Sitting in a restaurant today I realized how much trouble we are in for

[Cleita]

25. Because you phrase those memes exactly like they do. It makes me think that this is where

you are getting your information.

Here is what the SS link you provided also has to say:

Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010 for the first time since 1983. The $49 billion deficit last year (excluding interest income) and $46 billion projected deficit in 2011 are in large part due to the weakened economy and to downward income adjustments that correct for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink to about $20 billion for years 2012-2014 as the economy strengthens. After 2014, cash deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Through 2022, the annual cash deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets from the General Fund of the Treasury. Because these redemptions will be less than interest earnings, trust fund balances will continue to grow. After 2022, trust fund assets will be redeemed in amounts that exceed interest earnings until trust fund reserves are exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than was projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085.

The payroll tax holiday has something to do with this because the funding needed is chopped off. There is a remedy for this. Raise the cap on those with higher salaries. Also this is what one of the trustees Charles Blahous has to say the effect of the PR tax holiday, which seems to be the problem:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/143241709/how-payroll-tax-cut-affects-social-securitys-future

Charles Blahous, whom Obama appointed last year to be one of the six trustees of Social Security and Medicare, thinks it's a far greater danger than most people anticipate. He too says the payroll tax break might be harming Social Security's long-term solvency.

"I mean, I'm a Republican and I'm a conservative, and if you were to ask me at a first approximation, do I want lower taxes or higher taxes, then obviously I want lower taxes," Blahous says. "The problem here is that I'm also a public Social Security trustee, and so I'm honor-bound to identify when this causes a change or a difficulty for the Social Security program, which it does."

That's because Social Security has long been considered self-financing and thus politically immune from budget cuts. But that could change, Blahous says, now that employees are no longer paying their full share into Social Security because of the payroll tax holiday.

"This could be the beginning of the end of the idea that this is an earned benefit, [and] where benefits enjoy a certain amount of political protection because of a notion that they have been paid for in the past by the beneficiaries," he says.

There's anxiety among Democrats as well about the prospect of prolonging the payroll tax cut. Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, a Washington-based advocacy group, says she's been alarmed to see a Democratic administration dipping into Social Security's revenue stream to stimulate the economy.

"Democrats were the ones that created Social Security and the ones that were the strongest champions over its 76 years," Altman says. "So to have a Democratic president proposing to undo the dedicated revenue ... it's a fundamental change that supporters of the program, I think, should oppose."

Altman worries the payroll tax cut has become so popular it will be hard to end it, and that's one reason why she opposed it in the first place.

"Many of us at the time said that it's no way this is just going to last one year. And sure enough, we're back now talking about expanding it," she says.

Some lawmakers do say the tax break is worrisome, including Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

"I think one more year should be about the limit," Whitehouse says, "because of the nature of Social Security."

A program that, until now, has always paid its way

So you can see if the tinkering with the program is stopped and the cap raised, it will be fine. I'm confident that we will take back Congress in November and get rid of all the right wing Tea Party crap that is undermining our system and our safety nets.