Did congress during the Clinton administration take funds from social security to balance the budget?

Question

I'm a bit confused on issues concerning why social security is so low now in 2008. If that started with Clinton, possibly to balance the budget. If social security was in trouble before Clinton and if it worsened with Clinton or not...Was checking wikipedia but couldn't get a lot of these questions answered.

Answer 1

Yes, they did use Social Security to "balance" the budget. All Congresses have used the Social Security surplus since LBJ.

October 19, 1999

White House, Congress promise not to raid Social Security

Promises vs. realities

"We're still troubled by the CBO analysis that we're using Social Security trust funds, at least $19 billion," admitted Daschle.

"Most government experts acknowledge that Social Security’s trust fund is little more than a ledger entry. Indeed, in last year’s budget documents, experts within the Clinton’s own Office of Management and Budget wrote:

"These balances [within the trust fund] are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures – but only in a bookkeeping sense. Unlike the assets of private pension plans, [government trust funds] do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits."

"Here's how the raid works: The surplus payroll tax dollars go into the Social Security Trust Fund, which in turn uses them to buy special issue bonds from the U.S. Treasury.

Then Congress can use those dollars, in the Treasury, to spend on anything it wants. All that Social Security has are the bonds. The bonds pay interest, but Congress raids the interest, too, by simply placing more bonds in the trust fund. The trust fund itself is a FILING CABINET in West Virginia — it doesn't have any real funds in it and you probably shouldn't trust it."

July 29, 2005

"Stop the Raid": Fiction vs. Fact

"FICTION: “Stop the Raid” legislation would increase the federal budget deficit by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, without fixing Social Security’s long-term solvency problem.

FACT: “Stop the Raid” legislation does not increase the long-term national debt. Eliminating hidden borrowing will appear to increase short-term deficits, but this is because Congress only looks a few years into the future when it does its budget. Look a few more years out and neither the amount of spending nor the amount of borrowing will change. The only change is that Congress is forced to report the actual level of its deficit spending instead of using Social Security as a slush fund to conceal part of it from the American people."

Answer 2

No one rob SS, what happen was a system that started out to give our elderly a little nest egg for say 5 years tops has been expanded to cover the minor children of anyone who dies no matter how long they worked, two and three ex wives, SSI, and on and on. If it had been left as a little income for those over 65 or 67 only we would still be covering the bill, but it has become a back door give away, I would like to know what elections the libs were wanting to win when they added all this c**p to SS.

Answer 3

Social Security isn't actually that low now - it's more than predictions are that it will be very low in the future, anywhere from 30-75 years.  One of the big reasons for this is the baby boomer generation is nearing retirement age and is a very large population, and that people are living longer than they used to, so we can expect the baby boomers to be drawing on social security longer than previous generations have been.  This was actually one of Al Gore's major campaign issues - creating a "social security lockbox" that would fortify a Soecial Security savings that Congress would not be allow to spend, but people were too caught up laughing at the candidates to actually follow any issues in 2000.  And now.

Clinton balanced the budget in large part thanks to the booming economy, and not really having a major war ciphoning off funds.  The economy died off as Clinton left office and the tech boom settled down, then was trounced pretty heavily with 9/11, increasing oil prices, and the real estate bust.  A weaker economy means fewer taxes are collected, and this is worsened by Bush's lax tax policies for the wealthy.  In addition, the Iraq war has led to greater spending.  Spending more money and collecting fewer taxes tends to do bad things to a budget.

Answer 4

No, military spending went down after the Cold War.  A lot of people credit Reagan for the surplus that came in during Clinton's administration.  Some think it was just a windfall for him.

Answer 5

No, congress did not take funds from social security to balance the budget during Clinton's Amdinistration.  The biggest raid on the SS trust fund was during the Reagan-Bush years to help pay for the "tax cuts".

Answer 6

no the cuts were mostly from military. But they actually also raised taxes on the  wealthiest of americans.

The economy thrived.

Answer 7

No, that wouldn't be allowed.  Thats non-sense

Answer 8

Yes. It not only involves the President but the house and senate as well. They not take the money from social security, but they take money from the gas tax and many others. This has been going on for a long time. I'm 60 years old and I remember that social security was going broke back in the 70s.