NPR. This election, how the US government is going to pay for stuff, is less clear than ever.

Donald Trump has proposed to eliminate taxes for everybody from firefighters to people working overtime.

He's also proposing cutting taxes on Social Security benefits.

And the Committee for a responsible federal budget last week

released a report that has estimated that that policy

among others would mean that the Social Security Fund would run out of money in

2031. That's a few years earlier than it would be otherwise.

Now to be clear, when the Social Security Fund runs out of money, it doesn't mean that no

Social Security payments will go out to retirees and disabled people and survivors of deceased spouses.

But if nothing is done, it could mean lower payments.

To date, Social Security has been self-sustaining, and when it runs out of money, as it's projected to do,

politicians might ask, could we just borrow more money? If the government starts borrowing for Social Security though, that would put pressure

on already rising government debt.

That's right. The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget separately estimated that both

candidates' policies would increase the wider federal debt.

Kamala Harris by around four trillion dollars over ten years and Donald Trump nearly double that.

This is the indicator for Planet Money, I'm

Adrian Ma and I'm Darren Woods. Today on the show, given all these election

goodies for voters, how worried should we be about Social Security and the federal debt?

Today we explain a fresh indicator to assess whether or not America's getting too far in the red.

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Planning ahead is truly one of the best gifts you can give your family.

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