NYcarbineer
Diamond Member
Yeah...the problem is.....it is still treated as "on-budget".......Like I said.....never correct about anything.It means no such thing. Liberals don't support preserving Medicare and Social Security.....Otherwise, they would move it off budget (put it in an untouchable lock-box and return it to actually belonging to the people who contribute to it) and support sensible reforms......It means you think liberals are wrong to support preserving Medicare and Social Security.
It's already in a lockbox. It's invested in US securities and cannot be used for anything other than paying recipients.
Stop being an ass.
In this case yes he is.
Social Security History
The Social Security Trust Fund has never been "put into the general fund of the government."
Most likely this question comes from a confusion between the financing of the Social Security program and the way the Social Security Trust Fund is treated in federal budget accounting. Starting in 1969 (due to action by the Johnson Administration in 1968) the transactions to the Trust Fund were included in what is known as the "unified budget." This means that every function of the federal government is included in a single budget. This is sometimes described by saying that the Social Security Trust Funds are "on-budget." This budget treatment of the Social Security Trust Fund continued until 1990 when the Trust Funds were again taken "off-budget." This means only that they are shown as a separate account in the federal budget. But whether the Trust Funds are "on-budget" or "off-budget" is primarily a question of accounting practices--it has no effect on the actual operations of the Trust Fund itself.
If were off budget as he claims, then Obama (or any President for that matter) would not have the authority to stop payments to the retired because the government did not have any funds......
Taxes and the Budget: What does it mean for a government program to be "off-budget"?
In the late 1960s the federal government adopted a unified budget that included trust fund operations along with budgets for almost all other federal activities. Since then various agencies have attempted to escape budget discipline by moving off-budget, but most have been brought back under pressure from advocates for fiscal responsibility. Today there are only two off-budget entities that were once on-budget: the Social Security system and the U.S. Postal Service. In the case of Social Security, only the trust funds (for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and for Disability Insurance) are off-budget; administrative costs are on-budget. The Federal Reserve System and the various government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have always been off-budget.
- Social Security was temporarily taken off-budget by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, and its off-budget status was made permanent by the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. There were a number of reasons for taking Social Security off-budget:
What does it mean for a government program to be "off-budget"?
Please post your evidence to the contrary.