I've heard that the goverment has some trust fund saved up for the "baby-boomer" generation.
There is no trust fund. This is a myth being passed around by some of the Democrats. The trust fund they mention is the general fund, money that all government services come from. So in essense, any money that comes into SS goes into the general fund because the brillaint solcialists of the day never realized that they should actually create a seperate fund to protect the income.
They also failed to realise that SS would only work if the worker to collector ration remained high.
MYTH #3: The Social Security trust fund contains assets that make Social Security secure for the next 40 years.
Those who promote this myth argue that when the program's projected cash flow is combined with the amount of the bonds that will be in the trust fund, the system will have enough assets to pay full benefits through 2041.
FACT: The Social Security "trust fund" is, essentially, a system through which the government lends money to itself.
There is no pool of actual assets that is being reserved to pay the benefits of future retirees. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), in just 15 years, the government will have to come up with new money just to repay the bonds that will be called from the trust fund. Between 2017 and 2041, it will have to make up for a total funding deficit of nearly $6 trillion.
The Social Security system has led most people to believe that their Social Security payments are being held in an actual account in their names to pay their benefits. In reality, however, the Social Security trust fund contains nothing more than IOUs that will be cashable only after higher taxes are imposed on future workers or massive amounts of money are borrowed. While many workers thought that the system's annual surpluses were being used to build up a reserve for baby boomers, in fact, this money has been spent to fund other government programs or to reduce the government debt.
In the private sector, trust funds are used to invest in real assets ranging from stocks and bonds to mortgages and other financial instruments. Assets are to be used only for specifically designated purposes, and the fund managers are held accountable if the money is mismanaged. Funds are managed in order to maximize earnings within a predetermined risk level. Investments are chosen that will provide cash at set intervals, allowing the trust fund to pay its obligations.
The Social Security trust funds are very different from those of the private sector. As described in a report from the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
The Federal budget meaning of the term "trust" differs significantly from the private sector usage.... [T]he Federal Government owns the assets and earnings of most Federal trust funds, and it can unilaterally raise or lower future trust fund collections and payments or change the purpose for which the collections are used.2
Furthermore, Social Security trust funds are "invested" exclusively in a special type of Treasury bond that can only be issued to and redeemed by the Social Security Administration. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, "when the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against another entity or person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from one of its accounts to another."3
According to the OMB, this situation allows funds to appear on the books while they are, in reality, unavailable:
These [Trust Fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures--but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, make it easier for the government to pay benefits.4
In short, the Social Security trust funds are really only an accounting mechanism. They show how much the government has borrowed from Social Security but do not provide any way to finance future benefits. -
http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/BG1613.cfm