Roscoe Bartlett: “And that is why these are shown as debt. Because although there are surpluses in the trust funds, as the gentleman from…”

“And that is why these are shown as debt. Because although there are surpluses in the trust funds, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) points out, there are no monies in the trust funds. Because we have a computer in Washington which, when we take some money from your paycheck, presumably put in trust for you, it only momentarily goes in trust for you, and then we almost immediately take that money out; and in its place we put a nonnegotiable bond in there. It is a nonnegotiable security; that is, we cannot negotiate it. It is only a security that can be redeemed by the Federal Government. When the time comes to redeem that, as the gentleman from Michigan points out, our children are then going to have to either increase taxes to get the money or borrow the money and pass that debt on to their children. I hope they do not do that, because I am ashamed that we are passing this debt on to our children.”