I don't have understanding. If SS benefits are paid from a trust fund,

[sprinkleeninow]

why is there threatening mention that they could be delayed or worse.

[viva la]

1. For one thing

There won't be any workers to process and mail checks.

[sprinkleeninow]

2. OK, but if you have direct deposit, that's still affected?

[Jim__]

3. "... we would simply not have enough cash to meet all of our obligations,"

Government shutdown

Government officials are sounding warnings that Social Security payments could be halted if Congress and the White House don’t come up with a bill to raise the debt ceiling before the government goes into default.

That could happen as soon as June 1, according to recent comments from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. She addressed the threat to Social Security in an interview earlier this week, USA Today reported.

“Whether it’s defaulting on interest payments that are due on the debt or payments due for Social Security recipients or to Medicare providers, we would simply not have enough cash to meet all of our obligations,” Yellen told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “And it’s widely agreed that financial and economic chaos would ensue.”

...

“Not paying any of our bills is default,” she added during the hearing. “When you think about the pain that it would cause to Social Security recipients, to food stamp recipients, to vendors who have supplied services, to the government who have their own payrolls to meet, to be told they are not going to be paid, the government is not going to honor those bills. That’s a default.”

more ...

[sprinkleeninow]

4. I did read that. The last time this happened, I can't recall if my parents were affected badly.

Now I'm in the 'game' and it's quite troubling. We're not all 'flush with funds'.

[Thunderbeast]

6. It has NEVER happened before

This is very different from a government shutdown....much worse.

[sprinkleeninow]

7. I realize I meant shutdown. My head...

[viva la]

11. I sure hope Biden follows Larry Tribe's advice

And says it's his constitutional duty to pay Congress's bills.

[Thunderbeast]

5. The "Trust Fund" is only an accounting construct.

There is no pot of money designated in a vault somewhere with your name on it.

Every dime spent by the Federal government comes from taxes paid by current workers. The Social Security surplus dollars generated by us boomers were loaned back to the general Fund to pay for then current services. Now that there are fewer workers paying FICA taxes, the commitments are in jeopardy.

A default on the debt will prevent the Treasury from borrowing to pay for anything beyond what current tax collections can fund.

The Constitution does not authorize the President to make the decision about who gets paid...only Congress is authorized to appropriate funds.

Whatever happens, someone (Congress or the President) will be violating the Constitution if the debt ceiling is not raised and funding impounded.

[sprinkleeninow]

8. Thanx much. 👊

[Chainfire]

9. It is hard for me to believe that in my country we are talking about cutting off old people's source

of income before we are talking about cutting of heads! To the Republicans seniors have become nothing more than a bargaining chip.

[Warpy]

10. The trust fund is gone, robbed for decades by Congress

who used Social Security tax increases to disguise what Republican tax giveaways to the rich did to the deficit.

Social Security is paid out of the General Fund.

I don't know what will happen if Congress puts the country into default. I suspect Biden will do an end run around the shitheads, either using the Fourteenth Amendment or some other mechanism that hasn't yet been discussed.

Next time Democrats get control, the silly debt ceiling limit legislation needs to be repealed. Then they can go to work on TFG's ruinious tax cuts for billionaires.