Soc Sec: Filing Cabinet or Promise?

I've been criticized for economic naivete, but bush's ignorance is appalling.

yesterday

There is no "trust fund," just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay -- will pay for either in higher taxes, or reduced benefits, or cuts to other critical government programs.

...

Imagine -- the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet.

What he doesn't understand is that if the IOUs have no value, then the United States of America is a lie.

We, the people of the United States of America, in the form of our government have made certain promises. One promise is Social Security. As long as the great US of A is still here, you'll be OK in retirement. Another promise is the public debt. We promise to repay this loan you give us by buying bonds. Here you have the nominal President of the United States suggesting that we're going to start breaking our promises big time, in the trillions of dollars.

And yes, if we're not going to break those promises we will exactly have to pay for them with higher taxes or cuts to other government programs. We can cut from the wasteful military and make most of the gap right there, and we can get the rest back from the tax giveaway by restoring tax fairness making sure that there no loopholes and everyone pays their fair share.