Social Security is Adding to the Debt Now

Conn Carroll / March 29, 2011

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) just doesn’t have a strong grasp of the facts when it comes to Social Security and the debt. Yesterday, at a campaign rally calling on Congress to “Back Off” Social Security Reid again repeated his line that: “Social Security has not contributed one penny to the debt or the deficit.” As FactCheck.org has certified, this is just plain false. The reality is that Social Security added $37 billion to the debt last year and will add another $45 billion to the debt today.

Reid and the rest of his allies on the left are clinging to a myth about what is in the Social Security Trust Fund. The Trust Fund does exist. You can even travel to the sleepy little town of Parkersburg, West Virginia and visit all $2.5 trillion dollars of it. The problem is that the special issue U.S. Treasury bonds inside the nondescript office building where the Trust Fund is kept are not cash. As President Bill Clinton’s OMB noted back in 2000: (more…)