[jfengel]

"Steal" isn't quite the right word. The Federal Government does collect more Social Security than they require, and uses it to fund current projects. In theory, those projects are all about growing the overall economy, which means more tax revenue later on.

That was something the Baby Boomers inflicted on themselves. They knew that there were fewer children behind them, so they needed to do something to ensure that they didn't run out of money immediately. So they raised their Social Security tax rates to collect more than they needed. And they had to put it somewhere. Long-term federal bonds were a pretty good place to put it, since they pay a bit more than inflation. There was talk about putting it into the stock market, but that would have been a pretty heavy thumb on the economy.

That was in the 80s. That started coming due about a decade ago, and now is in full swing. We always expected that "trust fund" to come down... but for a variety of reasons it came down faster than they bargained for. And for a variety of reasons, the government took that demand for its bonds as a sign that it should grow, a lot -- and somehow managed to borrow yet more money, even though it had a captive audience of bond buyers.

Maybe "steal" isn't the wrongest word. But it's helpful to understand just what they were thinking. (As a Gen Xer, I'd say what they were "thinking" was that their goal was to screw us and our children, which they've done a great job of.)