Has Obama borrowed from social security funds?

Answer 1

It's difficult to answer this question with a simple yes or not, because you really need to understand the mindset of the US government in general (and that portion of it in the Democratic party in particular) first.

There is no social security fund in the sense that it's actually a separate pot of money somewhere. It probably should have been, and there have been some attempts to set up something like a social security trust fund that the government can't dip into whenever they feel like it, but none that have really amounted to anything.

Instead, the money from taxes and FICA and whatnot all effectively goes into one big pot, and if there is at any time any money in the pot that isn't allocated to be spent on something somewhere, the government doesn't feel that it's doing its job.

Effectively, the government has been stealing the Social Security money for decades and using it for ... whatever other crap they feel like funding; underwater basket weaving classes for disadvantaged inner-city youth or something.

That's worked out thus far because more money has been coming in from FICA taxes than going out through Social Security benefits, even including those "Social Security" benefits that are actually more like what was traditionally called welfare and are beyond the original planned scope of the legislation (or at least the original stated scope of the legislation).

It's been pretty clear (again, for decades) that eventually the situation will reverse: more money will need to go out in benefits than is coming in through FICA. The deficit will skyrocket, the Social Security system will collapse in ruins, and taxes will go through the roof. But perish forfend we cut the underwater basket weaving classes, or any other entitlement, now in order to avoid raising taxes later (better known to elected officials as "after I'm no longer in office").

So, back to the original question: Has Obama borrowed from the social security fund? Hell yes. It's not his own personal fault, of course; this has, as previously mentioned, been going on for decades, so it's nothing new to the Obama administration specifically... but he hasn't said "no, I'm not signing a budget unless it stays within tax revenues and at least starts paying back the enormous debt we already owe to the Social Security fund" either.