What's the difference in the $4 trillion SS will have in unfunded mandate?

[kentuck]

...supposedly in about 40 years? And the $4 trillion dollars in debt that Bush and the Repubs have run up in just the last 5 years? Does one have to be paid back and one doesn't? What effect would each of these huge debts have on our overall economy?

The reason I ask is because there was some right-wing nut on C-SPAN this morning who was saying that SS would be $4 trillion behind in 40-50 years and that SS was the worst government program ever created.
No body asked him about the $4 trillion in debt in just the last 4 or 5 years. I don't know what his response might have been?

But it seems to me if we have no problem now, there should be no problem in 40-50 years?? But perhaps I am missing something here??

[Kagemusha]

1. They assume that the govt can and will default on SS anytime.

Old issue that was a big part of the debate last year when Bush was pushing and pushing this. If they don't assume that a default will be made legal and easy when the time comes a lot of their assumptions cease to make sense.

So there you go.

[MissWaverly]

2. I have heard that the govt. will be bankrupt in 10 years

I read that the government only released 1000 copies of the 2005 budget, the actual federal
budget was 716 billion, they anticipate a shortfall in 10 years when boomers like me start
asking for the money that we paid in all these years, but, gee, golly, Bush is building the
largest embassy in the world in Iraq, it will be as large as the Vatican, we should be grateful.

[Yupster]

5. How can you go bankrupt if

you print money?

[MissWaverly]

6. Your money becomes worthless, inflation soars

My mother had a friend that had been in Germany in WW II, she said that you need to take a
wheelbarrow of money out to pay for bread.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. The federal government is constitutionally obligated

honor all of its debts.

[Yupster]

4. And it will

Right now there is a huge annual surplus in the social security system. That surplus helps to hide the size of the budget defecit.

Once the social security system starts going into annual defecit which isn't too far from now, then it will not hide the size of the annual budget defecit anymore, but will instead make it look worse.

At that point congress will fold the social security trust fund into the general budget. This will do two things.

It will not make the annual defecit look worse than it is, and

The trillion dollar social security surplus will disappear as the social security surplus and the corresponding general budget obligation will zero themselves out. At that point all the social security surpluses from the last 20 years will magically disappear. The money will be officially looted. Creative accounting at work.

What about the monthly checks? They'll keep going out each month as general obligations of the US budget, and if they are more than the budget can handle, then congress will redo the bendpoints on the payout formula so everyone will get a little less or the retirement age will go up, or the payouts will be more means-tested.

That's my opinion anyway, and I've had it for almost 20 years now since I first found out congress was using the ss surplus to mask the size of the defecit. I thought well that will end when it's no olnger in the government's interest to do it.

[MissWaverly]

7. You've got it

everyone will get less and we will be blamed for asking for social security, the "greedy baby
boomers"

[sendero]

8. Anybody trying to make economic predictions..

... more than a few years out is a dreamer. So far, most economists are lucky if they can peg what's going to happen in the next quarter.

This talk about 40 years from now is just bullshit designed to scare the feeble minded.