Back in January, I wrote this post discussing the loss of approximately $30 billion in health insurance premiums as job losses continue to mount but I should have thrown in Social Security payments as well.   The Washington Post is reporting that job losses are taking their toll on the social security trust fund,

The U.S. recession is wreaking havoc on yet another front: the Social Security trust fund.

With unemployment rising, the payroll tax revenue that finances Social Security benefits for nearly 51 million retirees and other recipients is falling, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. As a result, the trust fund’s annual surplus is forecast to all but vanish next year — nearly a decade ahead of schedule — and deprive the government of billions of dollars it had been counting on to help balance the nation’s books.

So who’s going to pick up the tab for the disappearing health insurance premiums, social security, medicare and states bleeding dry from reduced property taxes, lost sales taxes,  and job losses?

The solution offered in the article suggest more borrowing from China and Japan and I can only quote Tennessee Williams Street Car Desire, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”   Yeah, America is depending on the kindness of strangers for the foreseeable future.