A bunch of IOUs written from one arm of the government - the Treasury, to another arm of the government - Social Security trust fund, DO NOT A SURPLUS MAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!
The “surplus” in the Social Security Trust fund is nothing other than a promise we made to ourselves (whenever we collected more social security payroll taxes than we needed for paying benefits) to come back and tax ourselves later to pay back the payroll taxes we spent instead of saving and investing the excess we paid in.
The label of the IOUs we gave ourselves as a “surplus” is the biggest political fiction in modern American history.
A PONZI scheme, like Mr. Madoff ran, is when the promise is made that unrealistic earnings can be provided and are in fact only able to be provided as long as enough new investors and/or enough new investment can continually be brought in to pay off the earlier investors.
Social Security has always been a PONZI scheme.
It has always required some combination of legally required additional new classes of contributors or legally mandated higher contribution rates, or both, in order to be solvent for those reaching the age of claiming their due from it.
The financial and demographic math of pretending it is solvent have reached their end, and by 2013 that pretense will be shattered.
We'll just stroll down there, pick up a few billion in T-Bills, cash them in, and Sazam! Social Security Paid for...
BTW I'm being sarcastic