Here is a great Venn Diagram made by the Examiner’s Tim Carney:
This is great, but I think that something is missing in the Social Security side of the diagram. Only in the case of Social Security will people be asked to pay a second time for what they’ve already paid for: all these IOUs in the Social Security Trust Funds. Since the money is gone, taxpayers will be asked to pay once again for the $2.6 trillion in the trust funds — once the program starts cashing in its IOUs — in the form of new taxes or more deficit spending (future taxes, higher interest rates, or future downgrades, or a mix of the three).
More on Social Security’s cost to taxpayers here.