If purchase a television set today for $500 with a "zero interest until 2007" deal and then pay it off on December 30, will I have spent $500 on December 30? Or will I have really spent it today?
Fixing Social Security will require an influx of cash, but it won't require "spending" anything. THE MONEY HAS ALREADY BEEN SPENT. Transitioning to a private-accounts system will require cash to repay those who have paid into Social Security; this is not a cost of transition, however, but rather a cost of past policies and would have to be borne someday even if there were no transition program.
If I understand this correctly, the 2040 date is utterly meaningless because it presumes having money that has already been spent, and the true date we need to focus on is 2017, the day Social Security - which in the hands of Congress spent all the cash intended to fulfill future promises - no longer receives more in revenue than it pays out.
Social Security will be bankrupt in 11 years, then, smack in the middle of the retirement of the baby boomers. I hope not too many of those retirements are depending on SS income.