Retirement benefits are becoming more and more of a ponzi scheme. Maybe that's causing my generation's apathy.
not 401K's, i think they are great plans when you don't look at them everyday and you have 15 years to retire
Except this all ignores the problem. Sure, the SS fund is solvent. But when the SS fund starts cashing in their treasury securities in a decade or so, the US government will undergo a massive fiscal crisis. Whether the SS fund itself is solvent is irrelevant if the rest of the government is not. You can place the blame whereever you want, but it doesn't change the fact of where we are headed. Right now, the SS fund is buying government bonds (or was until this year) - when that stops, the government has to borrow that money elsewhere. When the SS fund is negative on a year-to-year basis, it actually is a net seller of bonds, meaning the government has to borrow even more. When the government has to start borrowing ridiculous sums to pay back the SS fund, then you're going to have massive inflation. Seniors will continue to get their SS checks, but the rest of the country will go to hell.
If absolutely nothing is done, the trust fund will run out of money in 2037, but it only takes a couple of minor tweaks to make it solvent well into the next century. As far as Congress borrowing against it, I would rather have SS funds drawing interest (rather than just sitting around not making money) and would rather have US debt held by the US (as opposed to China or some other foreign government).
Not if we reverse the fiscal decline before then. Eventually, we will have to return tax rates and spending to a responsible level in order to avoid the scenario you spelled out.
