The CBO's annual Social Security Update is out, and its pretty ugly:
This is pretty ugly; we were not supposed to have a negative income-to-outlay view on Social Security for another decade or so.
Well, the recession fixed that. Tax receipts are in the toilet but outlays sure aren't.
This is a major problem - everyone wants to point to the "zero hour" for Social Security when the "trust fund" goes negative, as is shown in this graph:
This, unfortunately, is terribly misleading. The Social Security "Trust Fund" contains nothing other than IOUs. That is, it does not contain money, it contains "special" Treasury Bonds that form part of the "public debt."
How much? According to Treasury, about $4.3 trillion dollars worth.
You are free to comment on this discussion in any way you feel is appropriate. If you choose to use to use any language which our editors feel is vulgar -- by their standards -- your comment may be tagged "Crude or Lewd" and may be filtered out of the discussion by those who prefer not to read that sort of thing. If you know you have entered something which will cause your comment to be tagged, we ask that you tag it yourself to save us the time. We do encourage everyone to be civil and not make rude attacks on other people in the Forum. We don't censor out those remarks, but few people enjoy reading them and we would like participation in our Forums to be a pleasant experience for everyone. And, by concentrating on what is said instead of who is saying it, even those who may disagree with you will be more likely to consider your opinions valid.
