Mark Neumann: “the laws changed in 1983. In 1983 they increased the amount of money that was withheld from workers' paychecks because…”

“the laws changed in 1983. In 1983 they increased the amount of money that was withheld from workers' paychecks because they knew the baby-boom generation was going to get to retirement. And the idea was, by increasing the amount withheld in 1983, they would start accumulating these things. But in answer to the question of how they do this, they were doing it the same way since the beginning, or since 1983 at least, but it was not until the early 1990s that the surpluses started to get very large. And see, that is where the real problem has come in is that the surpluses are now in the range of $100 billion a year. We are now in that part of the bubble, so to speak, where we are supposed to be putting lots of money aside into the savings account so that when we get to 2012 or 2014 and there is not enough money coming in, that we can go and get that money out of our savings account. So what kind of bonds they put in before 1983, I cannot tell my colleague. I can tell him that since 1983 they have been putting in these non-negotiable Treasury bonds. And had they not taken the money, had they put real money in there instead of IOUs, there would be about $750 or $800 billion in Social Security right now today.”