Jack Snow’s StrengtheningSocialSecurity.gov

Jack Snow’s annouces a government web site of the usual distortions. But could someone explain this line from our Treasury Secretary:

So if someone promises you a 75-year fix, I encourage you to read the fine print. In 1983 we were promised a ‘75-year fix’ – but 2 years later, the system was headed out of balance again.

I’m looking at Table VI.A.2 from the latest OASDI Trustees Report. Reading the fine print – assets continued to rise every year following the 1983 Social Security reform. Footnote 3 does say:

Net interest for 1983-86 reflects payments from a borrowing trust fund to a lending trust fund for interest on amounts owed under the interfund borrowing provisions.

But read deeper and one sees:

Interfund borrowing was permitted by the Social Security Act only during 1982 through 1987; all amounts borrowed were to be repaid prior to the end of 1989. The only exercise of this authority occurred in 1982, when the OASI Trust Fund borrowed assets from the DI and HI Trust Funds. The final repayment of borrowed amounts occurred in 1986.

Is this related to this from Brad DeLong:

Bush said: ‘In 1983, they solved the Social Security problem and said it’s a 75-year fix. We’ll, here we are 22 years later looking at a system that’s going to go into the red in 2018. This time we ought to permanently.’

Yes, Mitch McConnell insists we Democrats stop campaigning – so the GOP can just lie to the American people.