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> the social security trust fund is empty. The social security trust fund contains something like $2.4 trillion. Current projections are that if nothing change

by gjm11 16y ago

> the social security trust fund is empty. The social security trust fund contains something like $2.4 trillion. Current projections are that if nothing changes then it will continue growing until 2025 and not be empty until 2042. See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund . All that stuff you've been told about how Social Security was bankrupt, and "reform" was urgently needed, and so on? None of it was true. I shall refrain from speculating here about the motives of the politicians and pundits who said it.

mistermann 16y ago
$2.4 trillion what? Government debt. T-bills. This is not wealth, but obligations to be paid by future generations of workers. Heck, they could have $25 TRILLION in the SS trust fund, and it would be the exact same thing, the number is meaningless.
dantheman 16y ago
There is no trust fund. The government spends all the extra money social security collects. Yes, they do put in special IOU treasury bonds that have no value and cannot be sold. All of the money for the "trust fund" comes out of regular taxes. So let's say they have to dip into the trust fund for 100 million dollars, that means that the regular budget will have have to increase by either 100 million, or 100 million in services will need to be cut. This is not sustainable and with the government hemorrhaging money left and right I don't see how that 2.4 trillion will ever be repaid. Unless the dollar loses most of its value through massive inflation, which would be very very bad.
- gjm11 16y ago
  > There is no trust fund. That's a different claim, of course, and a totally unfalsifiable one. (Suppose the Social Security trust fund did in fact take the form of a big vault stuffed with dollar bills, or something of the kind. It would still be true that the government could spend them on other stuff if it wanted to. You could equally say that "there is no trust fund".) > So let's say they have to dip into the trust fund for 100 million dollars, that means that either the regular budget will have to increase by 100 million, or 100 million in services will need to be cut. The trust fund contains $2.4T (or whatever the exact figure is) in Treasury bonds. That money is already accounted for as money owed by the government. It's part of the national debt. The fact that there's a big national debt may well be a problem, but it's not a problem specific to Social Security. It's a problem with all the other things that the government has spent money on, effectively raising the money by selling (kinda) T-bills to the social security fund.

by gjm11 16y ago

mistermann 16y ago

$2.4 trillion what? Government debt. T-bills. This is not wealth, but obligations to be paid by future generations of workers. Heck, they could have $25 TRILLION in the SS trust fund, and it would be the exact same thing, the number is meaningless.

dantheman 16y ago

There is no trust fund. The government spends all the extra money social security collects. Yes, they do put in special IOU treasury bonds that have no value and cannot be sold. All of the money for the "trust fund" comes out of regular taxes. So let's say they have to dip into the trust fund for 100 million dollars, that means that the regular budget will have have to increase by either 100 million, or 100 million in services will need to be cut. This is not sustainable and with the government hemorrhaging money left and right I don't see how that 2.4 trillion will ever be repaid. Unless the dollar loses most of its value through massive inflation, which would be very very bad.

gjm11 16y ago
> There is no trust fund. That's a different claim, of course, and a totally unfalsifiable one. (Suppose the Social Security trust fund did in fact take the form of a big vault stuffed with dollar bills, or something of the kind. It would still be true that the government could spend them on other stuff if it wanted to. You could equally say that "there is no trust fund".) > So let's say they have to dip into the trust fund for 100 million dollars, that means that either the regular budget will have to increase by 100 million, or 100 million in services will need to be cut. The trust fund contains $2.4T (or whatever the exact figure is) in Treasury bonds. That money is already accounted for as money owed by the government. It's part of the national debt. The fact that there's a big national debt may well be a problem, but it's not a problem specific to Social Security. It's a problem with all the other things that the government has spent money on, effectively raising the money by selling (kinda) T-bills to the social security fund.