Political Quotes

“Yeah. The trust fund is actually fairly simple. A lot of people think that it doesn't exist. They think it is a myth. It is real. What it represents is the accumulated excess collections that Social Security has made over the years. I tell people that the last time we really had a major overhaul of Social Security was back in the 1980s. Ever since then, we have taken more money in every month in Social Security taxes, FICA, than we have paid out in benefits. So if you take $100 in in a particular month and only spend $80, you have $20 left over. That is the money that goes into the trust fund. It is essentially a savings account. Now, when people say, oh, it doesn't really exist, you have stolen money from it, and it is not there, that is not true. You can't keep $20, real paper money, in an account someplace, in a desk. That would be foolish. What we do is we invest in the only thing the Social Security Administration is allowed to invest in, which is U.S. treasuries. There is actually in excess of $2 trillion in the trust fund. The trust fund exists. It is in a drawer in West Virginia in a building named after Senator Byrd, as most of the buildings are in West Virginia. It is full of treasuries.”