Al Franken: “this weekend, driving around the Twin Cities, I was listening to public radio. The host of the program introduced a…”

“this weekend, driving around the Twin Cities, I was listening to public radio. The host of the program introduced a Republican member of the House Budget Committee. The member, whom I will not name to spare him or her a great deal of embarrassment, was asked about the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling. The member assured the host and listeners that failing to raise the debt ceiling would not create a default for a number of reasons. Among them was, according to this member, we can pay out all the Social Security checks to seniors because--and I quote--``the money is in the trust fund.'' Well, of course, there is $2.6 trillion of assets in the trust fund, but the Social Security trust fund is composed entirely of Treasury notes. Allow me to quote from the Congressional Research Service: By law, Social Security revenues credited to the trust fund . . . are invested in non-marketable U.S. government obligations. These obligations are physical (paper) documents issued to the trust fund and held by the Social Security Administration. When the obligations are redeemed, the Treasury must issue a check (a physical document) to the Social Security trust fund for the interest earned on the obligations. CRS continues: However, unlike a private trust that may hold a variety of assets and obligations of different borrowers, the Social Security trust fund can hold only non-marketable U.S. government obligations. The sale of these obligations by the U.S.…”