Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I think you're conflating two subjects, but maybe I did too. There are two questions: 1 is whether the SS surplus should be "on budget" such that it can be used to make the real deficit appear smaller (this year--2006--the projected surplus is $280B, compared to a nominal defiict of $390B). I believe it should not, but it's semantics. The second question is what should be done with that surplus. I'm comfortable having it in gov't debt, as opposed to corporate debt (bankruptcy), stocks (volatility), or international (oh, great, which countries).
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Agree that Social Security should be on budget. Clinton invested some effort in this, but no one had the political will after 2000 to try to stop the gross fiscal irresponsibility that Bush ushered in. The Bushies routinely lie with numbers,* and it's just too much work for a supine media to try to sort it all out.
* E.g., they keep referring to an (inflated) early prediction of last year's deficit as the target when they talk about halving that deficit, but that number is inflated by many, many billions of dollars.
Also inclined to agree that the government should not be investing in the market. It's not what the government does best. But I would concede on this as a part of a package to shore up SS.
