Social Security Landslide
By Greg Boots

Social Security is the foundation for most Americans’ retirement. This foundation has been built on shaky ground and what started as a falling rock has progressed into a full-blown landslide.

This time each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust provide the details of the account balances. Prognosis is bleak. As it currently stands, the Social Security system will be exhausted in 2033; this is a dramatic three-year increase from last year’s report. Social Security is a “pay as you go” system, which means that those of us who are currently paying into the system through our wages are unlikely to see the benefits we have been promised because our money is going to provide coverage for those who are currently drawing from the Social Security fund. As a 42-year-old worker, my expected retirement date is 2037 and unless the system is dramatically overhauled my best-case scenario will be to receive 75% of my promised benefits.

The biggest hurdle is that the problem must be fixed now, while there is still time. Earlier this year top officials from government and retirement sectors met to strategize on how to shore up the foundation before it was damaged beyond repair. The conclusion they came to was that there is a deficit between what Americans need for retirement and what they actually have. The deficit? A mind-boggling 6 trillion dollars. To give you some perspective on how large this number is, imagine stacking Dollar Bills on top of each other 6 trillion times. It would reach from the Earth to the Moon and then half way back to Earth.

Unfortunately the bad news doesn’t end there. The end of the Social Security’s Disability Fund has also moved forward by two years and is set to expire in 2016. What does this mean in real numbers? In 2011, 55 million Americans received benefits from a fund that has only four years left in its shelf life.

Thankfully, all is not lost. We all have it in our ability to provide for our own future independence and well being when it comes to retirement. There are several options when it comes to IRAs and Roth IRAs. However, if you are looking for greater control and flexibility, I strongly recommend exploring a Qualified Pension Plan. Qualified plans have several distinct advantages over IRAs, both Roth and Traditional. Unlike an IRA where you have to have a custodian, in a properly structured Qualified Plan you will serve as the Trustee of the plan assets, and why not, didn’t you work for those assets? Shouldn’t you be the one in control? As Trustee, you are not solely limited to mutual funds and covered calls. As Trustee, you can invest in any stock, future or option you deem as a prudent investment.

If you are like many of my clients, you also desire to capitalize on our current real estate market and use it as a catalyst to supercharge your retirement. In an IRA, the custodian must be involved in the real estate transactions and you are limited to only being able to have a non-recourse mortgage, which can be difficult to obtain and cost prohibitive. As Trustee of a Qualified Plan, you can simply write a check for the purchase of the real estate without the involvement of any outside parties. Additionally, you can acquire properties using traditional mortgages, which allows you to leverage the funds within the plan for accelerated growth. Another distinct advantage of a Qualified Plan is that as a participant, you can borrow from your vested account balance and use those funds how you see fit.

As today’s Social Security and Medicare Trust Report dramatically demonstrates, it is time to take control of our own retirement options. How can we build for our future when our structure is built upon unstable ground? It would be foolish to sit idly by and hope the system fixes itself.

‘Let me get this straight . . ..
We’re going to be “gifted” with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don’t,
Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn’t understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn’t read it (but
exempted themselves from it),
and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn’t pay his taxes,
for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,
by a congress which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by an obese surgeon general
and financed by a country that’s broke!!

What the hell could possibly go wrong?’

In this video commentary, Contemplate why are we giving away $60 billion of foreign aid every year when we have a $1.3 trillion deficit? Why are we giving the Palestinians $550 million in direct aid and more through the UN?

http://www.patriothobbits.com

Oh say it ain’t so!!!!!!

http://www.patriothobbits.com

The really sad part about this is that this seems to be the goal of the progressive liberals in charge in Washington. Their goals of some sort of socialist utopia where we all live and contribute to each other’s greatness and woes sounds like a pretty picture. But when you look at the dependence on the government that would be required in such a socialist dreamland, it doesn’t take long to realize that this of course cannot work and will destroy itself like every socialist government experiment ever tried.

So when you hear some liberal saying that Social Security is not a Ponzi Scheme you can come back with getting them to explain how Obamanomics is not a Ponzi Scheme. A hard task even for the most hardened faithful liberal.

Really?

After 2 1/2 year you and your Party didn’t pass or submit a budget.

After spending like you didn’t care who was paying for it, BECAUSE YOU DIDN”T.

After driving the car out of the swale you are your PARTY drove it off a cliff.

After driving more Americans to food stamps in the history of this country.

After driving unemployment thru the roof.

After entering into a civil War without getting approval from Congress.

Now you decide to use OUR senior citizens as political pawns?

You, The Obama are a total disgrace and have now proved to all America why Socialism is always a failure for the people and success for elitist members of government and their friend in big business.

U.S. Representative for Illinois’s 9th congressional district, serving since 1999. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Congresswoman Agrees With Obama, Americans Too Stupid to Understand Complicated Debt Ceiling Debate & Social Security.
Listen to her in her own words. It is very sad and tells you what the elitist Democrats members of Congress think of the people of the United States.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/you-dont-get-it-congresswoman-agrees-with-obama-Americans-too-stupid-to-understand-complicated-debt-ceiling-debate-social-security-threat-while-she-cant-seem-to-explain-it

As America’s poorest wait for Social Security checks that may never come on Aug. 3, President Barack Obama will be out celebrating a milestone birthday at a party where tickets cost up to $35,800 each.

Republicans are slamming the decision to have the party as “insensitive.”

“This really shows how unserious he is,” Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, a fellow Chicagoan, tells Newsmax exclusively. “I realize it’s his birthday, but he is a president who has said he doesn’t know if social security checks will go out that day.

“If that’s the case, I cannot believe he will be having a big party that very day.”

Obama said on Tuesday that he cannot guarantee that social security checks will go out from August 3 unless a deal can be reached on raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit. “There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” he told CBS’ Scott Pelley.

Unless the deal is reached, government services across the board will be cut and in many cases closed down.

“My first thought was that he will have to fly to Chicago before the third because I can’t imagine airports will be open,” said Walsh. “And he’ll have to have a huge supply of candles because the lights are going to go out.

“I am amazed he will be able to have a party at all.”

Walsh said he hopes to be in Chicago on Aug. 3 himself to be with his family in case the calamity that Obama has warned about comes to fruition. “I just doubt I’ll get an invitation to the party,” he said.

Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is expected to perform at the birthday bash at the historic Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. The event will be one of the president’s biggest fundraisers of the year. Publicity literature featuring a red, white and blue Happy Birthday logo has already been produced.

The event will be “multi-tiered,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The Hudson concert would cost $50; admission to the party $200; a premium seat $1,000; a souvenir photo with the president $10,000; and VIP seating and dinner with Obama $38,500.

Another GOP Congressman, Louie Gohmert of Texas was incredulous about the timing. “That’d be as crazy as setting up golf games in the middle of going after Osama bin Laden,” he said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do something like that – or maybe he would.”

Obama has been leading contentious talks all week with leaders of both parties in the House and Senate to avoid the August 2 deadline. On Friday he warned of financial “Armageddon” if a deal cannot be reached.

Then, against all logic, the AARP drove the passage of ObamaCare – while knowing seniors would pay billions in increased Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage premiums as a direct result.

AARP’s financial gain “could exceed $1 billion from the new health care law” – House Ways and Means “Behind the Veil” investigation finding.

Now they come out in support of “changes” in Social Security?!?
“…news that the most powerful lobbying force for older Americans had softened its opposition to benefit cuts could not have come at a worse time.” – the liberal Huffington Post

“The (AARPs)timing is very destructive” – Nancy Altman, co-director of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign

“I think they’re dead wrong on this issue and I think many of the other senior organizations feel the same way” – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

The AARP’s new advertising slogan?
“Get over it!”

“We consider it unfair to tax Social Security twice, once when you pay in and again when you start to collect,” Weber says.

AMAC is courting legislators to introduce a bill to eliminate the tax on Social Security income that one in three people collecting Social Security are now paying.

Dan Weber, president of Amac says, “ it looks like AARP is a giant ship that has lost its rudder- and it is about to hit the rocky shore. The problem is they are taking their members down with them”

In stark contrast to the AARP, Amac recently issued two strong proposals to keep Social Security solvent while putting more money in the pockets of older Americans.

With a double taxation bulls eye placed squarely on the Social Security benefits of older Americans, The Association of Mature American Citizens is crying foul!

AMAC the leading conservative alternative to the AARP believes this just isn’t fair and is calling on all seniors to join them in it’s demand that tax reformers on the Hill take a closer look at this, peculiar inequity in the law that decidedly targets older Americans. Dan Weber president of AMAC says it is “appalling” that many seniors on social security must pay income tax on their benefits and is calling on Congress to address the issue promptly.

As an example, a person with a combined income of $38,000, (assuming $24,000 in Social Security income) would have half of his or her Social Security taxed. That person would fall into the 15% tax bracket resulting in $1,800 in extra tax on their Social Security income. In fact, when total combined income exceeds $44,000, 85% of the individual’s Social Security gets taxed, typically resulting in an extra tax of $3,000 or more. [See Social Security publication 915 to figure your combined income].

AMAC has designated its Web site, www.amac.us, as the rallying point for its new cause and is asking “seniors and their families to visit and express their opinions and tell their own stories on this and other issues affecting them.”

Please send your comments on this outragous government practice.