Social Security has ZERO to do with the Deficit.

[joeglow3]

172. Your view is flawed as it is stuck in theory and not reality

Everyone agrees that the social security, in its original state, would NOT add to the deficit. However, as you have pointed out, the Federal government raided those funds, leaving nothing more than IOU's. Now, going forward, as social security begins to pay out more than it brings in, the government needs to make good on those IOU's. Given that they rest of the Federal government is alread in a deficit, those additional needed funds require the government to issue additional notes, creating a larger deficit.

We all agree this would not have happened if the Federal government had not raided the trust fund. However, in accounting terms, that is a sunk cost. We cannot change the past. We are solely left to deal with the present under the set of facts we currently have. And those facts mean that any time SS pays out more than it brings in in a given year, our external deficit increases. You can try to play semantics and say it has nothing to do with SS because under the original theory of the plan, this would never have happened. However, that theory is long gone and reality of today CLEARLY says otherwise.

It all gets back to the accounting the government allows itself. It is estimated that the NPV of all social security and medicare liabilities is about $90 trillion. Where is this on the government's financials? Why is this never included in the debt of the US? Again, if any company, not-for-profit, city government, state government, school district, ect. hid its unfunded pension liabilities in this manner, we would be ticked and calling for people's heads. When we have the same expectation of our Federal government, we are "right wing tools."

Again, it doesn't matter how social security was intended to work, how it was set up or what the government did wrong 20 years ago. What matters is where we are TODAY and the impact of actions going forward are. And the simply, basic truth, is that the state that SS has been left in means any time SS sends out more than it brings it, it adds to the deficit.