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Comment by drdec | Hacker News Reader

> they could cancel the [social security] program entirely and it wouldn't affect the deficit

I don't think this is true. During the surplus years the savings vehicle was US bonds. So social security lent the US government money.

Now that we are not in a surplus situation, we are using money from those bonds to pay benefits (we are also using SS revenue of course, only part of the payouts come from the bonds).

So if the program were cancelled, the bonds could revert back to the US government - in other words a bunch of debt would be forgiven and would not need to be paid out. Deficit (and debt) reduced.

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> So if the program were cancelled, the bonds could revert back to the US government - in other words a bunch of debt would be forgiven

That seems like a passive-voice way of saying "We could steal from millions of people, pocketing the retirement savings they worked for their entire lives."

Also, there's nothing stopping Social Security from upping the cap and thus returning to surplus, aside from the group of people who would absolutely love to steal from the fund.

> That seems like a passive-voice way of saying "We could steal from millions of people, pocketing the retirement savings they worked for their entire lives."

For a lot of younger people the view is they promised themselves something unsustainable and expect young people to cover it.

Is it? Is that a thing that has been shown to motivate young voters?

If anything I would believe that younger voters would be in favor of more social safety net. Many would be comfortable with the government outright nationalizing most industries.

More social safety net that goes to everyone, not just the people directly responsible for destroying this one. It's hard to be asked to bail out people who intentionally spiked the ball.

I guess "the children are our future" really was what they meant, we just misinterpreted it.

>That seems like a passive-voice way of saying "We could steal from millions of people, pocketing the retirement savings they worked for their entire lives."

You brought up cancelling the program. I was just pointing out that your statement about it having no effect on the deficit was incorrect.

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