The On-Budget is discretionary spending, and the Off-Budget is mandatory spending, which is mainly for social programs like Social Security which have their own dedicated taxes, e.g. the payroll tax.
Over four years, we actually paid down the debt by about $453B. And most of those four surpluses were due to Off-Budget surpluses, primarily from Social Security.
We paid down the publicly-held debt with Social Security surpluses.
The run of Off-Budget deficits ended with legislation in 1983 that raised the tax rate on the Social Security portion of the payroll tax, and in 1985 the Off-Budget dramatically reversed course and began to run hefty surpluses, which continued through 2017.
In 2011, the Washington Post ran "Social Security and its role in the nation's debt" by Glenn Kessler, who took Rep. Xavier Becerra to task for this: "Social Security has never contributed a dime to the nation's $14.3 trillion debt not one penny to our federal budget deficit this year or any year in our nation's history." In his Pinocchio Test, Kessler gave Becerra the rating of "True but false."
If Congress is running a Total deficit, then in order to pay back the Social Security surpluses that went into to the general fund and which were promptly spent, what must happen is this: Congress must borrow more money and go further into debt.
He should be asked if he still thinks that Social Security "Has nothing to do with the deficit" and doesn't affect the debt.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/truth_or_lie_social_security_doesnt_add_to_the_debt.html
Over four years, we actually paid down the debt by about $453B. And most of those four surpluses were due to Off-Budget surpluses, primarily from Social Security.
We paid down the publicly-held debt with Social Security surpluses.
The run of Off-Budget deficits ended with legislation in 1983 that raised the tax rate on the Social Security portion of the payroll tax, and in 1985 the Off-Budget dramatically reversed course and began to run hefty surpluses, which continued through 2017.
In 2011, the Washington Post ran "Social Security and its role in the nation's debt" by Glenn Kessler, who took Rep. Xavier Becerra to task for this: "Social Security has never contributed a dime to the nation's $14.3 trillion debt not one penny to our federal budget deficit this year or any year in our nation's history." In his Pinocchio Test, Kessler gave Becerra the rating of "True but false."
If Congress is running a Total deficit, then in order to pay back the Social Security surpluses that went into to the general fund and which were promptly spent, what must happen is this: Congress must borrow more money and go further into debt.
He should be asked if he still thinks that Social Security "Has nothing to do with the deficit" and doesn't affect the debt.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/truth_or_lie_social_security_doesnt_add_to_the_debt.html
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