To recap: Greenspan hikes Social Security taxes by a trillion and a half dollars or so, four presidents spend all that money on other shit (including, in George W. Bush’s case, a massive tax cut for the wealthy), and then, when it comes time to start paying out those promised benefits, Greenspan announces that it can’t be afforded, the money isn’t there, benefits can’t be paid out. It was a shell game—money comes in the front door as payroll taxes and goes right out the back door as deficit spending, with only new payroll taxes over the years keeping the bubble from popping, continuing the
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