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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Alighieri who wrote (361127)12/3/2007 1:06:43 PM
From: Tenchusatsu  Read Replies (2) of 1577170
 
Al, > I don't believe that SS surpluses can be put away or invested, and I remember reading that legally this is how the SS trust fund was setup, so, I believe that the surplus was used to pay down national debt...but I am not sure.

All of the SS surplus gets put into treasury bonds. Whether those are new bonds or just bonds that replace those held outside of the government is the question, and that's determined by the needs of the non-SS part of the budget.

The net effect is that during three out of the four years of "surplus," the debt actually increased because the non-SS, non-Medicare part of the budget still ran a deficit. What happens, though, is that a lot of the debt essentially gets bought out of outside holders and into the hands of the SS "trust fund." The total debt still increases because some of the T-bills have to be new ones to cover the off-SS budget deficit, but the part of the debt that doesn't represent the "trust fund" is reduced.

> The main point is that ...

... you want to run back to the fact that Bush is not a fiscal conservative by any definition, which I agree with.

Which of course wasn't my point to begin with, nor did my point even conflict with yours.

Tenchusatsu
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