Hmmm, is that what "Intragovernmental Holdings" are?
Yes. Following is a description from page 228 of the Analytical Perspectives from the most recent U.S. Budget:
Debt Held by Government Accounts
Trust funds, and some special funds and public enterprise revolving funds, accumulate cash in excess of current needs in order to meet future obligations. These cash surpluses are generally invested in Treasury debt.
Investment by trust funds and other Government accounts has risen greatly for many years. It was $254 billion in 2005, as shown in Table 16–4, and is estimated to rise to $311 billion in 2007. The holdings of Federal securities by Government accounts are estimated to grow to $3,904 billion by the end of 2007, or 42 percent of the gross Federal debt. The percentage is estimated to rise gradually in the following years, as the trust funds and several major revolving funds and special funds continue to accumulate surpluses.
The large investment by Government accounts is concentrated among a few trust funds. The two Social Security trust funds—Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance—have a large combined surplus and invest $546 billion during 2005–07, which is 65 percent of the total estimated investment by Government accounts. The funds for Federal employee retirement also invest a large share of the total. The principal trust fund for Federal civilian employees is the civil service retirement and disability trust fund, which accounts for 11 percent of the total investment by Government accounts during 2005–07. The military retirement trust fund and the special fund for uniformed services retiree health care account for another 13 percent. The two Medicare trust funds—Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance—account for another 9 percent. Altogether, the investment by Social Security, Medicare, and these three Federal employee retirement funds is almost as much as the total investment by Government accounts during this period. At the end of 2007, they are estimated to own 92 percent of the total debt held by Government accounts. Many of the other Government accounts also increase their holdings of Federal securities during this period.
The following table lists the actual trust funds that hold the intragovernmental debt:
DEBT HELD BY GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTS (billions of dollars)
Investment or disinvestment Holdings
----------------------------- end of
2005 % of 2006 2007 2007 % of
Description actual total est. est. est. total
---------------------------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ ------- -----
Old-age and survivors trust fund.. 163.6 64.4 171.7 185.9 1973.7 50.6
Civil Service retirement & disabil 28.9 11.4 30.0 30.5 721.2 18.5
Hospital insurance trust fund..... 12.9 5.1 18.4 20.6 316.2 8.1
Disability insurance trust fund... 10.5 4.1 8.3 6.6 208.1 5.3
Military retirement trust fund.... 0.0 0.0 16.9 9.1 203.3 5.2
Uniformed Services Retiree Health. 17.0 6.7 30.3 32.3 115.5 3.0
Unemployment trust fund........... 9.6 3.8 -8.7 13.6 59.7 1.5
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.... 1.2 0.5 1.3 0.0 49.5 1.3
Employees life ins & health benfts 3.1 1.2 3.0 2.7 47.7 1.2
Supplementary medical insurance... -0.2 -0.1 11.4 9.5 38.1 1.0
Housing and Urban Development..... -0.3 -0.1 0.8 0.3 31.7 0.8
Highway and Airport trust funds... -1.8 -0.7 1.4 -1.3 18.4 0.5
Other government accounts......... 9.5 3.8 -5.2 1.6 120.8 3.1
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Total investment in Federal debt.. 254.0 100.0 279.5 311.4 3904.0 100.0
Source: Budget of the United States Government, FY 2007,
Analytical Perspectives, page 229, table 16-4
See #111.
The funding source for government is the U.S. economy.
Withdrawals for current expenses are called taxes.
Because the government can tax, it does not need trust funds to draw on like private pensions.
A government trust fund with actual assets is socialism, i.e. government ownership of the economy.
That is a BAD idea.
(Even cash is not a real asset for the government because they are just debt instruments, the same as the current bonds.)
Better to leave real assets in private hands to earn taxable income.