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Old 03-15-2010, 05:51 PM   #1
peaceandlove
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Turtle Island
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Default Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs LOL

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer – Mon Mar 15

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It's time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Continues: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_social_security_ious



Social Security Dies (Again)

Posted by Andrew Ward on 03/15/10
Campaign for Liberty Article

After years of being on life support, the government's decades-old insurance-turned retirement program is once again running into demographic and economic reality. The Associated Press reports that for the first time since the last Congressional overhaul in the 1980s, Social Security is projected to pay out more in benefits than it brings in through taxation by nearly $29 billion.

Don't let guys like former Enron-adviser Paul Krugman tell you that there's a magical "trust fund" out there that will buy us some time. The so-called "trust fund" is little more than approximately $2.5 trillion dollars of IOUs from the Treasury.

Continues: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=33541

Last edited by peaceandlove; 03-15-2010 at 06:17 PM.
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