Social Security Quotes
Scary Quote #01
"Trust Fund balances are available to finance future benefits...but only in
a bookkeeping sense...they do not consist of real economic assets that can
be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on
the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes
or borrowing." President William Clinton in his Analytical Perspectives
section of the 2000 budget.
Scary Quote #02
"We have no positive assets in the Social Security Trust Fund." Secretary
of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, June 19, 2001, at a luncheon speech to the
Coalition for American Financial Security in the Sky Room of the World Trade
Center and later to Sam Donaldson on This Week, Sunday, June 25, 2001.
Scary Quote #03
It holds no real assets. Consequently, it does not generate funds to pay
future benefits. These so-called trust fund 'assets' simply reflect the
accumulated sum of funds transferred from Social Security over the years to
finance other government operations." June O'Neill, former Director of the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) at the CATO Institute's Conference for
Women and Social Security.
Scary Quote #04
"Government trust funds do not correspond in any meaningful way to those in
the private sector. Government trust funds are simply a form of earmarking,
accounting mechanisms that record tax receipts, user fees, and other credits
and associated expenditures." Barry Anderson of the Congressional Budget
Office in testimony before the House Budget Committee, September, 2002.
Scary Quote #05
"It means that ordinary working Americans, like teachers, police officers
and firefighters, who believe their payroll taxes are going toward their
Social Security retirement are in for a surprise...Instead of going to the
Social Security trust fund, their payroll contributions are being funneled
directly into tax breaks for individuals and corporations" Robert Matsui
(D-CA), Chairman House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Social Security,
Associated Press, March 30, 2002.
Scary Quote #06
"In fact, the money the government has supposedly been putting aside from
the Baby Boomers' Social Security taxes is not there. The government has
been borrowing the money to pay for the budget deficit. The Social Security
Trust Fund is simply IOUs from the U.S. Treasury.... [Social Security] would
be fine if the government would stop borrowing the money." Newt Gingrich,
April 7, 1995
Scary Quote #07
"The truth is that the Social Security Trust Fund has already been stripped
bare. There is no trust and no fund. It is a lot like the S&Ls. The savings
and loans had a lot of real estate on the books, a lot of property, a lot of
shopping centers, a lot of deposits, and everything else, until you looked
inside and found out there was nothing there. The assets were mostly on
paper.... Meanwhile, the Social Security cupboard is bare." Senator Ernest
Hollings in the Congressional Record of April 24, 1991
Scary Quote #08
"The Enron case made headlines because fraud and deception of such magnitude
is fairly unusual in the corporate world. Washington fraud and deception of
a much greater magnitude doesn't make the headlines because fraud and
deception in government is standard practice ... Washington politicians have
for decades been doing precisely what Enron has been accused of doing
concealing debt with accounting tricks. Congressmen tell us that our Social
Security taxes go into a trust fund to pay for future retirement pensions.
That is a boldface lie. The Social Security trust fund has no money in it."
Walter Williams, Professor of Economics, George Mason University in an
article published by the Washington Times April 17, 2002.
Scary Quote #09
"When the money going out exceeds the money coming in, you are in trouble
and that happens in 2016. Those who try to push the fatal date off to 2038
are counting the money that Social Security has in its so-called trust fund.
However, the so-called trust fund exists only as a legal technicality, not
as an economic reality...you cannot spend and save the same money." Thomas
Sowell, The Washington Times, July 29, 2001.
Scary Quote #10
"Every dollar collected in (FICA) payroll taxes is spent the very minute,
the very hour, the very day it comes in the door ... any funds left over,
they are spent on other programs or used to pay off the national debt. But
nothing is saved. No money is stashed away in bank vaults; no investments
made in real assets." John C. Goodman, President of the National Center
for Policy Analysis in an article published by the Washington Times, April
12, 2002.
