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Originally Posted by KMA-628
In short, there isn't any money there. Right now SS is paying for itself in that it brings in more than it puts out. Where does the extra money go? It gets spent. Not just by Bush, but by everybody in Washington going back many, many years.
The guesstimates are that outlays will exceed revenues for Social Security somewhere around 2015/2016.
Then what happens? There isn't any money in the trust fund.
That leaves us with three options:
1) Pay back the IOU's in the trust fund (where is the money going to come from)
2) Increase the tax rate for SS (which would also include raising the cap)
3) Decrease benefits
and a possible fourth: all of the above (depending on who you talk to).
What about all of the "experts" saying there isn't a crisis and that SS is solvent until 2042 or 2055?
They are counting in the ghost balances of the trust fund. The trust fund has a balance, just like any other ledger, but there isn't anything there. The zero balance is offset by the IOU's. Plus, as I understand it, the design of the trust fund isn't such that it would ever hold a balance.
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I have a question for you.
Are "social security taxes" general revenue, or not?
A> If social security taxes are general revenue, then social security costs are also general revenue. In which case, 2015/2016 is not a special year at all. One random general revenue tax fell below the cost of one general revenue program.
B> If social security taxes are not general revenue, then the US government owes social security billions of dollars. In which case, in 2015/2016, social security can start calling in those IOUs.
So which is it? From what I can tell, the above arguement wants the revenue to be general revenue when it is in surplus, and the sole source of funding SS when it isn't.
It's a cake. You can eat it, or you can have it. You really can't do both. Please select one, or show why I'm on crack, and the cake has a dual nature.