Killjoy wrote:Most federal spending -- functions something like a company or personal budget, in that you have money coming in and money going out, somewhat like paychecks and rent payments, etc.
Social Security -- takes money in from person A to pay person B, on the promise that person A will be paid off decades later in kind, while deliberately being misrepresented as a "retirement plan" by its defenders.
PS -- the "like a beverage" thing is a snarky riff on the cast entries and some other sigs around here.
The SS trust fund has always been a fiction. Payroll taxes get shuffled into the general fund, and benefits are pulled from the general fund. I can't recall speaking to a single reasonable person that believed otherwise. SS has two main problems. The payroll tax cap hasn't risen with inflation and ought to be raised or removed, and we've gone from life expectancies have risen from five years above retirement age to twenty-five years above retirement age so the SS retirement benefit age ought to have been increased along with it. It's political bullshit, not any practical roadblocks that have kept these from happening. It's only in insoluble problem if you define the parameters of success to make it so.