Yahoo! News - More smoke than fire: "Of course, the feds will then have to find other ways to cover the full cost of the rest of the budget, as well as raise extra billions to redeem the trust fund bonds. But that's just another reason why it would have been smart not to pile up so much federal debt in recent years. Indeed, it might well have been wise, back when the overall budget was moving into the black, as 'that president' Bill Clinton (news - web sites) then proposed, to put some fund surpluses into private accounts, if only to keep the pols from using them for income tax cuts and other spending."