Social Security Disability

Last year the Social Security Administration sent $127.7 billion to those determined disabled but took in only $104 billion in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Deficits began draining the trust fund in 2005 and are expected to be exhausted by 2017

None of this should come as a surprise. USA Today reported five years ago: "Washington's public debt is nearly $8.5 trillion, which comes to about 58% of the U.S. economy, compared with ratios exceeding 100% in places like Greece. But the U.S. debt is rising fast, and its true size is masked by the surplus run by the Social Security trust fund. Factoring that in, the total national debt is about $13 trillion, or 90% of the economy. Including unfunded liabilities for such programs as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government is looking at a long-term shortfall of about $62 trillion, or about $200,000 for every American."

It was in 1994 that I sounded an alarm about the potential for a disastrous state with the aging and retirement of the 76 million Baby Boomers, causing fewer and fewer supporting more and more workers. "Before 9/11, the Government Accounting Office projected Social Security would be bankrupt by 2030. Karl Borden, professor of financial economics at the University of Nebraska, predicted it would go bust in 2015. But no one could have predicted that a professor of constitutional law would rape that sacred document as President of the United States by inaugurating the takeover of medical practice and care, 1/5th of the economy.

There are a few very good proposals for comprehensive reform which so far have been ignored by the Obama administration. One is by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Reporting in The Wall Street Journal, April 5th, Representative Ryan explained, "Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

"A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year."

The fact that Mr. Obama has paid no attention to any of the reasonable proposals amounts to a psychological confession that he is more interested in the aggregation of power over every American by throwing this republic into a severe downward economic spiral from which we will not recover for as long as he continues his mindless lead-from-behind method of operation. Senator Mitch McConnell was right: we will not solve our economic crisis as long as this president is in office.