The Social Security Trust Fund Is Rapidly Approaching Insolvency

I’m old enough to remember when Al Gore coined the term “lockbox” as a euphemism for how he was going to protect the Social Security surplus. The year was 2000, and Gore was the incumbent Vice President, campaigning for the presidency. His administration had just recorded a budget surplus of $236 billion, the largest in American history still to this day. More than two-thirds of the surplus, or $160 billion, was created by the revenue from Social Security taxes exceeding payments to Social Security recipients. Vice President Gore wanted to save that Social Security surplus for the future, while his...