History
The United States government adopted a unified budget in the Johnson administration in 1968, beginning with the 1969 budget. The surplus in the Social Security OASDI (Old Age Survivors and Disabilities Insurance) budget offsets the total deficit, making it appear smaller than it otherwise would.
The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, however changed this so that the two Social Security Trust Funds, and the operations of the Postal Service, are considered to be 'off-budget' and are excluded from the unified budget. This means that the Social Security Tax is not counted as revenue to the General Fund, and interest paid to the Trust Funds is counted as an expense to an external entity. Often Federal budget reports will contain two sets of numbers for the yearly Federal Budget: an 'off-budget' deficit (or surplus) and an 'on-budget' deficit (or surplus) the former of course including the receipts and outlays of these budgets, but by law for purposes of balancing the budget they are 'off-budget'.
Read more about this topic: Unified Budget
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)