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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (111553)	2/19/2008 3:17:33 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 132070

I didn't say its not a problem. I just wouldn't consider it real debt. Or to put it another way the problem is the expensive promises. If the level of the trust fund really was the issue it would be trivial to solve. Since the feds are both the debtor and the creditor, they could forgive the debt, or arbitrarily declare it to be ten times higher than it officially is right now. The interest on the debt isn't a real return for the government (because the government is paying the interest), so its a bunch of money with a net return rate of zero. And much of the money is spent in ways that don't amount to a productive investment. Whatever the dollar balance of any funds, actual resources will be needed for future retirees. Transfer programs, federal museums, aircraft carriers, etc. don't produce a lot of extra resources to support retirees.