March 15, 2011
The Hill told readers today that:
“The [Social Security] trust fund itself has a theoretical $2.6 trillion surplus, but that money has been spent by the federal government like general revenues.”
It is not clear what information the paper thinks is added by the word “theoretical.” It is possible to add the word to almost any sentence (e.g. “Washington has a theoretical basketball team”). When something actually exists in the world, calling it “theoretical” is presumably intended to impugn it in some way.
Of course the trust fund does exist in the world, it is held in the form of U.S. government bonds. These bonds are referred to as “IOUs” in the Hill piece. It is highly unusual to refer to bonds of private corporations or government bonds as IOUs.
The article also makes the bizarre assertion that: “the payback [use of interest on the bonds held in the trust fund to pay Social Security benefits] has arrived at a very difficult time, when Washington is running a $1.6 trillion budget deficit.” Actually, the interest rate on government debt is very low right now. This means that it is in fact a very good time for the government to be replacing the bonds held by Social Security with other bonds.
Readers can assume, based on these comments, that the Hill does not like Social Security and wants to see benefits cut. Usually this sort of editorializing is left to the opinion pages but apparently the Hill could not contain its animosity towards the program.
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