This is another quick source to the IOUs but not the total. Newt Gingrich said a couple times on radio that he hated it each year when CONgress spent the “surplus”.
Absolutely right...And Bubba with his balanced budget depended on the WHOLE of the fund available.
Here is the way SS works. All of the SS revenue collected thru the payroll tax is converted to T-bills, the benefits paid out, and the "surplus" is retained in the SSTF. We stopped running a surplus in 2010. These T-bills carry the full faith and credit of the USG to honor them, just like the T-bills issued to the Chinese or any other holder of our debt. Now that SS is no longer running a "surplus," the shortfall is made up to pay benefits by redeeming T-bills thru the General Fund. Of course, we borrow 40 cents out of every dollar, so we must borrow money to redeem the SS T-bills.
The T-bills in the SSTF earn interest. The SSTF is included in our $17.3 trillion national debt and held under "Intra-governmental Holdings" just like the other government trust funds (HI Trust Fund for Medicare Part A), the federal employee pension fund, etc.
If you look at our current national debt, 4,981,449,585,880.73 are held in Intra-governmental Holdings as distinguished from the publicly held debt Intragovernmental Holdings are Government Account Series securities held by Government trust funds, revolving funds, and special funds; and Federal Financing Bank securities. A small amount of marketable securities are held by government accounts.
According to the 2013 SS Trustee's report, the SSTF holds $2,609.7 trillion. There is no $13.4 trillion in the SSTF.
A looming problem is that the SS DI (Disability) Trust Fund will exhaust its T-bills in 2016 and will have to reduce benefits unless more money is pumped into the Trust fund. From the Trustees' report.
"Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now." 4,981,449,585,880.73