Real Talk: CBO Director Tells Democrats Social Security is a Deficit Problem

Real Talk: CBO Director Tells Democrats Social Security is a Deficit Problem

Over the past few years, Democrats have clung to the idea that Social Security is a self-financing program that needs only tweaks to be fixed and, moreover, has not contributed at all to America's current debt and deficit problem. During Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf's testimony to the Senate Budget Committee today, Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon prodded on this point.

"Is it fair to say," Sen. Merkley said, "that Social Security does not contribute to the national debt?"

"I don't think that's right, Senator," Elmendorf responded, before explaining the fiction of the accounting of the Social Security...