The Social Security & Medicare programs' liabilities are tens of trillions of dollars.  Each year the trustees of these programs issue reports which present the current and projected financial status of the programs.  Included in these reports are calculations done by professional actuaries that calculate the Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities.  For the last five years the trustees' reports have been used between April 5 and May 19.  Now we are into July and there is no sign of these reports.

Corporations must report to the IRS amount their tax liabilities are by March 15.  You must report your tax liability by April 15.  Why doesn't the government need to tell us our Social Security and Medicare liabilities until more than seven months after the year end?

The most recent actuarial reports, which are included in the trustees' reports, are for January 1, 2009.  Many financial decisions have been made by the president and Congress since that date, including a trillion dollar health care bill.  I would think that knowing the amount of our Social Security and Medicare liabilities would be critical before these decisions were made.  How can they know what we can afford to spend on the war, current government services, health care and any other government programs, if they don't know how much these liabilities are? 

The reason I have heard for these reports being issued late is that the trustees wanted to include the effect the health care bill had on these liabilities.  The health care bill was signed on March 23.  Four months after this huge bill was signed we still do not know the effect is will have on our country's finances.  I would think that little bit of information would be important in the decisions the president and Congress are currently making.  Won't that be an important piece of information they should have known BEFORE the health care bill was passed and signed into law?

Sheila Weinberg, founder & CEO, Institute for Truth in Accounting