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One shouldn't include Social Security in government expenditures because it's a pension system that is funded largely by the recipients. It's also not in troub

One shouldn't include Social Security in government expenditures because it's a pension system that is funded largely by the recipients. It's also not in trouble. Medicare and Medicaid have problems but not Social Security. Social Security is a government run pension system so it is included in budget numbers. It is for the reasons I've stated that Social Security is not part of the discretionary budget. The discretionary budget is dwarfed by defense related spending. And this is just the 'on the books' spending in defense related activities. When one factors in the supplemental spending on defense activities then the share of defense spending is even greater. Highways, national defense, and education are a large majority of the discretionary budget. Edit: I'm only talking about federal spending as that is what the topic of discussion appears to be.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
SS is a redistribution scheme which funnels money from the young to the old. It's also not funded by the recipients - the recipients voted to borrow money from it, spend that money, and now expect other people to pay back their debts. It's a transfer no matter how you slice it. All pyramid schemes are about redistribution - they have no other purpose. Same thing for medicare, medicaid, welfare, and even big portions of defense and education. See the numbers I linked to - most government spending is redistribution, not public goods.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  Social Security is a pension system very much like any other pension system. It is currently actuarially sound. Like all pension system it assumes a certain percentage growth per year and part of the pension payout a person receives will come from such growth. It is not a redistribution scheme. It's a pension system. It is well funded in an actuary sense. It is not properly a government expenditure and therefore is not counted in the discretionary fund. You may count it as a government expenditure and count payouts from this pension system as a government expenditure but this is contrary to how this is normally considered.
  - hnal943 16y ago
    Virtually every private pension system in the United States has been stopped for the reason that they are not actuarially sound. The reason for this is that population is not growing steadily as the model predicts. The baby boom was an anomaly that will wreck the system. The major reason that US car companies struggled so much over the last decade is that they are saddled with pensions that foreign car manufacturers are not (e.g. Toyota). They sold as many cars, but their profit per car was less because of pension obligations to workers no longer producing for the company.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

SS is a redistribution scheme which funnels money from the young to the old. It's also not funded by the recipients - the recipients voted to borrow money from it, spend that money, and now expect other people to pay back their debts. It's a transfer no matter how you slice it. All pyramid schemes are about redistribution - they have no other purpose. Same thing for medicare, medicaid, welfare, and even big portions of defense and education. See the numbers I linked to - most government spending is redistribution, not public goods.

yequalsx 16y ago
Social Security is a pension system very much like any other pension system. It is currently actuarially sound. Like all pension system it assumes a certain percentage growth per year and part of the pension payout a person receives will come from such growth. It is not a redistribution scheme. It's a pension system. It is well funded in an actuary sense. It is not properly a government expenditure and therefore is not counted in the discretionary fund. You may count it as a government expenditure and count payouts from this pension system as a government expenditure but this is contrary to how this is normally considered.
- hnal943 16y ago
  Virtually every private pension system in the United States has been stopped for the reason that they are not actuarially sound. The reason for this is that population is not growing steadily as the model predicts. The baby boom was an anomaly that will wreck the system. The major reason that US car companies struggled so much over the last decade is that they are saddled with pensions that foreign car manufacturers are not (e.g. Toyota). They sold as many cars, but their profit per car was less because of pension obligations to workers no longer producing for the company.