"They're about to build their oil rigs on top of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, " Markey said.
In theory, the Medicare and Social Security trust funds have at least some money to pay a portion of the bills that are coming due.
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"I believe they have an affirmative obligation to come up with spending cuts or new revenue to prevent us from raiding the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, " said Conrad.
Democrats argued that Bush's broad energy plan would force the government to dip into the federal budget surplus, or the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, which, they predict, will be strained enough by increased numbers of beneficiaries in the next few years.
They were lent to the federal government and spent on other government programs, from foreign aid to bridges to nowhere, with the Social Security trust funds receiving only internal federal IOUs promising to pay the money back when it is needed to pay benefits.
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The deficit in income taxes has been financed by borrowing, largely from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
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If so, he is a genius who should immediately be put in charge of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
True, the eventual beneficiaries of these programs contribute payroll taxes to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds during their working lives.
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Hence, the only problem we have with entitlements is paying back the money that we borrowed from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
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As background, Chuck Blahous is one of two public trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, having been appointed to this post by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
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At its inception the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds were held Sacrosanct, i.e.
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The government regularly raids its so-called trust funds, primarily Social Security, and counts the raided money as routine revenue.
The trust funds of both Social Security and Medicare are shrinking, and the reduction in FICA tax rates further depletes Social Security and speeds its transition from mock retirement fund to de facto welfare scheme.
The cap applies to debt owed to the public (anyone who buys U.S. bonds) plus debt owed to federal government trust funds such as those for Social Security and Medicare.
But what if funds borrowed to pay back the Social Security Trust Fund came at least in part from the Federal Reserve through Quantitative Easing?
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The total current budget deficit in the last administration was at least a trillion dollars higher than reported because the maze of government accounting allows funds borrowed from government units, such as the Social Security Trust Fund, to be included with revenue.
All the government bonds in those trust funds are just a statement of the legal authority that Social Security has to draw from general revenues to pay Social Security benefits.
A-grade, would keep the present structure more or less unchanged but establish a Social Security Reserve Board (modelled on the Federal Reserve) empowered to diversify the Trust Funds' investments into private stocks and bonds, and with its operations removed from congressional and presidential budget presentations.
Quite simply, because the diversion of funds to individual accounts would reduce the money available to the Social Security trust fund.
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Progressives who support the right of fifteen year old girls to make decisions about abortion without parental notification do not trust these same girls later in life to make their own investment choices with their Social Security funds.
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