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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bridge Player who wrote (112312)	5/2/2005 6:56:28 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 793963

Tim, the Department of the Treasury can issue new Treasury bonds any time they want to. If there was still a surplus of SS income over outgo, the extra funds would simply be used to purchase those bonds, and they could be kept in a really-and-truly trust fund, instead of the vapor-trust-fund that currently "exists". In this case the Social Security Administration would be the buyer, and they would own a real asset. So does the Treasury just sit on a large bank account then? In this hypothetical, when the treasury sells the bonds to SS money goes to the treasury. If the treasury already has a surplus, and no debt it could spend the money, or send it back to the taxpayers (but their goes the "real assett", or it could just have a pile of cash. I suppose it could invest the cash somewhere but I'm not sure that would actually be a good thing. Still it isn't going to happen anyway so its not worth spending too much time worrying about it or analyzing it. Tim