Posted on 12/09/2010 3:20:36 AM PST by Scanian
Actually, there “was” a fund. LBJ stole it and rolled it into the “Great Society”.
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My understanding is that LBJ made an accounting change and put SS on budget rather than off budget. Place on a spreadsheet is all that changed.
Moving from "off budget" (meaning it can't be used for another purpose), to "on budget" (which means it can be used for anything) is equivalent to "LBJ stole it".
Moving from "off budget" (meaning it can't be used for another purpose), to "on budget" (which means it can be used for anything) is equivalent to "LBJ stole it".
In real economic terms though the US government essentially burned the money collected for Social Security when it was a trust fund(the money no longer circulated and took the form of a line item “asset” on the budget) while the US government ran a larger deficit and issued more bonds for the rest of its spending than if it used the taxes collected for social security. It’s an accounting game. I guess when the dollar actually represented a value in gold it did matter though . . . so you may be right. In modern, fiat currency terms, it’s just accounting entries though.
In real economic terms though the US government essentially burned the money collected for Social Security when it was a trust fund(the money no longer circulated and took the form of a line item “asset” on the budget) while the US government ran a larger deficit and issued more bonds for the rest of its spending than if it used the taxes collected for social security to pay for other things. It’s an accounting game. I guess when the dollar actually represented a value in gold it did matter though . . . so you may be right. In modern, fiat currency terms, it’s just accounting entries though.
They spent your money now you want them to steal money from me to pay you?
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