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FreeJoe

(1,039 posts)
22. Ummm...that won't last long
Sun Mar 23, 2014, 03:44 PM
Mar 2014

First, the people the trust fund is held by the federal government, so we'll need taxpayers to pay those bonds.

Second, the government pays out something like $800 billion dollars a year in SS benefits. If it had to pay for half of that from the trust fund, the trust fund would last only 5 years. The trust fund is there to smooth over generational bumps, but not to fund a long steady decline in the population of taxpayers.

All that isn't to say that lowering the birthrate wouldn't be a good idea. It just needs to be recognized that it would entail some painful adjustments.

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