Talk:Social Security Trust Fund

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This statement is incorrect. First of all government securities are marketable assets, and second it is perfectly legal for a company to invest its pension funds in government securities.


Unlike private pension funds, the Social Security Trust Fund does not hold any marketable assets to secure workers' paid-in contributions. The Social Security Trust Fund "invests" surpluses in United States Treasury bonds and U.S. securities backed "by the full faith and credit of the government".

:Practically speaking, the federal government has used the Social Security Trust Fund in a way which would be illegal for any private-sector company to do - in order to help balance the federal budget, the government has borrowed money from the Trust Fund to pay current operating expenses and replaced those funds with government IOU's --- This "correction" is incorrect. It would not be "perfectly legal" for a company to "invest" its pension funds in its own securities - whether they were marketable or not. Corporate execs go to jail for that sort of chicanery.

"All securities held by the trust funds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government, as required by law. Those currently held by the OASI Trust Fund are special issues (i.e., securities sold only to the trust funds)" http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR03/III_cyoper.html You can not buy or sell these special issues on the market. The insert in the main article from the 2000 budget is absolutely correct. Once the social security taxes fall below the retirement insurance requirements (2015?), other taxes or government debt or reduced federal spending in other areas will be required to meet the entitlements of the social security recipients. There is no money as we understand it in any US Government trust fund. Lamar White lamarw@easystreet.com

Most U.S. government bonds are marketable, but the ones held in the Social Security Trust fund are not. The two statements above are correct. I do have a problem with the bolded portion though and feel the whole second paragraph should be deleted outright. I'd make the changes myself but I'd probably come under attack from some wacko who sees this as an attack on his political ideology, ingores the facts, and revert my good-faith edit. Wiki was great starting out but too many overzealous conservatives and liberals alike will modify or revert articles on political issues in order to fit their own agenda.


[edit] category

I was intending to categorize this article, but can't figure out the appropriate category? Should it be USA government, Economics ??? Would be good if someone stamp some category down there. gathima 16:01, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Trust Fund???

There is NO Social Security Trust Fund. Any politician who says otherwise is lying. Gore actually had a good idea about that "lockbox." Username:BRivera

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