Social Security Trust Fund Sits in Drawer

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. -- The Social Security trust fund really does exist -- nestled in the bottom drawer of an unremarkable government file cabinet, The Associated Press.

It's in a pair of white loose-leaf notebooks holding plastic page covers. Each caresses a piece of paper representing a bond worth a staggering amount of money. Say, $8,577,396,000.00 ($8.577 billion), due on June 30, 2013, with 6.5 percent interest.

Actually, the entire setup is, well, a setup.

“The paper is symbolic,'' says Pete Hollenbach, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt, the creation of a 1994 law that anticipated the current debate about Social Security's solvency and whether the trust funds held anything more than IOUs.

As the computer era flowered, Congress passed legislation requiring the Treasury to create a “physical document in form of bond, note or certificate of indebtedness, rather than accounting entry.''

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 2/28/05