You seem confused. Clinton did no such thing. The Social Security Trust Fund has ALWAYS been funded by borrowing. That was Reagan's deal. We could have purchased more Treasury Bills with that surplus but Bush thought it was a better idea to give it back as a tax rebate that went mostly to the wealthy.
In the 80s it became obvious that SS was going to run out of money. Problem is, there is no legal method for government to save money. They don't have the legal ability to increase the tax and put that money anywhere.
It can't be placed in a savings account. They can't invest it in the market. So what can they do? They can BORROW that money. They do this by buying Treasury Bills they they repay out of the General Fund. That IS the Trust Fund and those Treasury Bills will be exhausted. That is the deal Reagan made. He raised taxes (payroll SS taxes) on the middle class and poor and didn't get slammed for it because he was "SAVING Social Security"
So what do we do when the T Bills run out and the Trust Fund is gone? Yup. Raise the cap. Whether or not we also need to raise the payroll tax remains to be seen but it's a possibility.
And doing away with SS in favor of investing retirement in the stock market? Really bad idea.
So when anyone talks about "worthless IOUs...they are either lying or clueless
You post unsubstantiated lies like you know WTF you're talking about. Read these credible links that prove Clinton too the SS surplus with his "unified budget".
1. SS is NOT funded by borrowing. It is funded by payroll taxes. The baby boomers paid in and created a mega-surplus that coxuckers like Clinton spent and replaced with IOUs.
Most of the money for Social Security retirement, disability and other benefits comes from payroll taxes paid by U.S. workers and employers.
www.aarp.org
"Payroll taxes from U.S. workers and their employers provide most of the money for Social Security benefit programs.
In 2021, 12.4 percent of income up to $142,800 goes into the Social Security pot. Job holders and their employers split the contribution at 6.2 percent each; self-employed people pay both shares.
That money goes into two Social Security trust funds, called Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance. The first pays out retirement, spousal and survivor benefits while the second covers disability benefits.
About 80 cents of each dollar you pay in Social Security taxes goes to the old-age insurance fund, the rest to disability. In 2020, those taxes — called
FICA for people with wage-earning jobs and
SECA for the self-employed — brought in just over $1 trillion, accounting for 89.6 percent of Social Security's revenue, according to the 2021 annual report from Social Security's board of trustees."
In his State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton announced a plan to "save" Social Security and fund a new type of retirement savings account. He promised Americans his proposal would preserve their retirement benefits, but his actual plan is based on discredited ideas and fraudulent...
www.heritage.org
"In his State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton announced a plan to "save" Social Security and fund a new type of retirement savings account. He promised Americans his proposal would preserve their retirement benefits, but his actual plan is based on discredited ideas and fraudulent accounting and does nothing to deal with the deep-seated problems of the program. Indeed, there is little in the President's proposal that could serve as the basis for serious Social Security reform."
Learning from the market's past to understand its present.
www.fool.com
"...Clinton was not entirely up-front about the nature of the supposedly balanced budget. The official numbers, which included "off-budget" items including the Social Security trust funds, did show surpluses for all four fiscal years of Clinton's second term. However, the "on-budget" totals alone showed a different picture -- only the 1999 and 2000 fiscal years recorded on-budget surpluses, and over these four years, the total surplus added up to a mere $26 billion. And because most of the surplus was calculated from money flowing into the Social Security trust funds, the national debt did not get paid down in the aggregate: From 1998 to 2001, more than $280 billion was added to the tab."
Clinton's worthless IOUs are just that. Without SS being "fixed" retirees would get 75% of promised benefits, that is a default.