2024-10-30
9 分钟NPR.
This election, how the US Government is going to pay for stuff is less clear than ever.
Donald Trump has proposed to eliminate taxes for everybody, from firefighters to people working overtime.
He's also proposing cutting taxes on Social Security benefits.
And the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget last week released a report that has estimated that that policy, among others, would mean that the Social Security fund would run out of money in 2031.
That's a few years earlier than it would be otherwise.
Now, to be clear, when the Social Security fund runs out of money, it doesn't mean that no Social Security payments will go out to retirees and disabled people and survivors of deceased spouses.
But if nothing is done, it could mean lower payments.
To date, Social Security has been self sustaining.
And when it runs out of money, as it's projected to do, politicians might ask, could we just borrow more money?
If the government starts borrowing for Social Security, though, that would put pressure on already rising government debt.
That's right, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget separately estimated that both candidates policies would increase the wider federal debt Kamala Harris by around $4 trillion over 10 years and Donald Trump nearly double that.
This is the indicator for Planet Money.
I'm Adrian Ma.
And I'm Darian Woods.
Today on the show, given all these election goodies for voters, how worried should we be about Social Security and the federal debt?
Today we explain a fresh indicator to assess whether or not America's getting too far in the red.
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