by Calculated Risk on 1/08/2005 12:20:00 AM

Dr. DeLong does an outstanding job with his post "Social Security Talking Points". He points out that any trouble with Social Security Retirement Insurance is small in comparison to other fiscal problems facing the United States. He writes:

Bigger fiscal problems include:

• The current $600 billion a year General Fund deficit.
• The long-run problems of finding financing for and controlling the growth of rapidly-rising Medicare and Medicaid spending.
• The need to make sure that the General Fund has the resources to meet its commitments without undue strain after 2020--when it will no longer be able to borrow from the Social Security Trust Fund.

The following site, The Public Debt Online (run by the US Treasury), is useful in checking the size of the General Fund Deficit. Our National Debt as of Jan 6, 2005 is:

$7,595,653,400,600.33 (that is almost $7.6 Trillion)

As of Jan 6, 2004, our National Debt was:

$6,991,488,657,454.93 (just under $7 Trillion).

So the General Fund has run a deficit of $604 Billion and change over the last 12 months. That is a crisis.