Facts on the state of Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. Did you get a sense of this from the State of the Union speech?

I write this at 4:15 PM February 12 so I am a bit ahead of myself.

Now that you have listened to the President’s State of the Union address and heard of new investments we need to make and about the sanctity of Social Security and Medicare, but little of practical solutions to preserve them, take a look at what I just received from the Congressional Budget Office. This is its spreadsheet on the state of Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.

First look at the column for 2021 and note the negative disbursements and that Social Security starts drawing from the Trust to pay benefits. Then look at 2016 when the Disability Trust is exhausted.

Note the Medicare Hospital Trust is already running a deficit after interest payments and that by 2023 there is no Trust left.

Income is payroll taxes working people pay and the interest is what the Treasury pays the Trust Fund on bonds it has issued. The money to pay the interest comes from …where does the money come from, oh right, from deficit spending.

Note the CBOs a footnote at the very bottom of the spreadsheet. Don’t you just love it?