Social Security Archives - The Florida Capital Star

Commentary: Feds Set Record for Improper Payments

October 24, 2024 RealClearWire

In 2021, near the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, investigators tailed a Jeep Cherokee stolen from an airport Avis to a New York City apartment they called a “fraud factory” – no furniture, just an air mattress, a computer, stacks of loan and tax forms, and a shredder.

Two men who had first met in prison – Adedayo Ilori, 43, and Chris Recamier, 59 – were using stolen identities and fake paperwork to falsely claim they employed 200 people, bilking the federal government’s pandemic-relief programs of more than $1 million, according to federal prosecutors. They used the stolen money to splurge on big-ticket purchases, such as cryptocurrency, leasing luxury apartments and a Mercedes, the evidence showed.

Commentary: The Big Divide

July 24, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

Whether the economy is currently bubbling along or facing a slowdown, a slow-motion disaster is about to create a real crisis for the government, our future politics, and the shrinking middle class. Half of households have no retirement savings.

This is just one of many shifts in the economy that reflect the declining fortunes of the middle class. Wages have remained mostly flat for most workers—particularly those without a college degree—since the early 1970s. Recent high rates of inflation further cut into the ability of the self-identified middle class to make ends meet. But the biggest change has been the abolition of employer-provided pensions and their replacement with rickety and self-managed 401k savings plans.

Commentary: The Federal Government Loses More Money than Could Ever Be Accounted For

July 3, 2024 RealClearWire

Not long after Jeremy Gober started running a sleep center, he quit treating patients for narcolepsy and sleep apnea and went full-time submitting bogus insurance claims. According to Gober’s 2022 indictment, he committed at least one especially sloppy error: One of his make-believe billings included a Medicare claim for treatment in March 2018 for a patient who’d died in December 2017. Before Gober was caught, Medicare and California’s healthcare system, Medi-Cal, ended up paying him a total of $587,000 for claims that turned out to be fiction.

The payments to Gober were part of $260 million the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent from 2009 through 2019 to reimburse healthcare providers in 15 states and Puerto Rico for services to patients who were dead, according to the inspector general of the HHS, which administers Medicare and Medicaid — programs with combined expenditures of $1.7 trillion.

Combined Social Security Trust Fund Projected to Deplete Reserves by 2035

May 13, 2024 The Center Square

Two reports released Monday show that the U.S. combined Social Security trust fund is projected to deplete its reserves by 2035.

The Trustees for Social Security and Medicare released annual reports on Monday. The Trustees projected the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will exhaust its reserves in 2036. The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund was projected to be insolvent by 2033.

Feds Borrowed $6 Billion Per Day So Far This Fiscal Year

April 12, 2024April 11, 2024 The Center Square

The U.S. federal government has borrowed about $6 billion per day so far this fiscal year with little indication of slowing down.

The U.S. Treasury Department released its figures for the month of March showing it borrowed $236 billion in March alone, bringing the total to $1.1 trillion for this fiscal year, which runs from October to September.

CBO Reports Grim Long-Term Outlook for Federal Government

March 22, 2024 The Center Square

The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released a bleak outlook for the federal government with new projections that show debt levels will reach their highest levels ever in five years.

“Debt held by the public, boosted by the large deficits, reaches its highest level ever in 2029 (measured as a percentage of GDP) and then continues to grow, reaching 166 percent of GDP in 2054 and remaining on track to increase thereafter,” according to the CBO report. “That mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.”

Watchdog: Biden’s 2025 Budget Would Drive National Debt to $45 Trillion in 10 Years, 106 Percent of GDP

March 13, 2024 Just the News

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) a budget watchdog group, found that President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2025 budget would drive the national debt to $45.1 trillion or 106 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2034, from $27.4 trillion or about 97 percent of GDP at the present time.

The organization noted that those calculations are based on the Biden administration’s own internal figures. The current $27.4 trillion debt figure is the debt held by the public, not the total national debt including intragovernmental holdings.

Commentary: Any Debt ‘Default’ Will Be Biden’s Choice

May 23, 2023 Admin

There’s enough revenue to pay interest on the debt even if the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling is reached.

Meaning, if the U.S. defaults on the debt on June 1, it will be because President Joe Biden chose not to make principal and interest payments on U.S. Treasuries out of existing revenue, for which there is more than ample revenues to service and refinance up to the current debt ceiling limit, $31.4 trillion.

Commentary: The Interest Alone on the National Debt Will Hit $1 Trillion in 2024 as Reserve Currency Status Is Questioned

April 11, 2023 Admin

Gross interest owed on the $31.4 trillion national debt — that is, interest owed on both the $24.9 trillion publicly traded debt and the $6.7 trillion debt in the Social Security, Medicare and other trust funds — will reach a gargantuan $1 trillion in 2024 for the first time in American history, according to the latest data gathered by the White House Office of Management and budget.

To put that into perspective, that is more than is spent on national defense related spending, currently $814 billion.

‘That’s a Lie’: GOP Senator Presses Janet Yellen on Plan to Pay for Social Security

March 16, 2023 Florida Capital Star Staff

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana accused the Biden administration of lying about its commitment to working with Congress to protect seniors’ social security benefits at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.

Cassidy asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was testifying about President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024, if the president was aware that “when [Social Security] goes broke in nine years” there would be a 24% cut in benefits for current recipients.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Wows Iowans at Packed ‘Book Tour’ Event

March 11, 2023March 10, 2023 M.D. Kittle

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may still be mulling over a run for president, but the Republican looked and sounded every bit a contender for the GOP presidential nomination Friday evening in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.