04-21-2017, 07:40 PM
(04-21-2017, 06:55 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: There's one other problem with that graph. If the surplus is really
positive in 2000, as the green line shows, then the red line should be
above the blue line in the years 2000.
The reason that it isn't is because the federal government borrows
from the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds, and counts
those borrowings as income, which is total crap, but what else do we
expect from the federal government?
I'd like to add a line to that graph that depicts the amount borrowed
from trust funds, so that the green line will truly be a value
computed from all three of the other lines. I can't find this on the
St. Louis Fed site. Do you have any insight into this problem?
I'm not sure whether it's the borrowing that would make the lines add up, or the Social Security tax revenue, which also appears to be missing from that graph. I don't have more insight into the St. Louis Fed on this issue, but I have found the usgovernmentspending.com site to be useful.
