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298The 2011 Debt Limit Impasse: Treasury’s Actions & The Counterfactual – What Might Have Happened if the National Debt Hit the Statutory Limitamount in order to pay beneficiaries. 275 The Comptroller Generallater investigated the validity of this maneuver and implicitlyupheld the principle of Trust Fund redemptions to pay SocialSecurity benefits, as long as such redemptions are undertaken at theprecise amount and speed “absolutely necessary” to effect benefitpayments. 276 The following year, in a proposed debt limit increasebill, the Senate Finance Committee introduced a provision thatwould have expressly “prohibit[ed] the Secretary of the Treasury, inhis role as Managing Trustee of the Social Security trust funds, fromengaging in premature redemption of securities held by the trustfunds during a debt limit crisis even if such redemption were requiredin order to pay beneficiaries.” 277 This bill was not passed. 278Following the 1995-1996 debt limit impasse, Congress enacteda provision that effectively codified the Comptroller General’sopinion. 279 The “Protection of Social Security and Medicare TrustFunds” provision proscribes the use of these Funds to create general“headroom” during a DISP, 280 but ostensibly allows for publicdebt obligations held by the Trust Funds to be redeemed prior tomaturity for the purpose of “payment of benefits or administrativeexpenses.” 281 This authority, however, does not give the Secretarythe legal authority to continue to invest incoming Social Securityreceipts in Treasury securities if the debt limit has been reached. 282275Michael McConnell, Three Common Legal Misunderstandings About the Debt Ceiling, AdvancingA Free Society, The Hoover Institution, July 28, 2011, http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2011/07/28/three-common-legal-misunderstandings-about-the-debtceiling/.276Bowsher, supra note 274. The Comptroller found that “it appears, on the basis of the informationnow available, that the Secretary redeemed or failed to invest the Trust Funds’ assets inamounts and for periods of time greater than absolutely necessary to pay social security benefits.”(emphasis added). The Comptroller, however, found that such actions by the Secretary werereasonable under these specific circumstances.277S. Rep. No 99-335, at 7 (1986). Emphasis added.278H.R.J.Res.668, 99th Cong. (1986).279McConnell, supra note 275.28042 U.S.C. § 1320b–15, supra note 30.281Id. Statute precludes “redeem[ing] prior to maturity amounts. . . . which are invested inpublic debt obligations for any purpose other than the payment of benefits or administrativeexpenses.” (emphasis added).282Jeffrey Kunkel, Social Security Administration Chief Actuary, Social Security Trust FundInvestment Policies and Practices, Actuarial Note No. 142, 3. See supra note 181, 182. In 1996,Congress passed a bill to allow for continued investment of these receipts in excess of the debtlimit. Without similar legislation enabling investment of receipts, the Secretary would be violating42 U.S.C. 1320b-15 by not investing receipts immediately.