Thread: SSI Benefits

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Ed-thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by Hurst01

They took an amazing amount of the money out of what was available and never put it back. At the time it didn't make a flying fig of difference to me because of my age. I am sure that most of you were young at one time and know young people don't care about retirement. Any of you ever remember hearing it?

President Johnson created the ‘unified budget’ in the late 1960s to disguise the real cost of the Vietnam War.[6] [7] President Johnson did not want to ask for income tax increases to pay for several ambitious government programs of that era (the Vietnam War, the Great Society War on Poverty, the NASA Space Race). Putting surpluses from Social Security overwithholding “on budget” (adding them to the general operating budget of the United States Government) so the overwithholding could be used to pay for other government programs would make the federal budget appear balanced. The resulting debt to Trust Funds would be presented “off budget.”

In 1967 President Johnson appointed a Commission on Federal Budget Concepts which in its October 1967 report proposed a unified budget to do this. Johnson submitted the first unified budget to a Democratic Congress for Fiscal Year 1969 scheduled to begin on July 1, 1968. Thus was born the practice of using Social Security Trust Fund surpluses – or “Intra-governmental Holdings of Debt” to hide the size of the overall federal deficit.

AHAA, Thanks Bob. I have mentioned this to several others and they act like I am nuts. I know it was not my imagination. It is nice to know someone else remembers it. Like I said, at the time I was a snotty nose kid (age 24) thinking that life would go on and didn't really care. I hated listening to the news. You can bet I listen to it now to see how bad I am going to get screwed.
My whole point to my initial post was to say, depending on your financial position, if you have a chance and can afford to retire and enjoy life you should take it because of the uncertainties you may face later. This is just my own personal opinion based on my own experiences. Sooner or later, life hits you in the face, and it hurts.

I missed the link that 1Gary posted and went back to read it. What the article says has some good information. But as it also states, it is a gamble on how well your health is going to hold up. Another thing I want to mention... the SS representative told me that when I die, my wife can continue to draw her benefits or receive 82.5% of mine, whichever is greater. 82.5% of mine is considerably more than hers is now. I was placed on mandatory medicare in 2004 and things could have changed somewhat.