Government Accepted Accounting Principles
This week, the trustees for The Social Security Trust Fund issued their annual report. The good news is that the Trust's funds will last until 2033, but that is 4 years earlier than last years projection. This news is only good if you believe that Elvis is alive and well, or that raising tax rates encourages investment and job creation.
They report The Trust Fund's total assets of $2.7 trillion, all of which are invested in U.S. Treasuries. In other words, we, the taxpayers, owe The Social Security Trust Fund $2.7 trillion. So, "where's the beef"? They can't have it both ways! If we could use the principles of government accounting, we could borrow and spend all the money in our 401Ks and IRAs, and replace those assets with our personal IOU. We could spend our total retirement, and still have it.
On a related subject, in 2011 our national income (GDP) grew by $600 billion. Sounds good until you compare what we spent (1.3 trillion deficit) to achieve this growth. Where is that elusive Keynesian Multiplier? If my math is any good, this Obama investment only lost 54%. When compared to Solyndra, not bad!
