I will say this yet again. Social Security is an insurance program.
It gets that label, but what it does isn't really insurance.
Insurance is the pooling of risk of unlikely events, so that those that are unlucky don't get slammed. Old age isn't a very unlikely event, and it isn't really a negative (as opposed to dying young).
But if you insist, fine call it an insurance program. That doesn't make its income something other than a tax. An involuntary payment to the government is a tax (unless its the result of you being found guilty of a crime, than its a fine, but that clearly doesn't apply here).
And if government money is spent for these "insurance" benefits than that is government spending.
Deciding to not count some tiny program as government spending would be unreasonable, but it could safely be ignored. Deciding not to count the biggest program is insane.
And if we don't count it, it still doesn't change the fact that every dollar spent, harms the fiscal balance just as much as any dollar spent anywhere else.
The risk of underperforming what the S&P?
S&P, corporate bonds, foreign bonds, even privately owned government bonds, or CDs. Or considering the fact the the benefits are going to have to be trimmed back, there is a big risk of the payouts not even keeping up with inflation.
Note that ENERGY PRICES also act as a tax
No they are a cost not a tax.
A tax is an involuntary payment to the government. |
