I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to tackle these challenges. As we do, we must remember our sacred commitments to preserve Social Security and Medicare to the seniors who served and built our country..This year, for the first time since the early 80's, the Social Security Trust Fund that pays retirement and survivors benefits fell into deficit and is paying out more than it receives in payroll taxes and taxes on Social Security benefits. In years in which there was an excess of Social Security taxes, the federal government used the surplus revenues for other purposes and then credited the Trust Fund with special non-marketable government bonds representing IOUs. But with the recession and prolonged economic recovery, the taxes that fund Social Security plunged. At the same time, enrollment is soaring as seniors who have lost their jobs turn to Social Security early. When the Trust Funds don't receive enough tax revenues, then the government must find the cash to redeem the IOUs to pay benefits. The only options Congress has is unsustainable levels of borrowing, tax increases, or cutting benefits..We are pleased and grateful that Rep. Grace Meng has once again introduced legislation, H.R. 3839, to remedy this situation. It would allow workers who reach age 65 after 1981 and before 1992 to choose either lump sum payments over four years totaling ,000 or an improved benefit computation formula under a new 10-year rule governing the transition to the changes in benefit computation rules enacted in the Social Security Amendments of 1977..Under current Social Security law, that's all that's required to later claim benefits. To file for benefits, individuals don't need to be citizens, but must have a workauthorized Social Security number. Those receiving work authorization would become vested for benefits with as little as ten years of earnings. The oldest of those who are eligible for the deferred action could feasibly have worked illegally long enough to already be "vested" for Social Security — including disability. This would add to program solvency problems since the Congressional Budget Office and Social Security Trustees have estimated that the Social Security disability trust fund will be fully insolvent by 2016..For more information about your retirement age, and to use retirement calculator tools visit..Who will pay for President Trump's border wall with Mexico? It's looking increasingly unlikely that it will be Mexico, and that the money may instead come out of the Social Security benefits of older Americans. The President's very first budget for fiscal year 2018 contains a request to build a border wall with Mexico..Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle at Wednesday's hearing expressed their strong interest in addressing the growing DI backlog. In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson said: "Today, over one million people are waiting for a hearing with a Social Security Administrative Law Judge, and on average these folks will wait around 600 days to get that hearing. That's nearly two years!" He continued, saying: "While not all of them will qualify for DI benefits, all of these people deserve an answer in a timely fashion. And for those who don't qualify for benefits, these long wait times make getting back to work even harder.".The system, however, isn't estimated to be able to pay scheduled benefits in full for that long. The Social Security Trustees estimate that the Trust Funds will become fully insolvent by the end of 203When Trustees use the term insolvent that means the point at which all the extra revenues that were borrowed, now totaling more than .6 trillion, have run out, and there are no more IOUs held by the Trust Fund. Some people believe that, when the Trust Funds are exhausted, Social Security will be completely unable to pay benefits. But that's not the case..It was always expected that few if any Republicans in the House of Representatives would support legislation to lower drug prices. But it turns out that a group of moderate Democrats has now said they do not support the sweeping legislation that Democratic leaders in the House have proposed.
