Data acquired illegally, such as Social Security information, date of birth or street address, could be used to clear the IRS’ “multi-step authentication process,” rendering most of those safety precautions useless. With this data, the IRS said, criminals were able to file fraudulent tax refunds.

According to the statement:

“The matter is under review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration as well as the IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit, and the ‘Get Transcript’ application has been shut down temporarily.

In addition to disabling the “Get Transcript” application, the IRS has taken the below steps:

• “Sending a letter to all of the approximately 200,000 taxpayers whose accounts had attempted unauthorized accesses, notifying them that third parties appear to have had access to taxpayer Social Security numbers and additional personal financial information from a non-IRS source before attempting to access the IRS transcript application. Although half of this group did not actually have their transcript account accessed because the third parties failed the authentication tests, the IRS is still taking an additional protective step to alert taxpayers. That’s because malicious actors acquired sensitive financial information from a source outside the IRS about these households that led to the attempts to access the transcript application.
• “Offering free credit monitoring for the approximately 100,000 taxpayers whose Get Transcript accounts were accessed to ensure this information isn’t being used through other financial avenues. Taxpayers will receive specific instructions so they can sign up for the credit monitoring. The IRS emphasizes these outreach letters will not request any personal identification information from taxpayers. In addition, the IRS is marking the underlying taxpayer accounts on our core processing system to flag for potential identity theft to protect taxpayers going forward — both right now and in 2016.”

U.S. Census numbers

So if you’re a full-time worker in the private sector, such as yours truly, you’re supporting 1.7 people getting some sort of government check, whether government workers, welfare recipients, private contractors to governments, etc.

No wonder taxes are so high.

As CNSNews noted:

“As more baby boomers retire, and as Obamacare comes fully online — with its expanded Medicaid rolls and federally subsidized health insurance for anyone earning less than 400 percent of the poverty level — the number of takers will inevitably expand. And the number of full-time private-sector workers might also contract.

“Eventually, there will be too few carrying too many, and America will break.”

And let’s throw in a number I’ve noted before: the $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government, mainly for Social Security and Medicare, as calculated by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff.

Looks like we’re near the “tipping point,” to use a phrase popular today — or the point where the straw breaks the camel’s back, as people used to say.

Consider that number again: 1 private-sector worker supporting 1.7 people receiving a government check. It can’t possibly last.

This is patently false, and spreading this falsehood has dangerous consequences.

Not only are the financial adjustments necessary to fix Social Security far easier to implement than what it’s going to take to rescue public sector pensions, but the sheer size of the public sector pension liability is actually bigger than the total liability for the entire Social Security fund. It is imperative that American voters understand this fact.

In the United States today, about 20 percent of workers are employed by the government (or public utilities that offer benefits on par with government). For recent retirees, their average pension after a 30 year career is more than $60,000 per year, and their average retirement age is 58. Because they retire 10 years before full Social Security benefits are eligible to private citizens at age 68, retired public employees actually comprise nearly 30 percent of the retired population.

The average Social Security benefit is less than $20,000 per year. Critically, the ratio of workers to retirees in the Social Security system is more than 3-to-1, set to move downwards marginally within the next 20 years, whereas the ratio of workers to retirees participating in government worker pension plans is already less than 2-to-1 and is on track to move to roughly 1.5-to-1 within the next 20 years. Here’s how that math stacks up:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2030, when Social Security will be supposedly approaching insolvency, there will be 99.4 million citizens over 58 years old, and 59.5 million citizens over 68 years old. This means that by 2030 (assuming no public employees also participate in Social Security — which many of them do), there will be 19.9 million government retirees collecting pensions that average $60,000 per year, and there will be 47.6 million private sector retirees collecting Social Security benefits that average $20,000 per year.

Got that? The total pension payouts to government retirees, who were only 20 precent of the workforce, will be $1.2 trillion, whereas the total Social Security payouts to private sector retirees will be $952 billion, only 80 percent as much.

Solvency

Now let’s talk about solvency, something that trained economists like Jeffrey Dorfman ought to understand thoroughly. Assuming government’s share of the workforce remains at around 20 percent, in 2030 we will have 247 million citizens over the age of 25. On a pay-as-you-go basis, to pay $1.2 trillion annually to 19.9 million government pensioners, 29.6 million active government workers would each require $40,343 per year withheld from their paychecks; to pay $952 billion annually to 47.6 million retired Social Security recipients, 150 million private sector workers would require $6,337 per year withheld from their paychecks — one sixth as much.

You can tweak the numbers all you like. Use medians instead of averages. Assume the public sector worker actually keeps working, on average, to age 60. Take into account disability payments, which are drawn from the Social Security fund. Assume people collect Social Security benefits before age 68. The stark fact remains: Our government pays more money to its own retirees — who represent 20 percent of the active workforce — than it pays in Social Security retirement benefits to everybody else put together. Financing Social Security, forever, can be accomplished with relatively minor incremental adjustments to withholding and benefits.

It is in this context that two special interest groups, public sector unions, and public/private investment fund managers, would have you believe Social Security is the bigger problem. Government labor unions want our attention drawn away from the cataclysmic disaster facing public sector pensions for as long as possible. They want voters to perceive the problem of retirement security to be one that requires shared sacrifice, when nothing of the sort reflects reality. Pension fund managers are getting filthy rich investing public sector pension fund money, and would love to get their hands on the nearly equivalent funds that currently flow into Social Security.

Dorfman’s final insult is to suggest 401(k) funds provide a more secure retirement than defined benefits. Sure, if you are a fund manager collecting commissions on individual 401(k) accounts, regardless of their volatility.

Benefits

The reality is that defined benefits are always preferable to 401(k) accounts because they greatly reduce market risk and they virtually eliminate mortality risk — i.e., in a pooled fund you don’t have to hope you die before your money runs out. The problem with public sector pensions is simple: (1) They rely too much on asset appreciation, something that is going to be increasingly problematic in our debt-saturated, deficit-ridden, aging society; and (2) they are way, way out of line with what ordinary citizens can ever hope to expect from Social Security.

Fixing public sector pensions is furthered by borrowing some concepts from Social Security, which might be characterized as an “adjustable defined benefit.” Here is the solution:

(1) Base pension benefits on career earnings, not final years of earnings.
(2) Stop using the taxpayers’ money to manipulate global investment markets and just put all the funds into Treasury Bills; better yet, put pensions onto a pay-as-you go financial footing where current workers pay for retiree benefits.
(3) Calibrate benefits so highly compensated participants get a lower pension as a percent of their career earnings than participants with low or average career compensation.
(4) Put a ceiling on annual pension benefits of twice the maximum annual social security benefit.
(5) Whenever necessary, lower pension benefits for all retirees on a pro-rata basis (subject to a floor equivalent to 75 percent of the average Social Security benefit) to the extent the system is underfunded, in order to restore full funding.
(6) Raise the age at which participants become eligible for pension benefits to a minimum of age 60.

Public sector unions and private investment fund managers are allies in what is probably the most egregious fleecing of taxpayers in American history.

*   *   *

Ed Ring is the executive director of the California Public Policy Center and the editor of UnionWatch.org.

By John Seiler

This is from Major General Jerry Curry, a retired U.S. Army officer:

“The Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S.  No one has yet said what the purpose of these purchases is, though we are led to believe that they will be used only in an emergency to counteract and control civil unrest. Those against whom the hollow point bullets are to be used — those causing the civil unrest — must be American citizens; since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens.”

The last time I was in a Social Security office was in 2009, when I needed a new Soc. Sec. card. I went to their office in Fountain Valley. A donut-loving guard stood by the doorway, packing a semi-automatic pistol. The Soc. Sec. clerks sat behind bullet-proof windows. The “customers” were a typical group of beaten-down, dismayed, government-harassed modern Americans. That was in the depth of the Great Recession.

The previous time was in Prescott, Ariz., after my father died in 2008. I filed a death certificate to halt his Soc. Sec. payments. There was a guard there, too, thinner but also bearing a gun. The Soc. Sec. clerks there also sat behind bullet-proof windows.

What are they afraid of? Grannies caning each other?

Now, the guards will have hollow-point bullets. According to Gen. Curry:

“What would be the target of these 174,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? It can’t simply be to control demonstrators or rioters. Hollow point bullets are so lethal that the Geneva Convention does not allow their use on the battle field in time of war. Hollow point bullets don’t just stop or hurt people, they penetrate the body, spread out, fragment and cause maximum damage to the body’s organs. Death often follows.”

He adds:

“In March DHS [Department of Homeland Security] ordered 750 million rounds of hollow point ammunition. It then turned around and ordered an additional 750 million rounds of miscellaneous bullets including some that are capable of penetrating walls. This is enough ammunition to empty five rounds into the body of every living American citizen. Is this something we and the Congress should be concerned about? What’s the plan that requires so many dead Americans, even during times of civil unrest? Has Congress and the Administration vetted the plan in public.”

I think this is the reaction of a fearful predator. Politicians always say they “serve” us, and will implement “hope” and “change” that will better our lives.

But the government really is a parasite. And it’s stocking up on ammo to make sure the host doesn’t get away.