Talking Points Memo | Stop Saving Social Security

"We need to remember that now and for at least a decade into the future Social Security is actually subsidizing the rest of the federal budget. The program brings in much more than it pays out. As we all remember from the voluble debates two years ago, the surplus is being used to buy US government bonds which go into the Trust Fund. And that socked away money will keep the program solvent through the middle of this century as the baby boomers retire, and revenues in no longer cover promised payments out. We've been doing that for about a quarter of a century. The problem on the political side of the equation is that the enemies of Social Security have spent a couple decades arguing that the Trust Fund doesn't exist or that it is simply a bookkeeping device with no true financial meaning. If that's true, it means that Americans workers have spent the last twenty-five years using their payroll taxes to subsidize general revenues and make it easier to float big tax cuts for upper-income earners without getting anything in return."