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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gersh Avery who wrote (3436)	10/23/2006 2:25:44 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

One error, in the logic, is that the SSA ownes the trust fund. not They are the trusties of the fund. 1 - If that was an error it would be an error in fact not logic. 2 - It isn't an error at all. The bonds, or some fraction thereof are not your property held in trust by the SSA, they are the property of the SSA. The SSA has an obligation to pay social security money to you, but that obligation was created, and could be ended, by a simple act of congress, like any other from of government spending (the main difference being that congress doesn't have to continually reauthorize the spending, the initial law and its modifications authorize it until canceled). Also the SSA's obligation is to pay you money, not give you some portion of the value of the bonds. If SS taxes were raised and the bonds were never cashed out, you would not in any way be defrauded. If you really owned the bonds than your heirs could inherit them, but in reality it doesn't work that way. The government may make statements about them being held in trust for you but legally and practically there is no such trust only a promise to pay you money, and assets which could be used as part of the funding to follow through on the promises. And then of course those assets are in IOUs from one part of the government to another. Some proposed SS reform plans would indeed give you ownership of part of the money you are supposed to get later, but the idea is apparently controversial.