How come the government can take money out of Social Security and spend it?

[Scott L]

Would you rather they borrow even MORE money and make the debt that much larger?

Besides the Social Security Trust Fund is still there, the rest of the government services just "borrowed" the money. But you should see how much our debt is when you factor that in.

The deficit is shrinking right now but it will explode soon, Social Security still makes a surplus, which will end in 2019 as predicted today (it was predicted to change in 2020 last year. I can't wait personally, because the poo will finally hit the fan and we might actually have some meaningful debate because the US public won't accept raising the tax rate by 100% across the board (doubling taxes).