David Price: “I think it is worth mentioning that in 1983, when the Social Security Trust Fund was rescued and put on a path to…”

“I think it is worth mentioning that in 1983, when the Social Security Trust Fund was rescued and put on a path to solvency, we started deliberately running surpluses in Social Security, and we are enjoying those surpluses today. But we were running those surpluses for a purpose, so that the assets will be there when the baby-boomers retire and when the strains on the fund become much greater. Those surpluses are being invested by law in Treasury bonds at market rates of interest. But is it not true that when the time comes to make good on those obligations, we would have a terrible time doing that were we to be saddled with a publicly held national debt of the dimensions that we now are, $3.5 trillion, costing this country something like $230 billion annually in interest costs? So is it not prudent, is it not just common sense, to use our surpluses now to get that publicly held debt down, to get that interest cost off of our back?”