Cam-Pains

Leading into election time a lot of ads on the television are the political "slam the opponent". Of course they all go for the most emotionalized buzz phrases they can find. One that constantly repeats itself here in Kentucky is "He voted to dip into the Social Security Trust Fund". It amazes me how many people take this seriously, especially people past or near the age to draw Social Security. Everyone that has even a little knowledge of this Social Security Trust Fund knows there is no money there to dip into. Every penny of the FICA goes straight into the general fund, an IOU goes into the "trust fund", and the money is spent as quickly as it comes in. Acutally quicker with deficit spending. Voting to dip into the trust fund would be voting to take out IOU's and try to spend them.

I wrote this on the other blog about a year and a half ago...

Social Security in a nut shell

• More money comes into Social Security each year than is paid out to recipients.
• The surplus is spent by the government and Social Security is credited with this surplus on paper (it receives an IOU).
• All the money in the Social Security "Trust Fund" is in the form of these IOUs (no actual cash).
• With the increase of recipients each year, by the year 2018 (13 years from now) there will no longer be an annual surplus and we will be paying out the same amount we take in.
• After 2018 all the increases in Social Security recipients will have to be paid out of the general fund in ever increasing amounts since the Social Security Trust Fund has no actual cash reserves. This either requires the government to spend less on other programs (fat chance), or raise taxes.
• In other words Social Security is bankrupt in just 13 years. Any Congressmen who says Social Security is fine with no changes is lying through their teeth, and probably plans on retiring before the piper has to be paid.
• Privatization will not immediately heal all the problems, and after 2018 Social Security will have to be bolstered from the general fund for a while. At least privatization will halt all such draws in a few years, where leaving the program as is will only provide an ever increasing draw from the general fund, bankrupting America just as similar programs are doing for so many European countries today.