[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 50 (Thursday, April 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3575-S3577]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MINIMUM WAGE AND SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I intend to yield some of that time to the 
Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. President, everyone has a right to characterize or 
mischaracterize the activities of the Senate. A colleague of mine 
during the previous debate on the motion to strike came to the floor 
and in that debate characterized the series of things that had happened 
earlier this week--or rather mischaracterized them--and described the 
certain circumstances as highly partisan, just politics, and so on.
  I felt it necessary that I correct the Record and not allow this 
moment to pass without responding. I want everyone to understand that 
there are times here in the Chamber when amendments are offered that it 
is not convenient for people, amendments are offered that just are 
uncomfortable for people. But the way the system works here is 
sometimes you do not have an opportunity to offer an amendment except 
in the certain circumstance, and then you must offer it, or you are 
never going to have a chance to have the Senate consider it.
  We had a circumstance earlier this week where a bill was brought to 
the floor of the Senate. Senator Kennedy, I, and some others were 
intending to offer an amendment. Senator Kennedy was going to offer an 
amendment on the minimum wage, which I support. That is inconvenient 
for some people. They do not want to debate the minimum wage. Some in 
this Chamber say we do not want to deal with the minimum wage issue. 
Some of us do. Some of us think when you have gone 6 years without a 
change in the minimum wage that at least those on the lower rung of the 
ladder have lost one-half dollar of their purchasing power from the 
minimum wage, and maybe people in this Chamber ought to care a little 
about that. I know there are no high-paid lobbyists out beyond this 
Chamber saying, ``Yes, we care about the people at the bottom of the 
economic ladder.'' If we are working on issues that dealt with the 
people at the top of the ladder, you can bet the halls would be full of 
high-paid lobbyists. But not for the minimum wage.

  Some of us insist that these are issues that we ought to be debating.
  Is it partisan? No. It is public policy.
  The second issue which I introduced as an amendment on Monday dealt 
with the Social Security issue. It is mischaracterized as totally 
partisan, irrelevant, and a troublemaking amendment.
  Let me describe what this issue is. Let me go back to 1983. In 1983 
this Congress passed the Social Security Reform Act. I know that 
because I helped write it. I was a member of the Ways and Means 
Committee in the U.S. House. If anybody wants to go back to the record 
of the markup, you will find that I offered the amendment in 1983 
during the markup that said let us not

[[Page S3576]]

use the Social Security revenues we are going to begin to save to meet 
our needs when the baby boomers retire. Let us not use them as other 
operating revenues. Let us truly save them. So let us create a 
firewall. Let us prevent people from misusing, or taking, the Social 
Security trust funds and using them for other purposes. In 1983 I 
offered that amendment. It was defeated in the Ways and Means 
Committee.
  I have tried since repeatedly. The Senator from South Carolina has 
tried, and in some cases successfully. The fact is we have a law that 
prevents the Social Security funds from being misused for other 
purposes, and the law is ignored.
  My intention was to bring to the floor on Monday an amendment that I 
offered that angered some people, an amendment that said, if we are 
going to consider a constitutional amendment to balance the budget 
which the majority leader said he will require us to do under 
reconsideration, a procedure that will allow no amendments and no 
debate--if we are going to do that--I said let us have the Senate vote 
on a sense-of-the-Senate amendment to create a firewall between the 
Social Security trust funds and other revenues because, if we do not do 
that, what will happen is $600 to $800 billion of Social Security trust 
funds will be misused. That is not trivial, and is not partisan. It is 
policy.
  I understand that for some it is a nuisance. For some it is 
inconvenient. For some it is troublesome to have to deal with this.
  So the result was people got in a pique and decide to put the Senate 
into a recess so one person or another cannot speak. It is not the way 
this place works.
  We will vote on that sense-of-the-Senate resolution. We did not on 
Monday. But we will vote on it. We have the right to offer it, and we 
have the right to insist on a vote on it.
  The same will be true with minimum wage, and the same will be true 
with several other issues that we think are important matters of 
policy. This is not about individuals on the Senate floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator will suspend for a moment, will 
those Members in the Senate who are having discussions please retire to 
the Cloakroom, and members of staff as well?
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 10 minutes and 20 seconds.
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me finish, and then I will yield to the Senator from 
South Carolina under the 15 minutes.
  My only point is this: I respect any Member who stands up and 
ascribes motives to others, but if they are motives that, in my 
judgment, do not comport with what we are trying to do, then I think we 
have a right to say that is not the case.
  With respect to Social Security, Social Security is going to have 
problems beginning in the year 2018. That is the point at which the 
surplus discontinues accumulating. From 2019 down to 2029 or so we run 
out of surplus. The fact is in order to accumulate that surplus, we 
must set the surplus trust funds aside.
  That is what the Senator from South Carolina and I have been trying 
to do for a long while. I encourage those who wonder about motives to 
go back to 1983 and the Ways and Means records and see who was making 
those motions 13 years ago on this very issue, and then call them 
political today, if you will. But you are wrong.
  The Senator from South Carolina has been on this floor many times and 
I have been on the Senate floor and the House floor many times in the 
last 13 years on this subject, and I will continue to do so. It might 
be inconvenient to have offered the sense-of-the-Senate resolution last 
Monday, but we will vote on it at some point. I said then I would agree 
to a 20-minute time limit; it does not matter to me. I just want this 
Senate to go on record on those issues. Maybe that is partisan in the 
minds of some. To me it is a very important public policy.
  Mr. President, I yield the remaining time to the Senator from South 
Carolina [Mr. Hollings].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from 
North Dakota. We have been working in the vineyards together in trying 
to end the practice of applying Social Security surpluses toward the 
deficit. Everyone is interested in balancing the budget. But what 
happens in all of these budgets, both the Republican and the 
administration budgets, is that they use Social Security trust funds to 
obscure the size of the deficit.
  This minute, we owe $502 billion to Social Security. Over the next 6 
years, we will borrow another $600 billion from that trust fund. So 
even if we succeed in enacting these so-called balanced budget plans, 
by 2002 we will have destroyed the Social Security program; we will owe 
Social Security over $1 trillion. No one is going to raise taxes some 
$1 trillion to make good on the Social Security trust fund.
  The time to stop that nonsense is here and now. In order to do so, 98 
Senators in this Chamber, as the Senator from North Dakota stated, 
voted for the Heinz-Hollings-Moynihan amendment on October 18, 1990. 
President George Bush, on November 5, 1990, signed section 13301 of the 
Budget Enforcement Act into law.
  Republicans charge that offering the Dorgan amendment is delaying 
action on the immigration bill. But what is good for the goose is good 
for the gander. On yesterday afternoon, in the middle of the terrorism 
bill, the distinguished majority leader saw fit to come to the floor to 
talk about balancing the budget through spectrum auctions. Fine. That 
is his privilege and no one disrespects it. But we should not cry foul 
when other members talk about Social Security and balancing the budget.
  The truth of the matter is that we are in a Catch-22. This Senator 
has produced balanced budgets. I had a AAA credit rating as the South 
Carolina's Governor. I voted for a balanced budget in 1968-69. Since 
that time, as chairman of the Budget Committee, I have proposed 
freezes, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, and, yes, tax increases to try and 
balance the budget. So this is not a casual political maneuver to get 
high ground in any political campaign. It is done in an attempt to get 
us to keep our word--to not use Social Security trust funds in 
calculating the deficit. We cannot keep it when the leadership, in 
considering the constitutional amendment to balance the budget, which 
this Senator has voted for already three times----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator will suspend, let the Chair try 
to get order in the Senate. If those Members who are having 
discussions, please, could retire to the cloakroom. The Senator is 
entitled to be heard.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair.
  I voted for a balanced budget. I wish to vote for a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution. But I will not vote to repeal the 
firewall that we have in the law for the Social Security trust fund. 
Let us have really truth in budgeting.
  I commend the distinguished Senator from North Dakota in bringing his 
amendment up in this particular fashion. It is unfortunate that we had 
no other option. We are not trying to delay the immigration bill. I 
commend the Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from Massachusetts on 
their leadership on immigration. I am ready to vote for their bill. We 
are ready to agree to a time agreement. But we want to vote on this 
issue to really fix into the conscience of the body that when we say it 
is a trust fund, we mean to protect it and not dip into those 
surpluses. That is what the chairman of the Budget Committee on the 
House side said they did last evening. They dipped once again into our 
children's piggy bank.
  That piggy bank is there to protect retirement. Senator Thurmond and 
I, we are going to get ours. In fact, we are getting ours now. But I 
can see some young folks around here; when their time comes, they are 
never going to be able to receive it. Why? Because we have got this 
nonsense about a unified budget.
  Here is the budget law. If you can find the word unified in there, 
I'll jump off the Capitol dome. There is no such thing as a unified 
budget in the budget law, but the administration goes along with it; 
the Congress goes along with it. They violate the law. Let us join with 
the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and stop violating the law.

[[Page S3577]]

  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am just going to take one moment and then yield the 
floor. We have a measure that is before us, and I see the Senator from 
Vermont, who has an amendment, who had spoken to us earlier today and 
is waiting to move towards that amendment.
  We are going to, in just a few moments, ask unanimous consent to 
finalize the list of amendments. We have been able to work through many 
of them. So we are expecting probably some votes that will be 
continuing along until we are able to hopefully get this concluded. We 
can do that in a period of time, but I hope that our membership will 
not be coming to us at 7, 7:15 asking for windows and other kinds of 
things, because we were able to really move this and follow the 
admonition of both the majority and minority leaders. So we are going 
to ask for a consent that we have received all the amendments in just a 
few moments. So if any of the Members are interested, this is really 
the last call.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

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