Jed Graham of Investors Business Daily points out that the Congressional Budget Office has come up with an “Alternative Fiscal Scenario” for Social Security that, applying current economic policy, projects the Social Security “Trust Fund” as worth less than zero by 2035.
In this scenario, Social Security’s debt (to get real money for the empty “Trust Fund”) would reach $4.5 trillion in 2035. Social Security would be consuming 7.4 percent of the economy (up from 4.2 percent in 2008). And interest rates on new debt to keep Social Security going would be soaring because government itself had borrowed virtually all the cash available.
This is not the rosy scenario. If government spending is not capped and entitlements reined it, this is the realistic scenario.
Frank Warner
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