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To: benwood who wrote (15277)	2/21/2002 10:31:46 AM
From: AC Flyer	Respond to of 74559

Hi Ben: >>The other years were in the black thanks to the SS trust fund being spent instead, in exchange for an "IOU" which, when it's needed for paying out benefits to retiring baby boomers, will be paid back, right? Somebody will pay it back when needed, right, in, what, about 10 years. Now who's gonna pay back that $1.05 trillion dollars? Hmmm... how will it get paid back?<< The Social Security Trust Fund is a misnomer at best. There never has been a trust fund in the sense of money invested or put aside. Social Security benefits have always been paid out of current year federal tax receipts. In my opinion, the REAL social security scandal is that Congress has been ripping off workers and corporations for many years by collecting more in FICA than they need to meet current social security obligations. The excess funds have been spent on general budget needs, thus taking the pressure of Congress to exercise fiscal restraint. The Social Security crisis is entirely fictional and is a tour de force of Democratic politics ("protect and preserve, etc"). The Dems can fill a football stadium any time they want with people who are willing to protest the Social Security crisis, none of whom can explain it. To the extent that the Social Security crisis exists at all, it goes something like this. Using a set of assumptions on GNP growth and the demographics of the American work force, in twenty (pick your number) years Congress will not be able to fund Social Security obligations at the current level and structure of benefits with current year Social Security tax receipts. That's a crisis? This kind of long-term prediction is exquisitely sensitive to tiny changes in the assumptions. There are a million ways to fix such a "crisis." For example, allowing a tiny increase in immigration would do the trick.