Social Security IS part of the budget problem, sorry.

[BA Deere]

See, back in 1993 when William Hussein Clinton was president the `Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act` was passed without any Republican votes in the House or Senate, that Democrat act took the amount of social security receipts that go into the general fund from 50% to 85%  http://www.snopes.com/politics/socialsecurity/changes.asp   That is part of the smoke and mirrors of Clinton`s alleged 1 year "budget surplus" in 1999.  And the none existant "lock box" that Al Gore talked about ...Poof! went up in smoke like Cheech and Chong in the 1993 OBRA. 

[BA Deere]

  Hi!  I was just lonely stuck way back on page 2 with no replies.

[r3020]

You're just too stupid to understand the federal budget. May be some one can explain it to ya.

[schnurrbart]

Did you happen to read the snopes link you put up???  I think not.

[kraft-t]

During the Clinton year there was exceptional job growth. Thus billions of dollars in SS receipts greatly exceeded the  amount paid out in benefits. Thus more dollars went into the trust fund which is borrowed by the federal government, the only option for investing Trust fund money as that is required by law.

In other words government borrowed more from the trust fund because it was available and fewer bonds were sold to investors foreign and domestric.However, if you own any governemt bonds I will pay you half of face value because you just stated that those investment were "poof" gone!

Only an idiot would expect the government to reneg on their bond issues. Why would they ever do that with the assethlding wehave in govwrnment owned assets? Why would we ever elect a segment of our population that would propose bankruptcy as a viable  option?