As of a week or two ago SS was bankrupt. That means more going out than coming in 
. It won't be long before they will have to shut it down. Or the alternative is to raise taxes but obama wouldn't do that would he. 
Congress is the real problem here...They have been for decades When Social Security was created, the money deducted from people's pay was supposed to be left alone. But early in its existence it began growing at a faster rate than the benefits that were being taken out. The pile of cash grew so large that no politician could keep their greedy, grimy, little paws off of it and they started to clean it out by spending it on things other than what it was originally intended for. If they had left it alone and kept it invested the way it was supposed to be, there would be no talk about a bankrupt program because it wouldn't be...
Mike wake up! SS was since it's inception a ponzi scheme. There was never a surplus. The money was always placed in the general fund and spent. To say there were IOU's would also be ludicrous.
It was never designed to be a system where your money was placed in an "account" to be invested and accrue interest. SS has always been pay as you go. A little thing FDR came up wit so he could use what was left over to supplement gummint spending.
Rod: It is YOU and others who need to WAKE UP, especially now that our country's future has so much at stake! It is amusing to me when others either try to rewrite history or demonstrate their complete lack of knowledge of how our government works. This is especially true of those who want to blame (or credit) the country's economic ills on whoever the President is at the time.(NOT FDR, not Truman, not Eisenhower, not JFK, not LBJ, not Nixon,not Reagan,not Bush I not Clinton, not Bush II and not Obama(Reagan and Obama could be considered exceptions since they were able to get Congress at the time to get on board with their ideas and programs.) It's the easy, convenient thing to do, but not very fair or accurate. Either you forgot this, never learned it, slept in class, or choose to ignore it for whatever reason. Our country's forefathers did not want one person in charge of everything; they already experienced the downside of that scenario under the monarchy rule of the king they fled from. Thus, Congress was established as a method of ensuring a balance of power and they gave Congress not only the power to enact laws(its primary purpose), but also the "power of the purse strings" or in other words, they are in charge of all facets of the economy unless they choose to dole or delegate that power out to some other entity. So, any President can propose whatever economic spending program they want; but it is Congress that has to hammer out the details and is totally responsible for anything good or bad about the economy. To further ensure the balance of power would remain intact is the exact reason for the differences in the length of time of the terms among the President, Senators and Representatives. They also kept more balance by establishing the Supreme Court to act as a "watchdog" over both Congress and the President (since nothing becomes law until the President signs it.)Similarly,the President was not originally able to take the country into war alone, however, over time Congress has rescinded most of that back to the Commander-in-Chief, for better or worse...
You should've learned it long ago...otherwise GOOGLE it!
