Congressional Record, Volume 141 Issue 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)

[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2308-S2311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

SOCIAL SECURITY EXCLUSION AND THE BALANCED BUDGET

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, following on the comments by the Senator
from Nevada, let me ask the Senator from Nevada a question. The right-
to-know amendment was an amendment
[[Page S2309]] offered by the Senator from Nevada, myself,
and many others who felt that it was important to try to
understand: Is this a promise to balance the budget, or is it
a promise with a plan this time to balance the budget? Lord
knows the American people have had a barrel full of promises.
Was there something behind it? If there is, as one of the leaders in
the other body said, the plan is so significant it will make America's
knees buckle. It will make the knees buckle of the American people if
we ever told them what is required. The question many ask is, should
not the American people understand what it is they are talking about?
What will buckle people's knees? Is there a plan? Is this a mystery
plan that we are not allowed to understand or see? Well, we had a vote
on that and the vote was no. This is a program, but we do not want you
to see the plan, if there is one. We are not sure there is one.
Second question: Will, in the process of balancing the budget, the
Congress decide to take Social Security trust funds and use them to
balance the Federal budget? After all, the Social Security trust funds
come from dedicated taxes to be used for only one purpose. They go into
the Social Security trust fund to be used for Social Security. It is a
contract between those who work and those who are retired.
The question is, yes or no, does someone intend to use receipts from
the Social Security trust fund to balance the budget? The Social
Security system has not caused one penny of the Federal deficit. This
year it is running a surplus of $70 billion. This is not a difficult
question. It is easy to understand, and it is even easier to answer--
yes, or no.
I think the Senator from Nevada understands, because of the way the
constitutional amendment that is on the floor is proposed, the wording
says receipts mean all receipts including Social Security receipts.
Because it is worded that way, one cannot correct this problem in any
other way except to amend the constitutional amendment that is on the
floor.
I hope the Senator from Nevada will move as quickly as possible and
that when we debate that amendment--I hope that is the next amendment
the Senate will consider--we will get an up or down vote. I do not
think we should have a ricochet vote on this, I do not think we should
bounce around on various procedural motions.
I think the question can be answered simply yes or no, are we going
to use the Social Security trust funds to balance the budget? Is it the
Senator's intention to offer this as the next amendment if that is in
order, and do we hope to get a recorded vote on the question, yes or
no?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend from North Dakota asked two
questions. Is there a plan? I have to answer that, yes, I think there
is a plan, and it is not one that people who are now depending on
Social Security would like. I think the plan is to raid the Social
Security trust fund.
The second question, do I want to vote on my amendment? The answer is
yes, I think we have to have a vote on the amendment. It is the only
thing that would be fair to the American public. Is the Social Security
trust fund a separate trust fund? The answer to that is yes.
I would also say to my friend from North Dakota that it is
interesting that those Members who are pushing so hard for the Social
Security exclusion are people who support the balanced budget
amendment. The Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Nevada
are not people here trying to deep six the balanced budget amendment. I
believe in a balanced budget amendment. And I have heard speeches on
this Senate floor by our colleague, who I do see on the floor in front
of me, from North Dakota, the senior Senator from North Dakota. He has
talked many, many times about the need to balance this budget. Those
people that are pushing for the Social Security trust fund to be
excluded are people--the most vocal--are people who support the
amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, can the Senator think of any reason that
someone would want to vote no on an amendment like this, unless one had
designs on using the Social Security revenues to balance the budget? I
cannot think of any other reason.
I came here this morning and said I do not ask anybody for five
reasons or even three if it is hard for somebody. I just ask for one
simple, easy-to-understand reason from somebody that would say, ``Here
is why we do not want to include this,'' because, I guess, the only
reason that is plausible is that we would like to use the Social
Security revenues at some point to balance the budget. Is there any
other possible reason for someone not wanting to vote for this?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend from North Dakota, as I
have said on this floor on another occasion, the answer is, that is
where the money is. As Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber said when
he was let out of prison, they asked, ``Why do you rob banks?'' And he
said, ``That is where the money is.''
The Social Security trust fund is where the money is. That is why
there are some who do not want to exclude it.
Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the Senator's comments. The problem with
those of us here is we get confused by labels--what is conservative and
what is liberal. You get totally confused, because the conservative
approach, it seems to me, is to balance the budget the way it is
supposed to be balanced. And the way it is supposed to be balanced is
you set the Social Security trust fund aside and balance the budget
deficit. That it seems to me is a conservative approach.
Yet, it seems to me that most who call themselves conservatives say,
``Gee, we don't want to do that.'' That position, apparently, is a
liberal position. Maybe we ought to all change seats here for a while,
because I just do not understand why we are in this quandary.
This ought to be the simplest of questions to answer: Do we want to
balance the budget by raiding the Social Security trust fund? The
answer is, of course not. Do we want to balance the budget? The answer
is, of course.
I take a back seat to nobody on this subject. I have been in charge
of waste task forces, identified $80 billion of Federal spending we
ought to eliminate, much of which we have not. The fact is that still
does not deal with the deficit. We have an abiding deep deficit problem
that we have to deal with. That is why I voted for balanced budget
amendments in the past. It is why I likely will in the future, but
there is a right way and wrong way to do things.
Those who come to the floor say, ``We want to cut taxes and increase
defense.'' I want them to come to the floor to say to us, if we intend
to do that, cut taxes and increase defense, how do you get to where you
want to get to, how do you balance the budget? Do you do it by taking
Social Security funds? Not with my consent you do not. That is not
honest. That is not an honest approach.
I hope when the Senator from Nevada offers his amendment that we can
have an up-or-down vote on the merits of the amendment and we can
understand what are the virtues of conservatism here: Pay your bills
and treat money the way you promised people you would treat money.
These principles hold especially true with Social Security.
We told people, we promise you we will put it in a trust fund, we
promise you we will keep it there. That will not be the case, if it is
then used sometime later to offset tax cuts, much of which will go to
the wealthy, and offset defense spending increases at a time when we
are choking on Federal deficits. That is the dilemma. I hope we can
clarify this and have a very simple vote after an honest debate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the reason this debate is so important is
because we are talking about issues that have enormous implications for
the future, and the implications are a balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution of the United States that would have, as its predicate,
that we would loot the Social Security trust funds of $636 billion over
the next 7 years in order to have the operating budget of the United
States balanced.
That is just a fundamentally flawed strategy. It is not right. Any
CEO in this country, if they went before their board of directors and
said that their
[[Page S2310]] plan for balancing the operating budget of the
corporation was to loot the trust funds of their employees, that
individual would be on his or her way to a Federal facility and, as I
said moments ago in the press gallery, it would not be the U.S.
Congress, it would be the Federal facility they would be headed for.
They would be headed for a Federal penitentiary because that is fraud.
Unfortunately, that is what is occurring with respect to the budget of
the United States now.
Social Security trust fund surpluses are being used to fund the
operating expenses of the United States. What is fundamentally wrong
about that is that we are using a regressive payroll tax to fund not
the retirement systems of Americans but instead we are using those
funds to understate the real budget deficit we confront in this
country. And now we have a constitutional amendment before us that
would take that approach and put it in the Constitution of the United
States.
Mr. President, that cannot be the result of this balanced budget
amendment debate. We should never allow a trust fund to be looted in
order to achieve balance, and we should never put that kind of
construct into the Constitution of the United States. That is
profoundly wrong.
I am just very hopeful that we can get to a vote and a debate on the
amendment that Senator Reid and others of us will be offering. It is an
amendment Senator Reid and I offered last year, along with my colleague
Senator Dorgan. I understand that there are others who are proposing an
alternative mechanism and vehicle for the implementing language. Let me
just say, this Senator would never accept that kind of pale imitation.
That is not going to suffice.
We are talking about an amendment to the organic law of the United
States: The Constitution of the United States. That is the document
that each of us swore to uphold when we took the oath of office. We are
talking about a Contract With America; that is the contract with
America that counts.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have been listening with interest to the
debate on what very likely will be an upcoming amendment with regard to
whether or not we are eventually going to get to a vote on the balanced
budget amendment.
As the Chair knows, this Senator has been very much involved in all
of this because while I think that there are many good reasons for not
having a balanced budget amendment as a part of the Constitution, I
think after the years that I have served here and on the Budget
Committee, I must say that without that discipline that I think we have
exhibited in the past by the tendencies that seem to prevail and by the
fact that we have not even come close to balancing the Federal budget,
I am convinced that with the reservations that are obviously in order,
and many of them well taken, this Senator believes that we have to have
a constitutional amendment to balance the Federal budget.
I think the arguments that are being made today with regard to Social
Security are good ones. Many of my close friends, with whom I have
worked for many, many years in this body, are supporting that kind of
an amendment.
I guess the question comes down to in this Senator's mind: How are we
going to fashion, if we can, 67 votes in this body to pass a
constitutional amendment? The more I see and the more I hear, the more
fearful I come to the conclusion that maybe it is not possible, maybe
some of these votes that were taken pro and con on this issue are going
to simply give cover to one group or one party or one Member to vote
against the balanced budget amendment.
I say in all candor, Mr. President, one of the big problems we have
is that I am not sure a majority of this body understand the difficulty
we have once we have passed a constitutional amendment and assume that
will be ratified by three-fourths of the States.
Another way of putting it would be that passing the constitutional
amendment to balance the budget, as was done with great fervor, with
great fanfare, and with great flag waving on the Contract With America,
was the easy part. That was not necessarily the time for celebration.
That was done in the House of Representatives, I would suggest, without
fully informing the Members of the House of Representatives, 435 of
them, and certainly not informing the State legislators who are going
to have to vote, three-fourths of them, before such a constitutional
amendment, if it passes the Senate, would be enforceable.
Certainly last, but far from least, I do not believe the American
people have been afforded an opportunity to fully understand what all
of this means. In fact, I am very much concerned because I saw a poll
the other day that I suspect is accurate. I think it kind of represents
what I have heard from various sources. That is, that 72 percent of the
American public strongly support a constitutional amendment to balance
the budget, but 47 percent of the American public think the budget can
be balanced by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.
I say to the people of the United States that they have been sorely
misled, indeed, if they believe the Federal budget can be balanced by
the year 2002 with the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse. No one in
this body and no one over on the House of Representatives side really
believes we should have one dollar or one penny of waste, fraud and
abuse. And I can understand how the public has been abused on that
because of the time and attention that has been paid to $1,400 toilet
seats and $200 hammers and other things of that nature, which is
ridiculous on its face.
There was a half an hour program on the prominent show called
Nightline a couple of weeks ago, a whole half-hour devoted to whether
or not we should dispose of the $268 million we are spending annually
to subsidize public radio and public television, and that is a very
legitimate debate. There are two sides of discussion on that, and both
of them can make a point. But when you talk about that, even if we
would eliminate any and all assistance, taxpayer assistance to public
radio and public television, that $238 million, although it is an awful
lot of money, is such a small, infinitesimal amount of the deficit that
if we eliminated that and all such programs it would not even put a
minor, thimble-sized dent in the budget deficit.
Another way of putting all of it is that far too much attention is
being focused on shortcomings in the budget process and not enough
attention is being given to the significant cuts that are going to have
to be made to balance the budget in the year 2002 as would be required
under a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
I guess another way of saying this is that I am not sure all of it
has been put in proper perspective. I voted earlier today for the
amendment offered by the Democratic leader called the right-to-know-
amendment. I voted for that amendment not because I was particularly
excited, nor did I really feel we should go so far as to incorporate
such language as the Daschle amendment, of which I was a cosponsor,
into the Constitution of the United States of America.
I would guess that probably, if we would have passed that and it had
been included, it would be the first time in the history of the United
States of America such language would have been incorporated in with a
constitutional amendment. And so I caution with regard to what we
should be putting into the Constitution.
I was a cosponsor, and I voted for that amendment, trying to have a
better understanding, trying to bring the two sides, the Democrats and
the Republicans, together on this issue. And even had it passed, which
I suspected that it would not have, we maybe could have taken that out
and gotten back to a constitutional amendment at least somewhat in the
form of the constitutional amendments that have been passed in the
past. Certainly I would be one of those to say we should amend the
Constitution with considerable restraint.
Now, back to the matter of Social Security. The Senator has stood at
this
[[Page S2311]] desk before, as I stand here today, to say I think many
good points have been made by those who do want to protect the Social
Security trust fund. And I wish to do that also. I have said that even
if the coming constitutional amendment would be passed without such
protection, at least this Senator very likely would not ever agree to
raid the Social Security trust funds. My only appeal is that possibly
there is a way we could sit down and work together to come up with some
type of arrangement offering proper guarantees to the logical
protection of the Social Security trust fund which I think have been
outlined very effectively and precisely by many of my colleagues who
have spelled out this matter in this Chamber.
Let me put it another way, if I might, Mr. President. I would be
willing to sit down with anyone, any group, any combination of groups
to see if we could factor in some type of workable compromise which
would get us the 67 votes that are necessary, and I think we should try
to get, to proceed to have a constitutional amendment to balance the
budget and then refer it to the States.
So I would simply like to ask, Mr. President, if there is any way
that we could assure--and under those conditions I might vote with my
colleagues who are offering the Social Security amendment, if I could
have the assurance of some of those who are proposing the amendment
that they then would turn around and be one of the 67 votes we need to
pass the constitutional amendment.
Putting together 67 votes in the Senate on this issue is going to be
a very difficult task. From the counting that I have done as of now--it
is not infallible because I think there is some shifting going on, but
it would appear to me very likely, if we had the vote today, the final
vote on sending a constitutional amendment to the States by the Senate
would fail.
Given that concern of mine, I would simply say to my colleagues on
both sides of this issue, and both sides on the many other issues that
are likely to be brought forth on this matter: Let us try to work
together. I do not think anyone has the wisdom, the knowledge, the
intellect to be able to solve all of these problems. As a body of 100
people who are charged to represent their constituents and the people
of the United States as a whole, I just hope we can get together. I
think there are many of us who share the goal. All of us do not----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes has expired.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. EXON. I hope we can maybe come together on some kind of
compromise, some kind of understanding that does not so weaken and
change the constitutional amendment to balance the budget that it will
not work.
Last but not least, whatever we do, I think we must--we have the
obligation to go far further than we have as of now, to explain how
difficult this will be, and the sacrifices that probably every American
is going to have to make to get it accomplished.
I outlined in a speech 10 days ago some of the major concerns in this
area, that I would reference as a part of my speech. That might be
referred to.
Mr. President, I call for cooperation to get a balanced budget
amendment passed by the Senate. That is most important of all.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. KOHL. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Kohl pertaining to the introduction of S. 274 are
located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and
Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Unanimous-Consent Request

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now
turn to the consideration of the original joint resolution to be
offered by Senators Simon, Breaux, and others regarding Social
Security, and that during the consideration of the Senate joint
resolution, no amendments be in order and debate be limited to 2 hours
to be equally divided in the usual form. I further ask that immediately
following the conclusion or yielding back of the time, the Senate
proceed to vote on the resolution without any intervening debate or
motion.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that immediately following the
disposition of the Senate joint resolution, the Senate resume
consideration of House Joint Resolution 1.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I respectfully object to the leader's
request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Nevada.

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