Social Security status-quo defenders have assured us for the past 25 years that Social Security is fully funded -- for the next 25 years, or 2036. So if there are real assets in the Social Security Trust Fund -- $2.6 trillion allegedly -- then how could failure to reach a debt-ceiling agreement possibly threaten seniors' Social Security checks?

The answer is that the federal government has borrowed all of that trust fund money and spent it... And the only way the trust fund can get some cash to pay Social Security benefits is if the federal government draws it from general revenues or borrows the money -- which, of course, it can't do because of the debt ceiling.
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And here's the real irony: Anytime someone has proposed personal Social Security retirement accounts as a way to ensure that people have real assets in their own account without bankrupting the government or future generations, defenders of the status quo would pounce, calling such a reform, in Al Gore's words, a "risky scheme." They have vociferously claimed that those trust fund assets are real and that only by having the government manage and control the accounts would seniors be guaranteed to get their retirement checks.
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If the budget crisis has done nothing else, it has exposed the decades-long lie about the solvency of the Social Security trust fund. The trust fund may be backed by the "full faith and credit of the federal government," as defenders constantly remind us, but if it had real assets the president wouldn't be talking about seniors missing their checks.