John Shaw: “I find it absolutely outrageous. Either the speakers that have been up talking about raiding the trust fund do not have…”

“I find it absolutely outrageous. Either the speakers that have been up talking about raiding the trust fund do not have a clue as to how it works or the debate has been absolutely dishonest. Anyone who says that there are dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund that we are raiding, it is not true. It is absolutely not true. The whole question with regard to the Social Security Trust Fund from 1970 right up through 1997, every bit of that surplus was being spent yet the dollars were in the trust fund exactly the way they were before. They go into the trust fund. They are replaced by Treasury bills that are put in the trust fund. There are no dollars in the trust fund. There is no way we can go in and raid the trust fund unless we are grabbing Treasury bills out of there. To listen to the argument that anyone tries to use as a scare tactic I think is below the dignity of this House of Representatives, and I think that this scare tactic is absolutely the low point that I have ever seen in this House of Representatives. We have a once great party that is now bankrupt of ideas.”