Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) charges Obama with "beginning the unraveling of Social Security"

[Major Nikon]

58. This is exactly correct

Due to slight of hand accounting tricks implemented decades ago, FICA surpluses made the deficit appear smaller than it was because they were using those surpluses in the deficit calculation. Once those surpluses are gone, the deficit will appear larger because what was being counted as revenue is no longer there. The total federal debt will also appear larger because the SS trust fund was also being used to make the total federal debt appear smaller. So even though SS payouts are effectively coming out of the trust fund, they might as well be coming out of the general fund because the deficit and the debt reporting are going to reflect those changes.