The Social Security system will pay $659 billion in benefits this fiscal year, but payroll taxes will produce only $653 billion, the CBO said last month. (See www.cbo.gov/budget/factsheets/2009b/oasdiTrustfund.pdf)

No one receiving benefits should panic — the federal government won’t short anyone’s checks. Social Security has other sources of income (primarily interest earnings on its trust fund) so the overall system is still expected to pull in about $150 billion more than it spends this fiscal year.

Still, the growing shortfall between payroll taxes collected and benefits paid will exacerbate the already enormous difference between the government’s income and its expenditures. Last fiscal year, Social Security system pulled in $50 billion more in taxes than it spent, and the money helped fund government. This year, that source is gone.

This happened sooner than expected because the economic downturn has undermined the payroll taxes collected for the system, while costs are continuing to rise rapidly as baby boomers begin to retire.

The CBO doesn’t expect the imbalance to go away any time within the next decade. Its projections indicate Social Security will still cover its bills, if interest earnings are counted. But the surpluses provided by that interest will continue to erode, leaving less to fund the rest of government.

Result: more pressure to raise taxes. Such news, in general, is the kind of information that helped drive the “tea parties” around the country last week.

Red-hot spending rates in the past decade made the federal kettle boil over, and our budget surpluses evaporated. Now a new administration and a new Congress, facing a terrible economic crisis, are turning up the heat another notch. We dare not crack the kettle, so more money must come from someone, at some point.

No wonder trouble is brewing.