What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund?

[Ballygrl]

Thank You to zeitgeist for the heads up on this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1501034

RegieRocker  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Jul-16-11 12:25 AM
Original message
What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund?
   
Here’s how President Barack Obama answered CBS’s Scott Pelley’s question about whether he could guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on August 3, the day after the government is supposed to reach its debt limit: “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the president on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday implying that if a budget deal isn’t reached by August 2, seniors might not get their Social Security checks.

Well, either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now, or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other.

SDuderstadt  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 12:27 AM
Response to Original message
1. "either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now"
   
It's invested in treasury securities. You need to understand how our government's cashflow works.

RegieRocker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 12:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Cash them and pay the people their SS money.
   
Yea I know how it works alright.

SDuderstadt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 12:33 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. No, you don't...
   
keywords: cash flow.

TheWraith  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 02:58 AM
Response to Reply #5
28. Printing money = inflation = $50 bread.
   
If you want to engage in an economic debate, it helps to think of economics as something other than "Voodoo magic and gobbily goop words."

quaker bill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:30 AM
Response to Reply #28
43. Untrue
   
They printed trillions to do TARP. Not so much "printed" as created with keystrokes and mouse clicks, but same difference. No significant inflation came of it.

Enthusiast  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 05:58 AM
Response to Reply #8
35. As far as I'm concerned his career is over.
   
I have to decide which candidate to cast my vote for in 2012 but it will not be Obama. This entire problem could have been avoided by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.

madinmaryland  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 01:04 AM
Response to Original message
10. It's in a ****ing lock-box that only ****** has the ****ing key to.

dkf  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 02:03 AM
Response to Original message
14. Ha! Finally people get it. There is no money in the SS fund. It's all ious.

Enthusiast  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:18 AM
Response to Reply #29
40. Welcome to DU.
   
Edited on Sat Jul-16-11 06:19 AM by Enthusiast
I cannot understand why you have to argue these points with a "Democrat".

Not that you don't have a sound argument. Great point about setting up social security during the depression.

I can answer the question of why people are so easy to sucker. It is because media power has been consolidated. Just look at Murdoch and the scope of his world wide media empire as an example. This empire should be broken up to restore a true editorial Independence.

Without a free and open media we cannot sustain our democracy.

Enthusiast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:09 AM
Response to Reply #14
38. I hate reading right wing talking points on DU.
   
I can not fathom why Skinner has not tombstoned you.

Enthusiast  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 05:52 AM
Response to Original message
33. Obama and Geithner are lying to us now.
   
Their lips are moving.

B Calm  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:11 AM
Response to Original message
39. So they gave it to the rich. What are we going to do about it?

quaker bill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:37 AM
Response to Reply #39
45. Actually, they largely spent it on defense
   
The only reason the deficit has been so "low" is because the surplus FICA tax has been budgeted in the genenral fund since Reagan was President.

B Calm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 07:02 AM
Response to Reply #45
47. War profiteers are rich bastards.

ThomWV Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 07:34 AM
Response to Original message
48. It was spent paying for wars, DHS, Tax Cuts for the Rich, subsidities to oil companies, support for
   
Support for farmers, building insufficient levies, congressional trips overseas, the war on drugs, Faith-based inititives, and the list goes on and on and on ....

[formerlurker]

TOTUS:   I would like to introduce you to my friend smoke, and his family mirrors...

[jukin]

Hate to tell you DUmbasses but it was LBJ (not Reagan) that raided the 'Lock Box" of Social Security to pay for his war on poverty (better known as the Great "get the black community to always vote democratic" Society).

[zeitgeist]

TOTUS:   I would like to introduce you to my friend smoke, and his family mirrors...

  ^5 

[zeitgeist]

Hate to tell you DUmbasses but it was LBJ (not Reagan) that raided the 'Lock Box" of Social Security to pay for his war on poverty (better known as the Great "get the black community to always vote democratic" Society).

Yup, it was Landslide Lyndon who raided Social Security.  Ans if you also point out that he needed to finance his war in Vietnam it tends to cause dummies to soil themselves.   Throw in the quote from about we'll have the ni@@ers voting with us for 200 years when we pass the Civil Rights and you can really get some head 'splodin goin on.  And about that whole incident in Dallas thing,  add that and you can have them baying at the moon.

[miskie]

There is actually a third option as to if Obama was lying then or is lying now - but its so horrible, the primitives don't even want to consider it or the ramifications.

*That the money is there right now, and if Obama doesn't get what he wants, he and his team will reallocate it.

[thundley4]

quaker bill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-16-11 06:30 AM
Response to Reply #28
43. Untrue
   
They printed trillions to do TARP. Not so much "printed" as created with keystrokes and mouse clicks, but same difference. No significant inflation came of it.

What has the price of gas and the prices of groceries done since TARP and Obama's Stash Giveaway were passed?