Little-Acorn
07-28-2011, 04:42 PM
The Social Security Trust fund is one of a group of such trust funds the Federal Govt handles. (Another is the Railroad Workers Retirement Trust fund). This group of trust funds is call the "Government Accounts" series, in bureaucrat-speak.
Twice a year, the government is required by law to make a major payment into the Government Accounts fund, on June 30 and December 31 of every year, to maintain the funds at viable levels.
On June 30, 2011, they missed the payment, for the first time since the funds were started. Are you worried about the government defaulting on its payments with the budget crisis getting bigger and bigger? Well, they just did.
Money is normally paid out of these funds to make Social Security payments to senior citizens, retirement payments to railroad workers, etc. And as mentioned, the fund are refilled twice a year, as required by law. But not this time.
On June 30 and Dec. 31, large transactions (deposits to the accounts, and payments out of them) are normally made to these accounts. And the government publishes a Daily Treasury Statement report detailing them (and all other Treasury activity). Until this year, the net amounts have always been positive - more money has been put into the accounts, than has been paid out.
So if you subtract the payments from the deposits on this special day, it has always come out positive - anywhere from +$40 billion to +100 billion or more, for the last 15 years or so.
But not on June 30, 2011.
I did the graph thing with Excel again. According to published government numbers, here's what the net difference looks like, on each of these semiannual major-payment days (end of the 3rd quarter of each fiscal year) since 1998. (That's as long as easily-available records have been kept by the Govt)
http://www.little-acorn.com/pics/SocSecFundActivity01.jpg
Look at the column on the far right.
As you can see, the surplus going into these accounts every June 30, has always been sizeable. But on the most recent payment date (June 30, 2011), a major shortfall occurred, of more than $40 billion dollars. The government failed to make its payment into the Social Security Trust Fund and the other funds in the Government Accounts series.
Uh-oh.
The Daily Treasury Statement reports for the semiannual payment date (the one that shows the shortfall) can be found at the Treasury's official government website at:
https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/DTSFilesArchiveAction.do
In that website, click on the year you want to see, then click on "Third Quarter", then scroll down to the last day in that quarter. It is always June 30 unless June 30 falls on a weekend, in which case it's the Friday before that weekend. Click on that day and you'd get the two-page report. On the second page, look for "Government Accounts" under Table III-B.
Of course, the dollar amounts listed are all funny money. They get "borrowed" out on a regular basis, repaid, then borrowed" again endlessly. But the U.S. Govt likes to tell us they are real, solid funds in those accounts.
Well, the real, solid funds just shrank by a pretty major chunk. There is no way the government could have made the required payments except by borrowing a whole lot more - which would have put them in violation the National Debt Ceiling.
Are you worried about the U.S. Govt defaulting? Well, they just did.
And it's only going to get worse... because the spending goes merrily along, without slackening even a little bit.
Twice a year, the government is required by law to make a major payment into the Government Accounts fund, on June 30 and December 31 of every year, to maintain the funds at viable levels.
On June 30, 2011, they missed the payment, for the first time since the funds were started. Are you worried about the government defaulting on its payments with the budget crisis getting bigger and bigger? Well, they just did.
Money is normally paid out of these funds to make Social Security payments to senior citizens, retirement payments to railroad workers, etc. And as mentioned, the fund are refilled twice a year, as required by law. But not this time.
On June 30 and Dec. 31, large transactions (deposits to the accounts, and payments out of them) are normally made to these accounts. And the government publishes a Daily Treasury Statement report detailing them (and all other Treasury activity). Until this year, the net amounts have always been positive - more money has been put into the accounts, than has been paid out.
So if you subtract the payments from the deposits on this special day, it has always come out positive - anywhere from +$40 billion to +100 billion or more, for the last 15 years or so.
But not on June 30, 2011.
I did the graph thing with Excel again. According to published government numbers, here's what the net difference looks like, on each of these semiannual major-payment days (end of the 3rd quarter of each fiscal year) since 1998. (That's as long as easily-available records have been kept by the Govt)
http://www.little-acorn.com/pics/SocSecFundActivity01.jpg
Look at the column on the far right.
As you can see, the surplus going into these accounts every June 30, has always been sizeable. But on the most recent payment date (June 30, 2011), a major shortfall occurred, of more than $40 billion dollars. The government failed to make its payment into the Social Security Trust Fund and the other funds in the Government Accounts series.
Uh-oh.
The Daily Treasury Statement reports for the semiannual payment date (the one that shows the shortfall) can be found at the Treasury's official government website at:
https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/DTSFilesArchiveAction.do
In that website, click on the year you want to see, then click on "Third Quarter", then scroll down to the last day in that quarter. It is always June 30 unless June 30 falls on a weekend, in which case it's the Friday before that weekend. Click on that day and you'd get the two-page report. On the second page, look for "Government Accounts" under Table III-B.
Of course, the dollar amounts listed are all funny money. They get "borrowed" out on a regular basis, repaid, then borrowed" again endlessly. But the U.S. Govt likes to tell us they are real, solid funds in those accounts.
Well, the real, solid funds just shrank by a pretty major chunk. There is no way the government could have made the required payments except by borrowing a whole lot more - which would have put them in violation the National Debt Ceiling.
Are you worried about the U.S. Govt defaulting? Well, they just did.
And it's only going to get worse... because the spending goes merrily along, without slackening even a little bit.