Reply #11: Not entirely accurate

[homerjaysimpson]

Not to rock the boat too much here but some things need more clarification.

"they insist that the Social Security system's current surplus and the trust fund it has been accumulating with that surplus are meaningless."

Actually, this is verifiable, the "surplus" in SS isn't actually a monetary surplus. Its government bonds placed into the SS reserve account when the government spent the actual money throughout the years. In order to start using the 'surplus' money the government actually has to come up with cash that isn't there. The only way to get cash to put back into the bonds they would have to cash is through taxation or spending cuts across the board. This is not simply attached to this presidential term (although our huge defecit which further hinders any cash gathering operations is).

"But never mind: the same people who claim that Social Security isn't an independent entity when it runs surpluses also insist that late next decade, when the benefit payments start to exceed the payroll tax receipts, this will represent a crisis - you see, Social Security has its own dedicated financing, and therefore must stand on its own."

--My previous statement is the reason it will be a problem when we have to go into our 'cash' 'surplus'.

2) Social Security benefits of today are little more than a stopgap to being completely poor. Woe to anyone that actually relies on this as their sole retirement fund. That's not to say it isnt a help. But the simple math of the matter is that we are coming to a time soon when we will have to tap that 'surplus' and we are in for a rude awakening when we see that we will have to pay a) to repay the surplus and to b) also pay additionally to make up for the lost workforce due to the baby boom retirement.

I'm not making an argument for privatization but to paint this rosy picture of SS is as misleading as the rights claim that it'll be bankrupt in a few years.