The Democratic economists do not allow the trust fund to go into the red at all, implying that their analysis demands bigger cuts in benefits to ensure that the system stays solvent.

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One man queuing to go into the Red Sox game on Saturday specifically told me the British had got used to living with a threat because of the IRA. He felt America was moving into that phase.

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Some even plan to go deeper into the red.

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The borrowing limit thus acts like the trust fund balance in Medicare Part A or Social Security, except that it allows the program to go a fixed amount into the red.

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So we've had to go into overtime, but we are now in the red zone, that's exactly right.

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Fast-forward five years to the 2008 Social Security report, and the Trustees were projecting that Social Security would go into the red in 2017, which was then only nine years away.

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