In her letter on Saturday, Kimberly English recommends a balanced budget amendment to free government money to save the Social Security system. While well-intentioned, her idea is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system works.

Social Security has three sources of funding: (1) the payroll tax that workers and employers pay; (2) interest earned by the trust fund on treasury bonds that the fund is required by law to purchase; and (3) since 1983, income tax on a portion of Social Security benefits received by higher-earning recipients. Congress allocates no money to Social Security, and is prohibited by law from doing so. Why not just repeal this law? It’s part of the act that created the Social Security system in 1935; it’s the same law that prevents Congress from taking mo

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