Serious Time

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Then in the future (which is now here), when soc sec runs into the red, they call up the feds and say, pay some back please. The feds can only shrug, say "we've spent it" and either raise taxes on everyone else, or cut or delay soc sec payments.
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Is this how it looks to you guys?

Social security is just another purchaser of Treasury bonds. They will get paid back. They are projected to run out of bonds in 27 years, and even then they're projected to be able to cover 80% of their obligations out of year-by-year income. Social Security is fine, for the forseeable future (which is less than 27 years). It would be OK to do some of Orszag's tweaks, to fill in that last 20%, but that will not help the deficit appreciably. And I see no need to do much with Social Security until the bonds run out, as they were only intended to be a temporary stopgap for the Boomers. Once they run out, it should go back to paying year by year, using tweaks like those described.