[drt1]

Actually, I think at some point in the distant past, maybe as far back as LBJ, the Gov't adopted 'Consolidated Budgeting' which combined the deficits of the General Fund with the surpluses of the SS Fund to give the impression of surpluses or smaller than actual deficits. (I think it was during LBJ as a means of masking the 'Guns and Butter' era of the Vietnam War).

Within this framework the funds were transferred and do exist as a form of obligation between the funds and bear interest at the lowest possible rate.

[John Valentine]

Right. But the asset in the SS accounts is exactly balanced out by the debt at the Treasury. The net result is that there isn't any hint of the unfunded future obligation in current budgets.