John Shaw: “Mr. Chairman, so much has been said on this floor about Social Security that I think somebody has to get up and get the…”

“Mr. Chairman, so much has been said on this floor about Social Security that I think somebody has to get up and get the record straight. There have been errors made on both sides, but particularly on the minority side, when they refer to this bill in any way jeopardizing Social Security for our seniors. It is more and more of the same old thing: scare our seniors, scare our seniors. Let me give an example which I think absolutely shows 100 percent that this particular bill in no way endangers Social Security. To begin with, we hear time and time again on this floor that the Republicans are raiding the Social Security trust fund. Mr. Chairman, there is no money in the Social Security trust fund. There are only Treasury bills. The way the Social Security System works is the money that comes into Social Security that is not used to pay benefits goes into the general fund, which is called the surplus, and is replaced in the trust fund with Treasury bills. So anyone getting up and making this statement, it is a great statement to make from a political standpoint, but from a factual standpoint it simply is not true. It is not true.”