Social Security Insolvent: $150 billion added to federal deficit

Today, the Social Security program became insolvent.

Since its inception, Social Security was running a surplus, and promises of "lock boxes" and "trust funds" were made by politicians claiming that the program was flush with money and that we have many years of solvency.

We all knew this was bogus, of course, as I laid it out here last year. But now the Social Security program no longer will artificially lower our federal deficit, it will add to it. From today on, we will have to "borrow" money from the trust fund that we already spent.

Last year, when the federal deficit was around $480 billion, we added $1 trillion to the national debt. How was that possible? First, there was $350 billion of "off budget" spending such as emergency spending on the wars and economic bailouts. But more importantly, the surpluses of the Social Security trust fund was lent to the general budget (and not counted against the federal deficit).

This year, however, we will miss the opportunity to spend the $150 billion that was added to the general fund. Now we are forced to print more money to pay for Social Security.

Washington is broken and needs an honest analysis and serious belt tightening...

But here is the link to this groundbreaking story that no one will really cover...