Social Security Major Changes from Congress

[00:00:00]House Speaker Mike Johnson just said some scary words for retirees, people on Social Security or sometime soon about Social Security. I'm going to give you the details of that in this video. As well as a new bipartisan group, Republicans and Democrats just enacted a new measure about Social Security. And I'm going to give you the details of all that in this video. So, let's jump right in as we are live here on the It Jimmy Show on YouTube. Let me know if you can see and hear me in the comments section.

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[00:00:38]All right, take a look here. What the speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, just said about social security should have retirees paying attention. Social Security is now sparking a huge debate among lawmakers for a good reason. This comes here as social security uh the retirement fund has a projected depletion date in 2032 which remember we're only a few months away from 2027 which would mean five and a half years or so until the social security runs out of money. This would trigger an automatic 22% reduction in monthly benefits. So, if you're already on Social Security, imagine a 22% cut to your Social Security check or if you will be soon here, imagine all that money you paid in throughout the years and now they're just going to cut it by 22% because Social Security is running out of money and lawmakers continue to do nothing every year. Well, that could be changing. An estimated 24.6 million older Americans or 44% of the country's retirement age population depend on Social Security for 100% of their income.

[00:02:05]Imagine a significant cut to that.

[00:02:08]Recently, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson stirred up a big debate over how to address Social Security's financial shortcomings.

[00:02:16]On a recent show, Mike Johnson said, "Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all three, quote, have to be adjusted and fixed." It's an exact quote from him. They have to be adjusted and fixed.

[00:02:33]He also said that given the country's 40 trillion plus in debt, at some point, this is a quote, you get into a hole so deep you can't climb out of it. So, desperate times call for desperate measures. The latest report from Social Security trustees had worse news than before. In the report, the trustees moved up the depletion date of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund to 2032, a quarter earlier than what they projected last year. This would mean benefits could face a broad 22% cut in just less than 6 years. Mike Johnson was not afraid to mince words on social security. Following his comments, Republican Senator Josh Holly pushed back directly, saying that what Johnson mentioned quote reform, it was code word for cut. Holly continued, "That sounds like wealthy people who want to have all of their tax breaks and loopholes and their carried interest deductions and so forth, but they want working people who paid into all those programs for years to take less." Mike Johnson then switched his tune and said, "When Republicans talk about fixing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, we're not talking about reducing a single benefit. We're talking about eliminating hundreds of billions in fraud and in inefficiencies that are draining the programs and threatening their sustainability." However, I think most people know from Doge that achieving that goal is probably very unlikely.

[00:04:06]remember Doge set out to reduce $2 trillion in waste and did like 1% of that or something. So, uh, yeah.

[00:04:16]However, the Trump administration did just pause $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota.

[00:04:26]Now, a billion dollars is a lot for people on Medicaid in California or Minnesota. But in the big scheme of things, a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there actually won't save Social Security. It needs a much bigger help or change from somewhere.

[00:04:41]But the Trump administration announced they're pausing $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over quote suspected fraud and non-compliance. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, "If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate." Dr. Oz said, quote, "If it smells like fraud, we're not paying for it anymore." They cited an anomalies and outlier billing patterns, but offered no proof of the fraud. Now, a new bipartisan group of senators have proposed social security reform process ahead of the funding shortfall called the protecting retirement opportunities and maintaining income security for everyone act or known as the promise act. This new bill establishes a procedural process designed to require congressional votes on long-term social security solveny plan before the retirement's trust fund uh depletes, which would trigger an automatic 22% reduction in monthly benefits. The legislation calls for an independent bipartisan advisory committee to develop recommendations intended to restore the program solveny for at least 50 years.

[00:06:03]Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durban said, "Here is our chance to agree on a bipartisan process to rescue Social Security this year. The top potential plans right now are one to raise taxes on the wealthy via cutting the income cap for social security. Right now if you make certain amount of money social security you stop paying into it but then you also stop getting benefits. You only get benefits for the money you paid into it. The theory on this would be that high income earners would keep paying into social security but not get any money back or any return on that money back. So it' be like you went to the store, you invested or you went to the bank and you invested into a a CD or money market and you know you put a hund $1,000 in there and you want to get your $1,000 back plus some interest. That's what social security kind of is. Okay.

[00:07:01]But with this, it would basically be the bank saying that if you invest, you know, $5,000, you can get your money back and interest on that. But then they force you, if you make a lot of money, to invest more than that, and they're just going to steal that money. They're not going to give you the money back or any investment return.

[00:07:22]So you can see is how some people think it's unfair, but a lot of low-inccome earners are like, you know, just tax the wealthy and we'll try to solve the problem. There is another solution uh that's going around as well which I actually think is a pretty good solution is that they would you know lend social security a trillion dollars or two and this money would be invested into the stock market via probably a stock market index and would sit there for a bunch of years you know 10 years 20 years 30 years something like that okay at that point all the growth all the returns from the money, Social Security would keep and then they would pay back the treasury the initial amount and social security would have all this money from the growth of the money cuz at 10% a year the stock market will double your money about every seven years. Okay? So that money could literally produce trillions and trillions of dollars. Okay? Now remember this is all kind of fictitious money because the US is literally just printing money on a daily basis. So that for them to just print an extra trillion or two, give it to social security and say, "Yeah, we're going to give it back in the future." They literally can just do that. Okay. Um other things are they could actually increase social security taxes for everybody, increase them by a little bit to have more money coming in or raise the retirement age yet again.

[00:08:56]You know, a lot of people don't really like any of these solutions because one way or another, it's going to cost somebody somewhere or a lot of people because social security is just running out of money and uh it's not pretty. You guys know how I'm always breaking down cost of living and where your money goes, gas, rent, mortgage, and all of it. Here's one thing people almost never check their Medicare plan. And I heard from someone in my audience, I'll call her Nancy, who had been on the same Medicare Advantage plan for years and never thought to look at what could be different. Turns out she was leaving money on the table the whole time. With one call to chapter, she was shown a plan she had never seen before and got approved overnight and ended up saving her $2800 per year. That's right. same coverage, way less coming out of her pocket.

[00:09:55]Significant amount of money. She liked it so much she told two of her friends right after she hung up. That's why I keep telling you about Chapter, the only Medicare advisor that compares all the plans nationwide. And they're completely independent. They're not paid to push you towards one plan or another. If you're already on the best plan, they'll just tell you. In fact, folks who have switched with Chapter have saved on average $1,100 a year. So, call the phone number on the screen, 8337001320.

[00:10:28]It's free under 20 minutes and it makes you money instead of costing any. Or you can click the pin comment down below in the description or in the comment section of this video. So, let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

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[00:10:48]Click here to see why social security and bank accounts are being closed in mass. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video.