>> money for president in the foundation as bankrupt.f bankrupt financially and bankrupt spiritually. i went ceo of an investment bank. going after healthcare in a push for the border. the most important issue in 2024 is making america more affordab for working■d families. the average family right now is financially stressed groceries are more expensive. we opted to not around. there future and children's future. >> c-span's forces 2024, be part of the conve >> was glad to welcome back, a

new report on social security and medicare. re. this is an annual report from the social security and medicare board of trustees. first, remind us who those folks are, what their mission is. guest: trustees. four of them are trustees by virtue of their government offices, ex officio trustees. secretary of treasury who is a managing trustee. sec. of labor, hhs, and the full security commission. normally there are also -- sadly we don't have them now -- but normally two members of the public that serve as puici did that once. the two public trustees tend to be the public face of the trustees report. when there is testimony in congress on the contents of the report, it tends to be delivered by the public trustees. but the annual reports are very

important, important because they basically tell lawmakers and the amounts of the changes that have to be made to social security if we want to continue in its current form. just by way of background, social security is a unique animal among federal programs. pretty much every other federal program, income support program, you don't know what you paid into it, you don't know when you might receive benefits, don't know whathit is all in one big e terms are negotiated every year. osha security is different. when you have a job, you have separate allocations. taxes taken out of your paycheck that go to the social security trust fund. ecurity operates as a separate, self financing system. that is very important because social security is their benefit security derives from that structure.

this goes back to the time of franklin roosevelt. he didn't want a ram battling for funding each year. didn't want a program where it was continually subject to the whims of politicians as to what the benefit rules would be. he wanted something where people could say, we earned these benefits, we paid for these benefits, we funded these pend on them. social security has delivered that. there is a catch. it only workss long as lawmakers are willing to align the programs benefit schedules with it tax schedules. if they are not going to do that, ty are no longer willintoe this kind of self financing system. unfortunately, the program is badly out of balance now,es repg us that a negative changes need to be made. host: the retirement trust fund can pay 100% of benefits until the year 2033, less than 10 years from now.

after 2033, reserves will become depled they n continue to pay u to 77% of benefits, but the disability insurance trust fund could pay 100% of its how concerned should congress and the public be about those projections? guest: very concerned. one point that i often am compelled to make is that even though it may sound somewhat reassuring thathe program is not projected to be insolvent until the early 2030's, we have to be cautious and not rely too much on that date. by the time that date rolls around, it is too late to solve the problem. the better measure, i think, of the challenge lies in what is the size of the changes you have to make to keep the system solvent? as you noted, we have enough revenues in those trust funds,

revenues coming into payroll taxes where we could pay 77% of scheduled benefits. but remember that 77% includes people who are already receiving benefits. ■e not willing to cut benefits to people that have been getting them for several decades. if you ask the question what do we have to do today to make the system solventun? we would have to make changes that are equivalent to reducing benefits across the board by 25%. future benefit claims, 25% across-the-board. that is a huge change. lawmakers will not go onto the floor of congress tomorrow and enact a law cutting everyone's benefits by 25%. anything that we do will be much more gradual, will not be nearly sudden, which means ultimately you have to be bigger than 25%. if you factor in a cost of delay, and say what are the size of the changes that we have to make if we wait until the 2030's, by then the shortfall is

so large,■÷■6 you can generate by cutting up all benefit claims. we would never cut off all benefit claims, but it shows by then it's too late to fix the problem. it's already late in the game. we need to take action soon. we certainly cannot afford to wait another presidential term to get the job done. host: 71 million americans per month receive social security benefits. the average monthly benefit, retired worker, about $1900 a month. disabled workers, $1500 in monthly benefits. we have a special line in this segment for those 71 million americans if they want to chat with you about this program, future of social security. is that number. otherwise, lines for emma kratz republicans, independents as usual. what is the easiest solution here to not have that nearly 25%

cut? is it raising the age of social security? is it new taxes or increased taxes? bullet here? guest: i would say the bad news as well as the good news is you have to do a little bit of everything. that means you have to have bipartisan cooperation. you will have to have republicans and democrats both participating. neither side will get their way. if you are as far left as you can be andhat it all to be tax increases, those increases are incredibly large. if you acted today, you have to ise the ol from 4.6% to the equivalent of 16%. even our furthest left-leaning lawmakersimilarly on the right,u want to do it by cost

restraints, we are past the point where you can fix social security without additional revenues and still maintain the current level of benefits. you will have to do a little bit of eeligibility age also have te a part of the picture. there are three main factors in the equation. one is the tax burden you carry as a worker. what is the annual income you can have in retirement. over which your retirement income is stretched. his, as is happeninglaw, as we , all of that extra life is added to the amount of time that we spend as beneficiaries, none of it at it to the time that we spend as workers. what happens over time is the relationship between worker tax burden and your annual income security gets worse and worse. right now, people are incentivize on not taking it

right when you turn 62. is there a way to increase that incentive to get people to wait even longer? guest: great question. i will try to give a fairly shorbut there are several things i could say. the most common age of claim believe you are not remains 62. that is not going to work. when social security was first created, the generation that fought the spanish-american war, much shorter lifetim than ours. they were not able to collect the full 65. today the common age is 62. the earliest eligibility age is definitely an issue. there are incentives, as you note, the later you claim,it ge. but that adjustment doesn't actually take account for the fact -- basically, that attempt to keep your lifetime benefits equal no matter how long you live which doesn't account for

the fact that if you stay in the workforce, as we hope they taxes, they are continuing to pay payroll taxes without any net change expected in their lifetime benefit. that is not a good deal for them. in my subjective opinion, we would increase both the rewards for the retirement claim as well as the offset for the early retirement claim. some other ideas have been suggested, too. in some systems he delayed credit is offered as a lump sum option. people seem to be more sensitive to the lure of getting a check for $20,000 rather than a slight adjustment to their monthly benefit. host: a viewer brought it up in our open form segment. i promise i would bring it up. he said when there are cost-of-living increases for social does it go to everyone across-the-board? why not just the people who are

receiving the least amount of social security, as these are the people that need it thethe t social security don't need an extra $100 a month. why not find cost savings that way and focus the cola to the people on the lower end? guest: there is certainly sutathinking, which is that the actual cost of living, the cost of your consumption needs is less for you if you are a higher income person. you spend less of your income on consumption. you could create a rationale therefore for saying past apoine cola amount. historically, social security has tried to embrace the virtu r everyone, no special rules for this or that group. it wouldn't be that complex to put an annual cap on the size of the cola, so that you got the full amount if you are a lower income person but not if you are

higher income. host: 30 minutes left, talking about social security, about the future of social security in the waste of this trustees report that came out. charle blahous, currently a senior research strategist at the george mason university mercatus center. ve this topic. mary is from front royal, virginia on that line for social securi recipients. caller: thank you for having me. i am curious about the other security. for instance, when an employer has to pay fica, are able to write that off as an excise tax or something. then they receive social security as well, so it is almost as if they are double dipping.

guest: the taxation of social security contributions is complicated. i will try to make some sense out of it. the caller is■k■dthe employer se contribution is tax-deductible to the employer. it is regarded as an expense of doing business. the employee share, the part taken out of drug wages not -- wages is not tax-deductible. in some ways that is artificial. sts will tell you, in effect, both halves are coming out of your paycheck. certainly comes out of your wages,an give to you. another implication here is the taxation of benefits. right now, depending on your income in retirement, up to 85%

of your social security benefit is subject to this is a reflectn attempt to only tax a portion of your social security benefit that hasn't already been taxed you made the fica contribution. earlier i was talking about social security trying to embrace complicity. -- simplicity. if you really want to person, eh person would have a different percentage rather than 85%. what happened was, when they were trying to figure out how much, they did the number of calculations and included that 85% was a reasonable proxy for the average amount of benefit at been taxed on the way in as contributions, and that is why they are taxed where they are. host: another social security ■recipient. doug is in florida. call the program on c-span

security i actually, we are gog to look to get the rest of the world if weaying all these benefits. diary going down to the instead of going up? >> the common behind both policies and lawmakers on social security primarily in terms of what is financially sound itco continues and it in reality we

will have to do all three. unfortunately what happens is the longer the delay action, the more severe the changes have to. if we have adjustments 20, 30 been built in these benefitse there is continue to delay. >> by did you decide on social security? >> ... about the ibeing an earnf

financing benefit. each individua the benefit is a direct function ofings that are subjeco social security tax. you have an individual tie with what you contribute to the benefit in which you are entitled for that's a big reason why we don't think it is well for ael contributed toward this benefit this is the benefit that's based on the amount i contributed. but the thought was beyond a certain amount higher income people do not need any more benefits. they do not need to make contributions pass that amount that is historical basis foror now. there have bn man proposals. any bipartisan solution social security shortfall would probably involve an increase int the amount of income subject to the tax. click to that increase the amount of income subject to the tax then equate to a more social security benefits for the person whose wages are being taxed? or are they using that money to help fund other parts of the

program there social security monthly stipend stays the same? like this is exactly the right question but not everyone asks this question up reall question. it creates a bit of a choice. we have earned benefit structure your benefits are a function of your contributions. you tax higher income people more one of two things happen either you pay a lot more benefits to higher income people wh need it or you sever that connection. that's crossing eight rubicon and social security once we sever that connection basically we change something very fundamental about social security where knelt some people with other income security program some are paying taxes in the program not getting anything for it and other people are gettingefits they did not actually fund. that dynamic in other programs has led to continual political coalitions read the interests of

beneficiaries which is why those programs are constantly saying that whatly should the eligibily rules be and the work requirements and all these other things. if you sever that in social security you risk creating that type of dynamic. there is a way to geå worlds. you can the same time raising wages you can goat and cut the accrual rate on the higher income end. >> is basically the benefit formula and social security is a progressive formula where the amount of your contributions accrues a benefit it's almost like a set of tax brackets in bracketsexcept in reverse yoe benefit brackets. the numbers get smaller and smaller as you got the income chain. when you have higher income you accrue benefits and much lower rate. what you can do is you raise the wages you cut the top accrual rate on the high income and you do not do sever the contribution

benefit completely but you also do not wind up losing all of the savings to the system from taxing higher income people by paying a bunch of benefits you don't need >> the simplicity argument? novel in unprecedented yes youget away from the simplicity argument. the benefit formula is already there it's already progressive. this would be a matterof changing the numbers to make it more progressive. >> joseph the line for democrats good morning. >> good morning to both of you charles and john. i wil m this quick. my question is, how does immigration issue help the need to increase the trust fund and seconds, is the advanta and plan to ease the demand on the system? >> i did not catch the second part of the question.

perhaps? we are focusing on social security paid. >> i will build the first part the immigration question. historically not historically but now and substantively higher immigration tends social security. immiants take pay taxes before beneficiaries they tend to be younger than the general population. you get a considerable burst of ofher revenue when you have higr immigration. at and the trustees report there is a sensitivity shows look with higher levels of immigration. if lower levels looks better with higher level of immigrations i have to caution nothing changes the projections too much. whether you're talking inflation, immigration, wage growth, fertility the basic contours remain the same regardless be improving things around the edges does improves

client for republicans out of the steel city good morning. >> good morning. have a question and a comment. ma boomer we put a of money into social security politicians could not keep their sticky little hands off of it they kept tealing our money and stealing our money and now they are telling us we have a probably don't know for going to build pay or benefits.. go ahead. >> this is a concern many people ha expressed. there is a legitimacy at the core of the concern which is that for many years social security ran surpluses. i think of most analysts say the effect of the surplus were to fuel additional government consumption. there are not saved and econicalea way.

that's a little different from saying the money is stolen or taken out of social security. because what happened is everything the federal receiveds money they issued a treasury security to the trust fund. the trust fund built up a storehouse of $3 trillion roughly $3 trillion in securities that monies being paid back. is being paid back with interest the program began to cash shortfalls in 2010. social security shortfalls not because politicians stole anything or spent anything or anything like that. the trust fund continues to receive all of that money. >> when social security is s fd. >> another great question. until the 1980s social iasecurity was generally run ona pay-as-you-go basis. it wasn't an formal treasury.

there was great resistance back then to the idea of social security running massiveal surpluses there is resistance on the left andce the right. the right to doubt the government controlling this cmassivenvestment and steering it and controlling how it was invested in the economy. the left did not like it either. they didn't like the governmenth when people could be getting benefits. the two sides reach a compromise to basically operate on pay-as-you-go basis which is not what fdr wanted he wanted a pre-funded advanced funded system is pay as you go for mase surplus until one began to accrual in the 1990s and 2000. so historically there was not really a plan for what to do

when the government ran a massive -- create massive trust fund because they did not intend for there to be one. >> waiting in the pete state social security recipient, good morning. >> good morning. i do not have as much of a questi comment. i was 14 or 15 years old i watch to see spent at that time to i must've bn a dork. ask not at all. [laughter] and at that time this discu%hion on. we are going to run out of social security in 10 years, 20 years, whatever it was it was not in the far future. it was in the near that time i w what social security was in here we are having the same discussion that we are going to run out of it.e maybe i'm being ignorant but i tend not to listen to that too much anymore because it seems like it's been going on for a long time. >> first of all the cool kids

watch c-span i don't think the dorks and the nerds. >> a very auteur at the. [laughter] the caller is voicing something that i think is important. which is something i think that you find an undercurrent of even among lawmakers and policymakers. which is the idea we've been through this before and social security survived it before. they found a way to fix it. unfortunately this complacency o what you asked a moment ago and we had pay-as-you-go system. once in the 70s when things started to turn south there is not a big trust fund to draw

down the trust fund depletion was right around theow corner lawmakers had to deal with it before the annual shortfalls got too they went off, bank they acted it was done even though the programs one a few months away from not set checks to do it. that precedent has led a lot of people and some policy experts on the 2030s not any way similar in start running deficits in 2010 now we are drawing down the trust fund. the gap between annual tax collection and benefit obligations as a growing, and growing, and g growing, and growing. technically trust fund is not run out so 2030s. but by then those lines are so far apart there's no weight lawmakers can close it. >> the impetus for this discussion was public trustees repo■j says that we can pay what & benefits until 2033

that's what came out that sure the surethe edit report. you were a public trustee in 2010. what were the projections you are making 2010 was at 2033? what's your very similar. they bounced eight round a year this way a year that it stayed to focus on the early to mid 2030s. so it is remarkable in this world all over the place. the trustees projections have remained remarkably stable and active. medicare you have a factor of healthcare inflation it's a lot more difficult to predict. things do not necessarily turn out the w t think they're going to but social security most of the factors are known. you know the payroll tax is pretty know the number of you need to make a reasonably accurate projection for it they don't tend to move around that much. now unfortunatelyther thing that does not move around that much is the message of the

trustees. when i was a trustees it was saying the exact same thing which is big shortfall, i coming. deal with t it now don't wait fr the 2030. senior research strategist at george mason university. with us this morning until the end of the program taking our phone calls lives for democrats or republicans and independents. what is your work focus on at the center and what is it for people don't know? >> it is a research institution affiliated with george mason university. we generally do various aspects of a policy. my research and keep it with my work as a trustee on the overarching finances of federal programs. i do a lot off social security. medicare and medicaid and the federal budget as a whole but. >> lerob is up next out of the ceocial security recipient good morning.

>> good morning sir. social security is a very interesting topic. when i was teaching high school business and mouse i talked to my students they were supposedly supposed to be able to get it. a couple of questions but one as we look at $34000 that was adjusted for inflation upbeat $99000. b also another question on wep very few people know about. i went into public i went into had like of social security because i

only have 23 years of substantial earnings instead of 38. why co down to 20 so we don't get penalized for going into education? one of the things president biden said during his presidency that whens the windfall earning for both of us it social security theroblem we have is and they started social security i believe those people who livei to be 18 years old had a life expectancy of 68 years. long. thank you for your time. >> i bring up a lot of topics the first thing to bring up ida mae fuller the famous picture from the saint augusta record. a famous picture of receiving the first social security check. should've been taken as a second questions of the windfall of the nation provision a noun and nowforgetting what the pers. >> we can start the other several questions pick up on the ones you want. >> this is an interesting one

it's very frustrating for people who do move in and out versus social security. the reason it exists is because of a quirk. the way it social security benefits are structured or in some ways a reflectionf tha■2t benefit formula was drawn up on time ago. basically your benefits are based on your lifetime average there is a progressive benefit formula that attempts to give you a better rate of return if you are on the income and. now a consequence of that the system cannot differentiate between a person who earns a lot of money in a few years of earnings versus a person who earned a little bit of money and a lot o average.

what happens is the system is unintentionally the windfallir career it thanks the really low income people they cannot see the income they earned this is why the windfall exists is veryy frustrating■& we just e something like that. pate windfall returns for people not supposed to be receiving it. that said i think there's a better day way to do it. if you havifferent type of social security benefit h formua one re- accrued benefit with each year of annual earnings you wouldn't have the problemrn we do need something like that in the current system. we cannot just repeal it and not have problems up we have a better type of benefit form that we would not need it.

>> they do come they do. did fdr ever receive it? >> federal employees were not in social security until the reforms of 1983. they were inretirement system. one of the reforms made in 1983 was to bring federal employees inin get the surge of payroll. they were phased out and put in the new federal employee retirement to quickly think we should know about ida mae fuller in her story? >> the significance of that it goes back to what we were earli. the original vision for social security would be a big fun d started paying significant benefit checks to people. but ida mae fuller and others are part of a generation who basically got benefits they personally did not pay for they

did not spend their whole paying social security tax. this is at the root of our current social security shortfall today remember it this is an income transit program can have income out of nothing. for every person comes out ahead someone comes■d. ida mae fuller comes out far ahead which means subsequent to have more to get this imbalance for. >> one or two more phone calls today. >> good morning, thank you. my questn is i was wondering why there is such a reluctance to make social security payroll tax more equitable and now 150,000 pay 6% of their income if you are making 300,000 you're effectively paying 3% of your ae decreases the more you make.

why not list that cap so everybody pay 6% of the which would help on the funding and?t: >> this reluctance to do everything with social securit f reluctance towards that particular mechanism is less. it tends to serve better than most options. and my guests as previously mentioned is any bipartisan solution is probably going to have an increase in thatbiab ca. but we have to be careful. it just not salt that much of the problem. one other things as an analyst who tracks the conversationsonlw have exaggerated its. you cld rai the cap lot probably 10 or 15% the shortfall you still elected or the benefit side the eligibility age site even if you completely eliminate the cap ex post every earnings

of america you eliminate 38% of the permanent annual shortfall you sellhe vast majority of work to do. so yes we can do that. my guess is a solution in a bipartisan solution we would probably do some of that. but only get you a small fraction ofts the way to fixing thee problem. >> last call and elects any tennessee thanks for waiting. >> my problem is my commercials on tv makes all people look like beggars. i'm on traditional mic i paid $560 a month last year for social security #with the took out of my social security check at a hospitalization and a prescription plan i've heard people say you're in this for free to take a deep medicaree. they won't let people switch to that come back to the traditional medicare and their purpose but everybody on the pl.

if you have any thoughts on it or efforts to prey on elderly americans what it comes to these type of benefits they receive. >> it is tough. this is an entirely new conversation. i am struck bynsg in our societh else.aceuticals ave clearly there's a lot of money to made it somewhere. some advertising budgets are pretty old lavish to judge for my own television sets. getting back to one of the things the caller was saying,int having paid for medicare relates to what i was seeing at the bin of my remarks. the argument the beneficiaries

have they paid for, earned, funded is a veryne and it shields people from arbitrary reduction of the benefits you see a lot of other programs. we depart from that. in social security we can say and break firm and clear sense to this point the resources and inthe trust fund in some way represent what workers paid for their benefit. medicare is a little in the middle there is a part of medicare funded by payroll taxes also part of medicare 75% paid out of income tax revenues so■0 medicare is amalgam of subsidies beneficiary payroll tax contributions. but still with i medicare one of the things that shields from arbitrary cuts especially the hospital insurancep( side is a fact they paid for that with the payroll tax for. >> and enlighteninga

conversation. george mason university there iu want to check out his work thanks so much. >> tnk for having me. >> eo social mia companies will testify wednesday on child sexual exploitation. witnesses include meadows mark zuckerberg tik x. unk the heads of discord a snap. watch the senateudiary hearing life starting at 10:00 a.m. easternn c-span three also see spend our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. ♪ discover the heartbeat of democracy i think what issue is most important to you in the selection of why? >> this upcoming election my most important issue is human rights. i'm pro-choice i believe all women in this country should have the right of atonement over their body.

i believe that my family, sons and do what they want with their bodies and i am pro- gay and trans rights everyone should have the right to exist as a free citizen in america. >> i teach at elon university in north carolina. i was a father of a 9-year-old for made the biggest issue righd only graduate from high school but have the opportunity to go to college to grownd to see the opportunity they have in their future. we able to fund not just secondary, postsecondary and even graduate schooling. >> my biggest issue is getting out of politics make a more democratic society that general inflections on the current day politics it's pretty obvious it's beholding to the people as it should be. i don't know if it has ever been

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subcommittee is about an hour and a half. [background noises] [background noises] >> >> hello evebo a crowd almost pc room only. as a whole bunch of people waiting outside for i'm not sure if it was because of the rumors that broke out on twitter you would i were going to have a cage match. [laughter] in all seriousness i cannot say how excited man being next t