From the York, Nebraska News-Times:
Q: How much has Social Security paid out since it started?
A: From 1937 (when the first payments were made) through 2009, the Social Security program has expended $11.3 trillion.
Q: How much has Social Security taken in taxes and other income since it started?
A: From 1937 (when taxes were first collected) through 2009, the Social Security program has received $13.8 trillion in income.
Social Security has been a profit-making program.
ReplyDeleteIts profits have made a lot of our deficits a lot smaller.
It even helped produce the surpluses in the Clinton years!
The problem is that all that profit, principal and interest, have already been spent. Yes, it did a lot of good, but now, all that remains is numbers in a calculator, a "trust fund" that is a pay-as-you-go mechanism, as if the trust fund didn't exist.
Paying expenses out of the trust fund is done the same way the government pays for battleships - out of current revenues and debt. Of course, when we are running SS trust fund deficits,when outgo exceeds income (excluding interest) like today, the trust fund interest is redeemed in cash, with an immediate budget impact. Why redeemed in cash? Because the original interest was credited to the fund via debt, Treasury securities. So, the debt must be redeemed in cash.
Don Levit
Just have Bernake print the interest and call it Quantative Easing.
ReplyDeleteThat makes as much sense as anything else they are doing, such as running massive deficits to keep the Status Quo up and running.
Well, JP, the alternative to the status quo was what happened in 1929.
ReplyDelete