When the Social Security system was inaugerated in 1935(?) weren’t the funds to be put in trust until needed? If the trust had been kept intact and not used to balance the budget, does anyone know what the approximate balance of the funds would be today?
I have e-mailed my represenatives and senators but the only answer I get is a general purpose form letter.
EDITOR: Good question. Can’t answer, at least yet. The following from Wikipedia suggests the real concern may lie elsewhere:
Social Security taxes are paid into the Social Security Trust Fund maintained by the U.S. Treasury (technically, the “Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund”, as established by 42 U.S.C. § 401(a)). Current year expenses are paid from current Social Security tax revenues. When revenues exceed expenditures, as they have in most years, the excess is invested in special series, non-marketable U.S. Government bonds, thus the Social Security Trust Fund indirectly finances the federal government’s general purpose deficit spending. In 2007, the cumulative excess of Social Security taxes and interest received over benefits paid out stood at $2.2 trillion.[80] The Trust Fund is regarded by some as an accounting trick which holds no economic significance. Others argue that it has specific legal significance because the Treasury securities it holds are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government, which has an obligation to repay its debt.
In other words, the so called “trust fund” consists of IOUs owed by future generations.
The first mistake with the Social Security Trust Fund was to allow borrowing from it to fund other government operations. These other operations were then never paid for. No taxes were needed to be raised to pay for them nor were any spending cuts needed to pay for them. Just like the Bush prescription drug plan (700 billion) was never paid for nor much of the initial Iraq war spending, etc. etc.
Much of this “off the books” spending was by design; to spend the government into near bankruptcy so that huge spending cuts (SS and Medicare) would be forced. Its happening as we speak and the Republican small government people are riding the Trojan horse of debt they created to victory.
This fraud can only be corrected by terminating the tax cuts and generating a tax and economic plan that will put our house in order. With the interests of big money (the 20% who own 93% of all assets) controlling the congress and most of our state legislatures, don’t look for this to happen, but, instead, prepare for SS and Medicare and other safety net programs to be cut.
The script has already been written and playing in a theater near us you. It goes like this; Political Leader: (dripping with sincerity and faux alarm) “Folks, we simply cannot afford it anymore. There is no money, we’re broke and unless we make these hard decisions our government will be bankrupt, we will default on our debt, our world credit will be destroyed, there will be real depression and blood in the streets. Believe me folks, these cuts are tough and painful to many of you but they are necessary to save our country” What a fraud! What an unhappy, depressing, and despicable fraud!