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you could definitely make a moral argument for it. however, you can't make a legal one. since Social Security is a tax, congress can alter it at any time of it's choosing. Congress could pass the "we're gonna keep collecting FICA from now on, but only pay benefits to left-handed redheads" law tomorrow, and it would be just as legally legit as your claim that they "owe" the Trust Fund $2.7 Trillion.Originally Posted by donc
no, it doesn't. as the Supreme Court has already ruled.It’s a debt backed by the Federal Government no way around it. It was borrowed and it has to be paid back.
then you haven't been paying attention, and you certainly aren't looking at our numbers going forward. after the 2003 Bush tax cuts is when we saw the highest revenues as a % of GDP in our nations' history. The length of the current recession combined with the massive increase in domestic spending (as well as, yes, the cost of the wars) is currently feeding our Deficit; but what is the real driver moving forward is the cost of the entitlements and the interest on the debt that we take out to pay for it.Hhmm…I kinda think that a couple of unfounded wars(boosted along with a couple of boneheaded tax cuts ) has caused our defect.
and it's quite alot of interest for quite alot of debt. here is our current law going forward:
in sections, what does it mean for us looking forward? it means that we never fix the deficit - we just continue to go deeper into it until we hit the tipping point where we can no longer borrow or tax enough to pay what we have agreed to pay. then we become Greece. Medicare goes bankrupt in 2018. How bankrupt? Very Bankrupt:
now, when we look at spending today, you can see that what we call "discretionary spending" (including defense) makes up about 39% of the Budget.
But every piece of borrowing means that $202 Billion spent on Interest climbs higher and higher. which means that by 2018, when Medicare goes bankrupt, interest on the debt will replace it as the single largest budget item.
what this means going forward is that starting (again, give or take) in around 2018-2020, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Interest on the debt will take up 100% of revenue, and get's worse rapidly moving forward. That means if we want a Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture, a Department of Homeland Security, a Department of Defense, an Environmental Protection Agency, a Housing and Urban Development Agency, or any of the other myriad things that our Federal Government does in 2020, then we will have to borrow more for it, which means that we will simply be making it increasingly more austere when we lose the ability to do so. Irrespective, after 2020 it becomes mathematically impossible to balance the budget ever without cutting into current beneficiaries.
yeah, precisely. it ran a deficit.Maybe CBO should tell the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees about that doncha think?
A SUMMARY OF THE 2011 ANNUAL REPORTS
(Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010 for the first time since 1983)
of course I do. I just also know that the baby boomers losing vietnam in no way changes the math i described above.Sure it does. Don’t know what the term boomer means do ya?
great example! oh, except in this case, the watermelon kills the snake.Maybe this visual will help, Picture a huge snake that swallowed a watermelon. That watermelon is the boomers going thru life;when its gone we will be on an even keel again.
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the one in no way addresses the other. irrespective of what the payroll taxes produces compared to the income tax, the fact remains that SS is running and will continue to run a deficit, which will have to come out of the General Fund. All your chart does is demonstrate the weakness of the General Fund's ability to provide.
