shopping carts, to them it is easier to leave it behind the car next to them and the cart return can be just as close. I am afraid civility is becoming a scarce commodity and I seeing it only becoming scarcer.
Wilson ~ I have to agree with you.
I don’t believe people will ever reach out to help one another until everything is lost and no one has anything. Even then if the mindset is still “it’s all about me” then we are doomed to repeat.
How sad:(
Mayberry is gone forever!