Whoa right there. "The guv'mint" isn't "spending the money." It is
paying out SS benefits... which covers a lot more than just retirees,
BTW. While the SS excess has been used for decades to mask the true size
of the deficit, the gov'mint is NOT spending SS money on other things
and it never has.


Dave wrote:
Let me get this straight. The guvmint takes more in in SS taxes than it pays
out in SS benefits. It exchanges the extra money it takes in for bonds. Now
it has the money and the SS trustees have IOUs called bonds. So what do you
say it's doing with the money it exchanges for bonds? Putting it under the
Treasury Secretary's mattress until the bonds come due? I don't think so. It
uses the money to pay salaries, buy goods and services, etc.--things we
generally call "spending."


So it's a legal money-laundering scheme. It's still not the same as
spending the SS money, any more than I can claim I paid for my
neighbor's house because his mortgage is held by a bank in which I'm a
depositor.

You should be glad that the SS Trust Fund is buying Uncle Sam's IOUs (ie
Treasury bonds, the most secure investment possible). Otherwise Bush &
Cheney's deficit spending would have to be entirely financed by the
Japanese, Chinese, French, etc etc.

DSK