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It's Debt Service, NOT DISCRETIONARY SPENDING! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-20
Using tax dollars to cover the shortfall of payroll taxes for paying benefits to Social Security recipients is NOT DISCRETIONARY SPENDING — IT IS DEBT PAYMENT. When payroll taxes exceeded funds disbursed, the surplus was placed into the “general fund”, and treasury notes were put in the trust fund in the place of the actual surplus. This happened for DECADES following the passage of the enabling legislation. The “surplus” became funds that the Federal Government spent however it pleased. Now, however, the funds collected via payroll taxes is insufficient to cover the amount of funds disbursed (paid in benefits — Social Security payments), and the government, besides not having “surplus” funds to spend as it sees fit, has to siphon tax dollars off to cover the difference between what funds are collected via payroll taxes and the funds payed out as benefits — a double whammy for them — their unnoticed cash cow is no more. The tax dollars that are used to cover the difference are used to redeem the treasury notes that were placed in the trust fund; they are NOT DISCRETIONARY SPENDING! Those tax dollars are being used to PAY BACK THE DEBT; are being used to redeem treasury notes that reside in the trust fund. Stop calling it discretionary spending, dammit, and admit that it is paying back some of the huge national debt, on which it would be a disaster to default.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/20/2188467/-It-s-Debt-Service-NOT-DISCRETIONARY-SPENDING
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