A pie chart from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities utilizing data from the Congressional Budget Office highlights the huge impact of tax cuts, and relatively small impact of entitlements upon the national debt:
The source of most Social Security revenues is payroll taxes, mandatory contributions from deductions from the wages of workers and matched by employees. As explained here, the other two sources are “interest earned on revenue not needed to pay benefits and expenses in prior years, and so invested in certificates of obligation and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury; and income taxes on the Social Security benefits of those with higher incomes.” No money, therefore, goes to the trust fund from general revenues. Instead, over $2.5 trillion is owedto the Social Security trust fund from the federal government’s general fund- largely to pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy. (See this blog with its debt/savings clock.)
Perspective
