Woolleybugger
Mayor
it can be done if you believe in the concept of funding each major program uniquely and independently just as a corporation does with any cost center. For instance, say excess reserves in the SS fund were prohibited from being loaned to the federal or state government. That would force them to have bond holders that actually paid interest to the fund outside of the general fund making them the same as any other bond sold by any corporation. What my idea is trying to do is force accountability for funding to each program and taking the power to do what you just said out of the hands of the government. Financial sleight of hands have created this interdependency which then makes any meaningful discussion of the budget and the incomes impossible. In many ways, our general fund is like the securitization of debt that caused the collapse. Imagine if you were sold a war bond instead of a t-bill to fund the defense department. What if you bought SS bonds or Medicare bonds...it could work.