Payroll Tax Cut Legislation - Have They Lost Their Minds?

 The media coverage of the haggling back and forth over the continuation of the payroll tax cut is astonishing.  It focuses entirely on the impact to the present economy without even considering the fact that it will destroy the Social Security system.  As it is, the system has been running a deficit since 2008.  The deficit greatly increased in 2011 with the cut from 6.2% to 4.2%.  Now an extension appears to be a lock - and the tax might even be decreased to 3.1% if Obama and the democratic senate have their way.  Exacerbated  by an additional lowering of contributions on the employer side. You simply cannot cut SS revenues in half when the system is already in serious imbalance with the deficit increasing.  This is complete lunacy.  Any C-minus accounting student could see this portends bankruptcy.  And even more crazed is Congress having the audacity to contend that the costs will be covered by funds from the general Treasury.  Are they kidding?  Maybe no one told them we are running a national deficit in the trillions and growing.  Such a statement is disingenuous at best, if not flat out deceitful.  It is stupefying that our economy is so poor that a few additional dollars per paycheck is universally considered mandatory.  Trading the future solvency of SS for current consumerism strikes me as approaching treason.  What could politicians possibly be thinking?

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Back in the good old days most normal workers believed their Social Security deductions went into a Trust Fund from which future benefits would be paid out.  Many figured this dedicated fund would earn some form of return on the contributions to keep it self sustaining.  No problem - easy stuff, right?

Well, no.  The Trust Fund has been continually tapped in attempts to balance the budget (or at least lower deficit spending with the Treasury effectively issuing IOUs).  Since the Great Recession it has been absolutely hammered in terms of inflowing monies relative to outflows.  I mean, you can't contribute without a job and those receiving it due to their age can't simply become younger and drop off the rolls.  We all know that population demographics are working against its feasibility in the longer term as it stands.  This is undisputed.

I believe the Congressional Budget Office's forecasts about the viability of the system are somewhere around 50% off - just like all their forecasts.  They were already wrong by about eight years on their prediction about when the running surplus would turn negative.  If you want a laugh, peruse their assumptions.  They are comical beyond belief - as though they haven't considered reality for one instant.  Social Security old age benefits as we know it will be insolvent before those graduating from high school into the workforce get even a dime - if not well before.

The Social Security system was one of the most vital of social programs enacted under FDR.  It meant the difference between literally starving or dying of cold or being homeless and actually living. Millions upon millions of people are testament to this.  It allowed them a sense of stability in the face of abject poverty.  Without it they would have been morgue statistics.

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But nowadays our nation is governed by myopic stop-gap, short sighted, immediate-fix-without-considering-the-consequences, kick the can down the road measures that can't look three years ahead - much less a decade or generation.  We are in the process of destroying one of the most valuable safety nets ever created.  Utterly dismantling it from without.  All in the name of an absurd attempt to prop up an economy which needs to be re-evaluated from top to bottom.  Our country simply cannot  allow such a sacrifice.  Any ideas as to how to stop it from happening?