I get a social security statement every single year that shows how much I've paid in. Every other adult American has received the same type statement.
The lie is that our money is not sitting there.
The debt figures the government throws around all the time are a lie because they represent the IOU's in the social security trust fund as cash.
Tim Geitner says that he can't pay social security checks in August if the debt limit is not reached.
Why can't Mr. Geitner just take the money out of the trust fund to pay the checks?
Because the money isn't there.
Because the social security trust fund is empty and there is nothing there but IOU's from the US government, and those IOU's should be added to the trillions of official debt the federal government recognizes.

It is so disingenuous for Geitner and Obama to say that raising the debt limit is crucial when the truth is that even if the debt limit is raised the United States will see its borrowing costs rise because of the massive amount of our outstanding debt and the annual deficit that adds to it.

It's a shame that President Obama and Secretary Geitner aren't telling the truth the way that Senator Coburn is.

Also in the next 15 years the # of people retiring is suppose to triple (or something like that, I forget the exact number). So the number of IOUs the government has is getting larger.

Uh - this system is not unlike the *private* banking system. Of course the money doesn't just sit there - that would be stupid.

Agreed that our borrowing costs are under threat of being raised. At 3 percent or whatever they are now they are pretty darn low... but it's not like defaulting is no big deal that won't make things *far, far* worse. In what financial universe would the default of a private company be no big deal to the credit worthiness of that company? What the Republicans are doing now is taking hostages. Even Reagan raised taxes rather than defaulting. This is a no brainer. Our tax burden is the lowest it has been in 50 years - high taxes is *not* the problem.

"The full consequences of a default -- or even the serious prospect of default -- by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar." - Ronald Reagan, 1983

I used to think that my social security payments were kept in a vault somewhere ready for me to access them when needed. I also thought that the money I paid into my saving bank was kept in a draw marked 'maniac' and I thought that was why queues were so long at the bank. I also thought that when I wrote a cheque (check) my bank would send my cash round to the receipient; but then I stopped reading lessons in economics as printed on the side of cereal boxes and grew up.

Al Gore told me ALL the Social Security money was in a "LOCK BOX".....so....really....I'm not even sure why this is a topic of discussion.

LOCK BOX....

Lock...

Box...

Hey, guess what.

Money isn't real.

Screw Social Security. If you don't have any money, go starve. Screw Medicare. And Medicade. Screw unemployment. Screw food stamps. Screw Family Protective Services. Screw the Emergency Room. If you can't pay for a hospital, bleed to fricken death on the street. For that matter, Screw the damn streets. Let private companies build streets and pay for them. Screw zoning. If I own land and want to build my freakin factory next to your house, Screw You. And I can pump any amount of pollution out into your airspace that I G.D. want. Screw the Clean Water Act. Screw the FDA. If I want to sell adulterated water, sue me. Oh yeah - Screw the courts. Police and fire should be privitized. Screw the Justice Department. If I want to incorporate in Cuba, sell adulterated water, and have my profits exported and safe from lawsuits, then just stop buying my damn water. Paid for by the Tettleton's Chew Libertarian Paradise. Oh yeah - and screw the damn reporting that tells us who has bought our politicians!

Fasces, you mean the number of IOU's that you and I and the other Joe Taxpayers are on the hook for. The baby boom began in 1946. Those first year baby boomers just turned 65 in 2011. The next decade is going to be the worst fiscal mess that any government on the face of the earth has ever seen.
The lies of the cradle-to-grave nanny state totally exposed.

The closest thing this country has to a real plan to save itself is the Ryan Budget, which isn't that great.

What America needs is for every Baby Boomer (apart from the ones I love, of course) to drop dead the second they retire. That generation is unconscionably irresponsible.

Today's infantile hissy fit brought to you by the utterly helpless Indybroughton.
I guess tellytubbies was off the air at 4:19 PM PST.

Maniac, I guess you don't keep cash in your wallet anymore.

Something libertarians forget: a perfect market requires several conditions, collectively called perfect competition. Among these conditions are:
- Perfect market information
- No participant with market power to set prices
- No barriers to entry or exit
- Equal access to production technology
(thank the intertubes for my continuing wiki-education)
And yes, oddly enough, the government helps ensure each of these (including my wiki-education). And without a properly functioning government you have none of these things.

Good God....the man confesses that he is self-educating through Wiki....I have no respect for you.

krellin, you're being dense. It's called a joke. Perhaps you also thought I was being serious when I referred to the internet as the intertubes? Sheesh.

This whole thread is utterly pointless. Everyone already knows that the collective SS piggybank is empty. Everyone already knows that the federal government is in deep shit and anyone who says any different is a big fat liar.

@TC - i sold my wallet because it didn't have any cash in it. But now I have nowhere to put the cash I received. Just my luck.

...@Maniac: It's like Gift of the Magi, only twice as efficient! If O'Henry were an engineer I'm sure that's what the story would have been.

Funny thing O'Henry being an engineer is pure fantasy.
Cash is a wallet is hard reality.
It's entertaining how many people who post on this board can't handle reality.
Gunfighter-I would direct you to Paul Krugman's recent Op-Ed for proof that someone is presenting an argument that there is real money in the social security trust fund.
Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated tax, like highway maintenance.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/about-the-social-security-trust-fund/
Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas made this statement on July 13
"There is enough money in Social Security trust fund that will be there. That is there and that will pay for many months without the Congress doing anything."
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/finance-wire/mi_8120/is_20110714/follow-money-july-13-2011/ai_n57846796/pg_2/

So I would argue that there are public figures who still represent the lie that there is acutally money in the social security trust fund and not a bunch of IOU's from the government that is not figured into the national debt now being discussed in the budget talks in the capital.

"What America needs is for every Baby Boomer (apart from the ones I love, of course) to drop dead the second they retire. That generation is unconscionably irresponsible."
Poison the drinking supplies of old age homes. Problem solved...

Former Senator Alan Simpson had some thoughts on generational discord.
His characterized baby boomers resistant to any type of changes to Medicare or Social Security as the "greediest generation."

I believe that, but it is unusual that the "greatest generation" that raised them failed to instill the same values in their children that helped the greatest generation work through the Great Depression and win WWII.

I don't remember that being the motto of social security.