Bush owns $5 million in worthless pieces of paper

We all know how ridiculous last month's little photo-op in West Virginia was, when the President peered into the filing cabinets housing the Social Security Trust Fund, and called them "worthless pieces of paper."

I have just come from the Bureau of Public Debt... I went there because I'm trying to make a point about the Social Security trust. You see, a lot of people in America think there's a trust, in this sense -- that we take your money through payroll taxes and then we hold it for you, and then when you retire, we give it back to you. But that's not the way it works.

There is no "trust fund," just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay... The office here in Parkersburg stores those IOUs. They're stacked in a filing cabinet. Imagine -- the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet.

Yeah, "IOUs" backed with the full faith and credit of the United States government... you know all the arguments.

What you might not know is that the President OWNS $5 million dollars worth of these pieces of paper. From the LA Times:

The disclosure, for instance, said Bush's 1,583-acre ranch was worth $1 million to $5 million. The president reported having at least $4.95 million in Treasury notes, $750,000 in certificates of deposits and $217,000 in checking and money market accounts. Bush owns the mineral rights valued at up to $15,000 on property in Reeves County, Texas. He also owns a tree farm, which is valued at about $600,000.

Just imagine. The President's retirement security is just sitting in a filing cabinet.

I guess the one good result if Bush makes good on his veiled threat to default on the Social Security Trust Fund is that he'd send himself to the poorhouse with the same stroke. Oh wait, he'd probably exempt his OWN Treasury bills. He'd just default on yours and mine.