where does the government keep their trillions of dollars?

Question

Does the US keep trillions in cash in a bank?

In: Economics

Answer 1

The US needs to keep track of some physical assets. Paper currency is managed by the 12 member banks of the Federal Reserve. Coins are managed by the mints in Denver and Philadelphia. Gold is famously managed by Fort Knox.

But most of the money (physical or not) that the government lays hands on passes straight through to some other use. Even though the government SPENDS a lot of money, it rarely holds much. Your taxes immediately get turned into food stamps/military helicopters/interest payments on bonds, etc. In finance, it’s wasteful to just let money sit around, and the Treasury Department knows this too.