>>>>In fact, as Congressmen Archer and Hulshof point out, the "Trust Fund" is an accounting fiction filled with IOU's from other areas of the federal government.
There is no 'accounting fiction'. The accounting accurately portrays the borrowing by the general fund of 'excess' SS receipts, and the liability of the general fund to pay interest on that debt, and eventually to redeem it. That is the reality.
>>>>There are no physical assets in this "Trust Fund" which can be redeemed without the government finding other sources of cash, most likely by raising taxes or massive borrowings from the public when Social Security's current funding surplus turns negative in 2014.
Most trust funds contain equity or debt instruments, not physical assets. The borrowing from the public will be anything but massive, in terms of percent of GNP. And that borrowing was 'incurred' by the deficit spending of the general fund, not any SS 'subsidy'.
>>>>Raising taxes reduces our real income and stunts economic growth and borrowing from the public on a grand scale will cause interest rates to rise, also stunting economic growth.
Just as the public borrowing would have done in even a more 'harmful' manner at times of massive budget deficits, if the SSTF had not been there to cushion the blow. Indeed, a certain percentage of our current economic 'good times' must indeed be attributed to the SSTF funding mechanism.
