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

To: ManyMoose who wrote (403525)	1/11/2011 9:36:30 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794042

From the perspective of the question "where is the money going to come from to fund all these programs?" there is little difference. But the myth that Social Security is somehow separate from the federal government, is common, and problematic IMO. Since it wasn't separate there was never a trust fund. If the balance of the "trust fund" was zero, but Social Security kept spending anyway even at times when its spending is greater than the Social Security taxes, then Social Security would have to spend ordinary income tax revenue. If the trust fund had $800 quadrillion dollars, then when SS revenue is less than SS spending, again SS has to spend ordinary income tax revenue. The nominal "trust fund" never makes any real difference (except that the law calls for automatic cuts in SS spending when the money from the SS tax, and the "trust fund" are not enough to fund the spending, but there would be a lot of political pressure not to say cut SS payments by 25% from one year to the next, so if it comes to that the law would probably be changed). Also Social Security never paid for itself. It spending is spending like any other spending, its taxes are taxes like any other taxes. But you often hear the argument that it should be immune from cuts because it "pays for itself". That's like arguing that if they changed the name of the income tax to "the defense tax", that the military had a large surplus, and so should be immune from cuts.