Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs
16 Mar '10 20:16We've been over this quite a few times before. The federal govt "robbing" from SSA or the SSA "calling in" the federal govt is really just loaded speak for a very boring accounting procedure.
So SS is short this year. It redeems some federal issued debt obligations. The federal govt moves money from its budget into SS.
Of course, the federal govt doesn't have the funds to pay for all its spending right now so it will have to borrow more as a result, and markets seem all to willing to buy US debt so that's not a problem right now.
In the end, the SSA redeeming US debt is not at all alarming. There is no immediate crisis. The problem with federal spending is a longer term one. In the end SS may well need to be tweaked some time in the future, though it is far from the only issue and a change to SS is far from a sufficient solution to the debt problem.
So SS is short this year. It redeems some federal issued debt obligations. The federal govt moves money from its budget into SS.
Of course, the federal govt doesn't have the funds to pay for all its spending right now so it will have to borrow more as a result, and markets seem all to willing to buy US debt so that's not a problem right now.
In the end, the SSA redeeming US debt is not at all alarming. There is no immediate crisis. The problem with federal spending is a longer term one. In the end SS may well need to be tweaked some time in the future, though it is far from the only issue and a change to SS is far from a sufficient solution to the debt problem.
Back to Top