[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 83 (Friday, June 7, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5970-S5971]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make an observation about Social 
Security. So the Senator from Wyoming might think about this as he 
begins his presentation. I have heard him a number of times. Sometimes 
he and I are in agreement and sometimes not. He is always thoughtful, 
interesting, and bright, and I enjoy his speeches. I have written him 
privately. I think his leaving the Senate is a loss for the Senate. I 
still believe that, even though we have substantial disagreements. And 
I have respect for his opinions.
  But I want him to understand that in 1983 when I served on the House 
Ways and Means Committee and became a part of a group of people who 
wrote the Social Security Reform Act, in the archives of the warehouse 
that holds the markup documents for that markup, the Senator will find 
that I offered an amendment that very day 13 years ago, an amendment 
designed to head off what I feared would happen and what has happened 
under both Democrats and Republicans since, and that is we would 
increase a regressive payroll tax and use the regressive money from the 
payroll tax to do things other than save for Social Security.
  I would like to just make this observation. I do not think there is 
one Member of the U.S. Senate--not one--who would vote affirmatively 
for the proposition as follows: Let us increase the payroll tax 
substantially for workers and for businesses and tell them that it will 
come out of their paycheck in the form of a dedicated tax to be put 
into a trust fund, but that we will, in fact, treat it as all other 
revenue with no distinction and that it will become, in fact, part of 
the ordinary revenue stream of Government with which we will balance 
the rest of the Federal budget. I do not think there is one man or 
woman in the Senate who would affirmatively vote for that kind of 
proposition. Yet, that is exactly what we have gotten from the 1983 
Social Security Reform Act.
  I would not have voted for it in a million years had I thought that 
was going to happen. When it began to happen, the first day of the 
markup I offered an amendment--and I have offered a dozen proposals 
since, in meetings with the Speaker of the House when I was in the 
House, and here in the Senate. We have technically changed the law 
thanks to section 13301 of the Budget Enforcement Act, authored by the 
Senator from South Carolina. But we have never altered the momentum of 
using the taxes that are taken from the paychecks to become part of the 
general stream of money to fund general fund obligations of the Federal 
Government.
  I have had a generous amount of time to speak. The majority party has 
spoken generously this morning as well. Let me, as I sit down, say once 
again that although we have deep disagreements, I have great respect 
for Members of the other side of the aisle. But I believe in my heart 
that what we are doing--to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of 
billions of dollars of Social Security revenues--is fundamentally 
wrong. No business in America could do what the Government is doing. No 
business in America could say: By the way, I had a good year last year. 
Oh, I was short of money, but I took the money from my employees' 
pension plan and showed that as part of my income, and it turned out 
all right.

  No business in America could do that because it is against the law. 
Yet that is exactly what happens in this budget scheme, proposed not 
only by the majority party but proposed in the past as well.
  Mr. President, I will stay here and be anxious to listen. I yield the 
floor.

[[Page S5971]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I understand all time has expired on both 
sides at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has a little 
over 3 minutes of time left.
  Mr. INHOFE. I think he yielded the floor. I ask unanimous consent I 
be allowed to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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