http://theweek.com/articles/554486/democrats-brilliant-plan-reforming-social-security
Since they won the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans have been pushing a sneaky plan to cut benefits for disabled Americans. The disability side of Social Security (SSDI) is projected to run short of funds in late 2016, and so Republicans have changed the rules to disallow transfers between SSDI and the better known retirement side of the program.
Transfers were common in the past, when legislators shuffled funds one direction or the other depending on which program needed the money. But conservatives are now angling to hold the disability program hostage to get cuts to Social Security in general. If the fund runs out, the SSDI will face immediate cuts in benefits of about a fifth, so Republicans figure Democrats will agree to some "reform" of traditional Social Security (read: cuts) to save the disabled.
Democrats have come up with an excellent counter-proposal: just merge the two accounts into one pot of money. Transfers will therefore be unnecessary, and Social Security as a whole will be fine until 2033. It's a clever political gambit, but also a great plan on the merits — one which could help clear up a lot of ideological fog.
All that accounting gibberish clouds a very simple truth: Despite their complex funding and disbursement structure, both disability insurance and retirement benefits are simple cash handouts. Working people pay in, non-working people take out.
It makes perfect sense to combine the two because both are aimed at categories of people who are systematically failed by market capitalism. Eight out of 10 poor people, for example, are either students, children, elderly, disabled, or involuntarily unemployed, because those are people who have trouble working and the market gives you nothing if you can't work (and aren't already rich).
Therefore, both traditional Social Security and SSDI, despite many wrinkles, are doing fundamentally the same thing: protecting people who fall through the cracks of a market society. Funding them both out of the same pot of money would not just stop Republicans from using this particular break point to create fake funding crises, but would also be a logical consolidation of a system that is too fragmented. (Indeed, we could go further and consolidate our various parental benefits into a universal child allowance under the Social Security Administration.)
bottom line if would prevent republicans from exploiting those in receipt of SS or SSDI and the biggee it would all but put a wet rag on their privatization of social security as a whole that is their wet dream for all times privatize the nation and we know who the owners would be not your Aunt Sally. this is another example of Dems looking out for the people and republicans trying to put you in their jackpot. recognize the truth in facts and remember them Nov. 4th 2016 reasons like this are why republicans beat that dead horse of "BIG GOV'T" and it's inability to function, look back no further than Jan. 2015 and see who is really the dysfunctional faction of this gov't and it ain't Pres.
