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GOP should leave SS alone

A letter in Thursday’s Daily News stated, “Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to Newsweek, let the cat out of the bag. We’ve got to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It’s the deficit, don’t you know, gotta bring it down.”

That same letter had Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saying, “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is where you tackle the debt and the deficit.”

Unless the GOP wants the government to go to a Democrat majority, they had better think twice about this situation. If they cut any of the Social Security benefits, I will not be voting for them in the future. This may effect the midterms and more, just the fact that they are talking about doing so.

Since when has Social Security been an entitlement? I know that I and everybody that I know has paid into the Social Security system. So the question would be, where are the funds?

Welfare, in my opinion, does need reform, and should start with drug testing and work requirements for the able. Also, they should cut the government retirement, which equals their current rate of pay at the age of retirement for life. That isn’t fair to the taxpayers.

According to Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2011/07/13/what-happened-to-the-2-6-trillion-social-security-trust-fund/#3efeddf84947:

“Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing. They are paid for with payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers throughout their careers. These taxes are placed in a trust fund dedicated to paying benefits owed to current and future beneficiaries. … Even though Social Security began collecting less in taxes than it paid in benefits in 2010, the trust fund will continue to accrue interest and grow until 2025, and will have adequate resources to pay full benefits for the next 26 years.”

According to this article, the funds weren’t borrowed but turned into bonds that can be cashed in in 2020 — check at https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/03/facebook-posts/did-george-w-bush-borrow-social-security-fund-war.

This means the funds are there and there are no worries. Experts told us there’s no question that the Treasury will repay the Social Security surplus (including what was accumulated during the Bush years) when the trust fund starts redeeming the bonds in 2020. Otherwise, says Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, “you’d have to march 40 years’ worth of Treasury, Labor, Health and Human Services secretaries, Social Security commissioners, and public trustees — Republicans and Democrats — into prison.”

So with the money for Social Security benefits coming from your and my checks — taxes to fund Social Security — how can they consider it an “entitlement,” or claim the funds will run out?

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