Ronald Reagan was the last president to change Social Security. To come up with remedies for the issues the program was experiencing, he established the Greenspan Commission. After that, Reagan collaborated with Tip O’Neill, the speaker of the House, to put the recommendations into action. If he had not been successful, Social Security as we know it would have been abolished decades ago.
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Democrats warned that if Republicans won in 2022, they would “destroy” Social Security and Medicare. On January 26, President Biden declared, “Here’s the deal: They want to slash your Social Security and Medicare.” Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to expire, Biden reiterated at the State of the Union address. Social Security and Medicare are in danger while Democrats utter nonsense. These initiatives are once again under danger, so something needs to be done to support them.
The Old Age Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (D.I.) funds make up the two components of Social Security.”
In 2034, the OASI Trust Fund reserves are expected to be exhausted, at which point OASI would pay 77 percent of the benefits that are now anticipated. The asset reserves of the DI Trust Fund are not anticipated to be exhausted over the 75-year period ending in 2096.” Hospital Insurance (H.I.) and Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) trust funds are the two funds that make up Medicare.” The HI trust fund is anticipated to run out of money in 2028. ” Since the government has the authority to increase SMI premium costs, “it is expected to be amply supported for the next 10 years and beyond.”
OASI and H.I. are underfunded. Republicans and Democrats do not have a problem with this; rather, the hundreds of millions of participants do. Republicans have promised the public that they won’t “touch” the programs. This may divert attention from the false information spread by Democrats, but it doesn’t solve the issue.
Large-scale government initiatives were not favored by President Reagan. In a lecture from 1964, he stated: “No government ever shrinks. Government programs therefore never end once they are implemented. Actually, the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this planet is a government agency.” Yet, by the time Reagan was elected president, he saw that the program had been ingrained in Americans’ lives and that continuing it would better serve their interests.
Reagan did what today seems impossible. He came to a consensus with both parties. There were 15 participants in the Greenspan Commission from business and both political parties. The final accord was mostly negotiated by James Baker, Reagan’s chief of staff, and Robert Ball, a former Social Security commissioner nominated by Speaker O’Neill (see Baker and Glasser, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, Doubleday, 2020, p. 193). Legislation that guaranteed Social Security’s financial stability for 50 years was passed in 1983 based on the commission’s recommendations.
Changes to the taxation schedule and cost of living were agreed upon. The plan included provisions to “tax the benefits of higher-income recipients, expand the pool of contributors by bringing in all new federal employees, require the self-employed to pay the employer share of payroll taxes in addition to the employee share, and transfer money from the general government fund to cover the cost of benefits for military veterans.”
Without this arrangement, the Social Security trust fund would have run dry sometime in 1983. Not as bad a scenario exists right now. While Medicare’s H.I. fund will run out in 2028, Social Security’s funding is guaranteed until 2034. Reforms to adequately support these programs can be put off, but only for so long.
There are numerous justifications for political factions’ inaction. It is simpler to put off solving the issue. Washington waits till there is an emergency before taking action. Republicans are opposed to raising taxes to pay for Social Security because doing so will alienate their supporters. They do not want to suggest welfare cuts since their suggestion will be included in Democratic babble. Democrats would rather keep their legacy programs in place so they can accuse Republicans of destroying Social Security and Medicare.
Democrats disregard these initiatives while pouring trillions of money into an ever-expanding government. Democrats were aware that Social Security and Medicare would put a financial strain on taxpayers when they adopted Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the policy they implemented will cost the American people $1.8 trillion over the following ten years. They didn’t give a damn and went ahead with it. Moreover, $716 billion from Medicare was stolen to pay for Obamacare. Sam Bankman-Fried may have received instruction from Democratic lawmakers for the shell game he named FTX.
Biden is proposing to cancel student loan debt, but doing so will cost taxpayers $519 billion. If students paid back their loans as agreed, the American people would benefit more. The Social Security and Medicare trust funds should receive the payments from Congress. All working Americans would profit from these programs, including the future beneficiaries—students.
Millions of Americans lost their jobs as the government closed down the U.S. economy in response to the COVID outbreak. For COVID assistance, the federal government shelled out $4.6 trillion. According to estimates, fraudsters defrauded the American people out of $500 billion in COVID relief funds. The scientific community is reluctantly recognizing that the public health administration handled the COVID outbreak poorly. Most of the trillions of dollars spent on the epidemic were a waste.
The president likes to talk in public about his parents debating how to spend the family’s money around the kitchen table. Most households have a budget that limits their spending in order to manage the money they earn well. Such restrictions do not apply to the government. Both political parties agree that, in order to be solvent over the coming ten years, Social Security and Medicare will need to be given a financial boost. When a family decides there isn’t enough money to pay bills, they cut spending to get by. Rarely would a financially strapped family buy a brand-new luxury automobile. The government acts in this manner. The government must figure out how to live within its means. Republicans should try to guarantee that government expenditure is decreased and create a strategy to strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
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