Social Security Trust Funds
We have all had questions on Social Security Trust Funds before. Below are the top questions posed by visitors just like you to our. We hope our answers located below will help you solve your funding problems today. Feel free to ask another question, or even comment on what has been written.
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Rhonda Said:
What Federal goverment departments owe money to the Social Security trust fund?We Answered:
I am not sure a department does, but the government does. The government does not put away social security money.Your question goes at the reason why we need VOLUNTARY private retirement accounts. Government cannot be trusted with our money. We need to take our own responsiblity for our retirement.
Note, Galveston County, TX opted out of SS in the early 1980's due to a loop hole. Their return is 2-3 times social security.
Carol Said:
Do you think the "BP oil fund" will be as safe and secure as the social security trust fund?We Answered:
I do not think the "BP oil fund" will be as safe and secure. Social security was robbed by Congress to pay for their pet projects.President Obama demanded that BP “set aside “whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed†by the spill. With thousands of environmental activists, regulators and trial lawyers on Team Obama, one can imagine what creative damages and costs might be concocted, to convert the initial $20-billion BP fund into a bottomless money pit, and what “standards†might guide bird death valuations, for example.
ExxonMobil paid $600,000 when 85 birds died in uncovered waste facilities. PacifiCorp paid was fined $1.4 million after 230 eagles were killed by its power lines over a two-year period. Will those fines set the standard for Gulf oil spill bird deaths? Or will the standard be the zero, zip, nada fines assessed to date on wind turbine operators for their ongoing slaughter? Will BP be required to compensate oil field workers who lose their jobs because Team Obama imposed an arbitrary drilling moratorium, instead of ensuring improved oversight of drilling and completion activities?
Look, at least BP already agreed to pony up. Why should the government control this? Isn't this another case of the Obama administration bullying, taxing and regulating business as part of a social agenda to redistribute income and power from private enterprise to government? It's a war on profits and capital.
Consider this: American companies are sitting on an astonishing pile of $1.5 trillion in unused cash. Why aren't they investing to create new jobs? Well, it's because massive tax and regulatory threats coming out of Washington have created a tall barrier of disincentives and uncertainty that is blocking the normal efficiency of the free-market capitalist system. o_O
Craig Said:
How much has the federal govt. borrowed from the social security trust fund?We Answered:
It's a fraud, on top of a Ponzi scheme.No one will say, much less do, anything about it.
We're screwed.
Gene Said:
what is the social Security trust fund? how does it work? where do payroll taxes go?We Answered:
I'll try to keep it brief. First, current retirees are funded from the inflow of social security taxes currently being paid. Nothing else.Now those revenues are currently higher than the social security outlays have been. That is the social security surplus. In theory it would be nice to save this excess money for the future, when we know that the changing ratio of more old people to fewer young people means that outlays will exceed tax revenues each year.
So, in theory this surplus is saved each year into the Social Security Trust Fund. However, in fact no real savings occurs. It never has. The surplus funds in reality are spent as part the general federal budget. They are not saved at all. Sometimes politicians complain that their enemies are "raiding the social security trust fund" -- but that is a false charge. This is how the system was designed to work 70 years ago, and the government is required by law to spend the surplus. The government CANNOT save that money, by law.
But what happens is the government notes how much Social Security surplus funds there are, and creates a special treasury bond to represent that amount. So it is these special treasury bonds that are kept in a filing cabinet in Maryland (literally) which constitute the trust fund. These are unlike regular T-bonds in that you cannot trade them on the open market. Their only legal purpose is to serve as the social security trust fund.
Note that, if gov't creates a $100 billion bond for this purpose, that frees up $100 billion cash from social security tax revenue that the government can spend on general obligations. So the net effect of this is as if the government just sold $100 billion in T-bonds -- gov't now holds a debt but has cash to spend.
What's a bit mind-bending is that this bond is owned by the government, instead of by a public buyer. So the fund of bonds is both an asset and a debt for the government. It constitutes about 3 trillion dollars of our national debt. But since the holder of these bonds is the government itself, it also constitutes 3 trillion dollars in assets, namely the SS trust fund. It's like if your right pocket owes your left pocket $10 -- one pocket has a debt, the other pocket has an asset, but for your pants as a whole they cancel out.
In the end the trust fund is nothing more than PRE-AUTHORIZED BORROWING. In the future, when social security outlays are greater than the tax collected, the social security system will take one of these special bonds and sell it to the Treasury department for cash, then spend that cash in the form of social security benefits. But where does the Treasury get the cash? They'll get it by selling regular treasury bonds to the public. So every $1 of social security "trust fund" today equals $1 of treasury bonds to be sold to the public in the future.
Pearl Said:
Why Did Liberals Steal from the Social Security Trust Fund and Turn It Into a Giant Ponzi Scheme?We Answered:
Better try Noxon Reagan and the Bush's there dumbchitMabel Said:
Social Security is a trust fund why do people believe it to be a socialist program?We Answered:
All trust funds I know of can be added to as you will, not based on how much you made then taken straight off the top.Veronica Said:
What session of congress is responsible for taking money from the social security trust fund?We Answered:
Sorry, but the lies from vangurl need to be corrected.Bush wanted to give people their OWN retirement money for them to invest.
Keep in mind that there places to invest in addition to the stock market. One could buy commodities. You can even buy real estate inside a retirement account. With the depressed price of houses now would be a good time to buy.
Years ago Congress put the SS money in to the general fund and has been using it (and more) ever since. I don't expect to see any money ever from SS so anything I get will be a bonus to my investments.
I get what you're saying about the pork, but one man's pork is another man's bacon. What we need to do is look at govt. spending more critically and realize that while it will hurt to cut programs, it will hurt more when we can no longer afford them because our credit is used up.