[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1525-S1547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S1525]]



             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume consideration of 
Senate Joint Resolution 1, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (S. J. Res. 1) proposing an amendment to 
     the Constitution of the United States to require a balanced 
     budget.

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the joint resolution.


                            Amendment No. 8

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume the debate on the Reid 
amendment No. 8 until the hour of 6 p.m., with the time equally divided 
in the usual form.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the junior Senator 
from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized for 20 
minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from Nevada for 
yielding on this important amendment. It is interesting; if you ask the 
American people about the balanced budget amendment, they will say in 
overwhelming numbers it is a great idea. I have to balance my 
checkbook. Why shouldn't the Federal Government have to balance its 
books?
  But then you say, well, what if in the process of balancing the books 
the Federal Government jeopardizes the Social Security trust fund? 
Whoa. Wait a minute. Let us think about this. The people who were 
overwhelmingly for the balanced budget amendment have second thoughts, 
as well they should.
  The amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada addresses that very 
real concern. In our pursuit to balance the budget, let us not do it at 
the expense of Social Security. That is simple. The Senator from Nevada 
offers this amendment in good faith, asking Members on both sides of 
the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, to come together and agree on 
this basic premise: yes, we will balance the budget but not at the 
expense of Social Security.
  Some would say this is a pretty simple proposition. Why are you 
debating this? Frankly, because there is a very serious difference of 
opinion, and it gets down to the fundamental flaw in this 
constitutional amendment. We are debating what is its greatest flaw, 
the failure of this measure to protect Social Security. The balanced 
budget amendment includes the Social Security trust fund in the 
calculation of whether the budget is in balance. That means it uses the 
Social Security trust fund to balance the rest of the Federal budget in 
the near term and prevents the proper use of the Social Security trust 
fund surplus to offset growing benefit payments in the long term. That 
is not the way to treat Social Security, a program which for 60 years 
has taken our parents and grandparents and their grandparents before 
them out of poverty into dignity. That is why I voted, and I will 
continue to vote, only for versions of the balanced budget amendment 
that protect Social Security by excluding the Social Security trust 
fund.

  We hear a lot of witnesses. We have them come before us to talk about 
this balanced budget constitutional amendment, as well we should. I say 
to those listening, in 205 years of this Nation's history we have only 
amended that great document, the Constitution, 17 times. Let us be 
careful. Let us listen to the counsel of those who come to speak to us.
  I was particularly struck by the testimony of one gentleman, called 
by my friend from Utah, the chairman of the committee, as a witness in 
favor of this balanced budget amendment. This gentleman was a Wall 
Street financier who holds a senior position in a major investment 
firm. He didn't see the issue of Social Security quite the same way 
that I do. He argued that excluding Social Security from the budget 
calculation--here are his words--``would be like going on a low-calorie 
diet but not counting chocolate.''
  I was struck by that analogy, that this man decided that, in the 
scheme of life, in the scheme of things, in the scheme of those 
programs and those things that are important to American families, 
Social Security was like chocolate candy. For 43 million Americans, let 
me suggest, Social Security is not like candy. It is not a luxury; it 
is a necessity.
  In my home State of Illinois, visit small-town America, find the 
widows living in town, the senior citizens living in the highrises, and 
ask them what Social Security means each month. You know what it means. 
If you have spoken to your parents and grandparents, you know it is the 
bread of life. It is what sustains so many people. For this witness, 
called by the majority, called by those who support the balanced budget 
amendment, to say that it is like chocolate candy really suggests to me 
that perhaps financiers, or Wall Street, see life a little differently 
than people who live on Main Street.
  The balanced budget amendment before us--and let me get to the heart 
of this--includes the trust fund in the budget calculation. It invites 
cuts in Social Security to balance the budget. That has always been my 
fear: Down the line the economy goes bad, revenues are decreasing, 
people are paying fewer taxes because they are out of work, and as a 
consequence here we are, trying to figure out how are we going to 
balance this budget next year. We do not have enough money coming in 
because people are unemployed, for example. So where do we turn? Where 
is there money? This is serious business. We cannot turn around and 
raise taxes in a recession. It is not popular at any time; it is very 
unpopular in a recession. Where do you turn?
  Lo and behold, where is the mother lode of Federal money? Open the 
door to the Social Security trust fund, billions of dollars being 
contributed to the fund today by those of us who are working, including 
Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, to build a balance 
so when the day comes that this Senator and those of like age turn up 
to ask for Social Security, the money will be there. Understood.
  Future Congresses should not be allowed to raid the Social Security 
trust fund, take away the savings that we planned for the rainy day 
that we know is coming, and use it to balance the budget. That is why 
the Senator from Nevada offers his amendment. Let us play this game 
fair. Let us say to the American people, ``If you put the money in, in 
each of your paychecks, for Social Security in hopes it will be there 
for yourself, for your parents, that it be there.'' It seems so 
obvious.
  Now let us take a look at Social Security in the long term. Those who 
want to include Social Security in the budget calculation argue that 
our proposal to protect Social Security would invite future Congresses 
to run deficits 32 years from now when the trust fund is exhausted. 
This concern is unfounded. Current law does not allow the Social 
Security trust fund to run a deficit. If the trust fund runs out of 
money, it cannot keep writing checks.
  Second, Congress has never authorized the Social Security trust fund 
to run an extended deficit. For a temporary time, around 1982 when 
there was a pending bankruptcy in the fund, we got close to that 
proposition, but only for time enough to develop a bipartisan solution.
  Third, the American people are not going to allow the Social Security 
trust fund to be depleted. This is the single most popular program in 
America today, not just for seniors but for their children. It gives 
peace of mind to me to know that my mother, 87 years old, who is living 
on railroad retirement, an analogous program to Social Security, has a 
monthly check coming in based on her having worked during the course of 
her life. And it means, for me and my children, less of a concern about 
her financial security.

  We are not going to turn away from that. We are never going to walk 
away from that. We are not going to allow the Social Security trust 
fund to be depleted. But we are not going to stand still and allow this 
balanced budget amendment to create a raid on Social Security. That is 
why this amendment is being offered. It just stops me cold to hear 
those on the other side say, ``We'll never touch Social Security. Trust 
us.''
  I trust the Senator on the floor. I am not sure I will trust his 
successor, or his successor's successor, who will be bound by this same 
constitutional amendment. I don't know who they will be. I don't know 
what they will face. But at a minimum, let us put in this great 
document, this Constitution, language which protects our values. The 
Reid amendment does that.

[[Page S1526]]

  The Congressional Research Service is an interesting group because 
it's a professional organization, neither Democrat nor Republican. They 
are here to work for us, and if we have tough questions, we often turn 
to them to say, ``What's the honest answer here? Don't give me the spin 
from the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National 
Committee; give it right down the middle, black and white, as best you 
can determine.'' They recently identified a critical reason for 
supporting Senator Reid's amendment. ``The balanced budget amendment as 
currently drafted would prevent the proper use of the trust fund 
surplus to pay extra benefits that the baby boom generation will have 
earned but which will exceed revenues when they retire.''
  Here is what it means. We are paying more in Social Security today, 
and have since 1983, than we need to pay out. As I said earlier, we are 
building up a surplus because we know down the line, when baby boomers 
like myself show up for their Social Security, we are going to have 
more people knocking on the window asking for checks than wage earners 
paying in. So we are building up a balance, we of this generation, 
which will inure to our benefit down the line. So this surplus is being 
built up in the Social Security trust fund. But, if you read this 
amendment to the Constitution closely, the amendment offered by the 
chairman of the committee, you will see there is a problem. The problem 
is you cannot spend that surplus out of the Social Security trust fund 
without making up for it somewhere else. That is a major flaw. Let me 
tell you what it means in practical terms.
  Suppose I told you that a number of years from now you will face 
increasing expenses related to your retirement. You might decide to 
save up some money now so it will be available when that time comes. 
You might even decide to put the money in a special account in the bank 
and say, I am going to keep track of it and I am not going to touch it. 
I am going to need this when I retire.
  Now suppose I told you when the day came and the expenses occurred, 
you were welcome to spend the money that you have personally saved but, 
one condition, in order to spend the first dollar out of your savings 
you have to cut a dollar out of your spending, a dollar that you would 
otherwise spend for food or clothing or rent or utilities.
  You say, ``Wait a minute, why did I save all this money if when the 
time comes when I need it I have to cut other expenditures, dollar for 
dollar, to use it? That is no good. That is no savings. That does not 
help me.'' Let me say to my colleagues, that is exactly what is wrong 
with this amendment. This amendment says: In future generations, if we 
pass the balanced budget amendment and want to use the surplus in the 
Social Security trust fund, we can only do it if we cut other spending, 
balance it out.
  Is this something that this Senator came up with? Is this something 
that the Democrats dreamed up, an interpretation of the balanced budget 
amendment? No. What I have just described to you comes directly from 
the Congressional Research Service. It is a fatal flaw in this balanced 
budget amendment.
  You would think that those who would propose an amendment to the 
Constitution would be open to the possibility--the possibility--that 
what they want to put in that Constitution is not right and needs to be 
corrected and changed. But there has been resistance from the start to 
any amendments to this balanced budget amendment. These are the tablets 
of Moses, untouched by humans, brought to us, to this floor, to be 
accepted as is or else.
  I don't like that approach when it comes to amending our 
Constitution. I certainly don't believe it is fair when we are dealing 
with the fate of 43 million Americans, and I don't believe that we 
should allow this flawed version of the balanced budget amendment to go 
forward.
  I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, Senator 
Reid, makes good sense, and I would predict this: If those who are 
pushing for this balanced budget amendment would, for a moment, stop, 
count to 10, perhaps accept a little more humble approach to this whole 
debate and amend in the protection of the Social Security trust fund, 
they would find a lot of Members coming forward, Democrats and 
Republicans, who could support it. To date, they haven't done it. But 
hope springs eternal.
  I will be voting for Senator Reid's amendment, and I hope my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle who value the importance of a 
Social Security trust fund to the American family will join us.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, simply put, Senator Reid's amendment would 
exempt Social Security from section 1 of the balanced budget amendment, 
which requires that ``total outlays for any fiscal year not exceed 
total receipts for that fiscal year,'' unless three-fifths of each 
House of Congress concur. Senator Reid, and many of those who favor 
exemption of Social Security, make rhetorical points that ``we 
shouldn't balance the budget on the backs of the elderly,'' and that 
``unless exempted, the Social Security trust funds will be raided.'' 
Those are direct quotes from those who have spoken on the other side of 
the aisle.
  The primary paradox of this debate, in a debate full of paradoxes, is 
the fact that removing Social Security from the protection of the 
balanced budget amendment will create an overwhelming incentive to do 
exactly what these critics of the amendment fear, for this would focus 
budget pressures on the Social Security trust funds that could destroy 
the viability of the Social Security program itself. It is a folly that 
has no real relationship to the goals sought, which should be the 
protection of the Social Security trust funds. What they are doing is a 
risky gimmick; it's a riverboat gamble. Frankly, it's a real mistake 
should this amendment be adopted.
  Furthermore--another paradox--exempting the trust funds is simply 
unwarranted. There already exists an elaborate statutory scheme of 
firewalls.
  Mr. President, I notice the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts 
is here. I have a rather extensive statement to make. So what I will 
do, if he cares to make his statement, I will yield the floor at this 
time, and then I will finish my statement afterward. I ask unanimous 
consent I not lose my right to the floor following the distinguished 
Senator from Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. I will forego, so the Senator can have the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield to the senior Senator from 
Massachusetts 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for 
yielding this time, and I join with so many of our colleagues in the 
Senate, hopefully on both sides of the aisle, as well as our senior 
citizens all over this country in commending him for the leadership he 
has provided on this extremely important amendment.
  I had the chance to offer a similar amendment in the Judiciary 
Committee's markup, and we debated some of these issues. But I think 
the eloquence and the force and the presentation that has been made by 
the Senator from Nevada has been extraordinarily powerful and 
increasingly appreciated and understood by the American people, and we 
thank him for his leadership on this issue and so many others.
  Mr. President, Social Security is America's time-honored commitment 
to senior citizens that we will care for them in their golden years. It 
says to every citizen that if you work hard and pay into Social 
Security throughout your working life, Social Security will be there 
for you when you retire. It will help you pay the rent, buy the 
groceries, and maintain a reasonable standard of life throughout your 
retirement years.
  Social Security is the most successful social program ever enacted. 
It is among the most solemn obligations that any government can make to 
its citizens, and Congress should honor it and not undermine it.
  The proposed balanced budget constitutional amendment puts the Social

[[Page S1527]]

Security contract with senior citizens in danger. If this amendment is 
added to the Constitution, no one can guarantee you a Social Security 
check every month. The Rock of Gibraltar, on which this Nation's senior 
citizens have depended for over 60 years, would be gone, replaced by 
shifting political sands. The Reid amendment prevents this unacceptable 
change by protecting Social Security from the proposed constitutional 
amendment--no ifs, ands, or buts.
  Millions of retired citizens live from Social Security check to 
Social Security check. They need it to arrive on time at the beginning 
of each month to pay their bills. Martha McSteen, who headed the Social 
Security Administration during the Reagan administration and is now 
president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and 
Medicare, said recently:

       Keeping Social Security safe from budget tampering is, 
     frankly, a matter of life and death for millions of 
     Americans.
       For 10 million Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and 
     older, their monthly Social Security check amounts to 90 
     percent or more of their income. Those checks keep 40 percent 
     of America's seniors out of poverty.

  But under the proposed constitutional amendment, if Government 
revenues fall unexpectedly, or if Government expenses go up, payment on 
Social Security checks could stop.
  Republicans say, ``Trust us.'' We reply, in the well-known words of 
President Ronald Reagan, ``Trust--but verify,'' and the way to verify 
is by adopting the Reid amendment.
  Just 3 months ago, in November 1996, the House sponsors of the 
balanced budget constitutional amendment agreed that Social Security 
could be in trouble. As Congressmen Schaefer and Charles Stenholm said:

       Under the proposed constitutional amendment, ``The 
     President would be bound at the point at which the Government 
     runs out of money to stop issuing the checks.''

  Economists say there is at least a 50-50 chance in any given year 
that the budget projections will be wrong and that under this 
constitutional amendment, this Government will run out of money. 
Economic forecasting is not an exact science. If budget projections are 
off by as little as 1 percent, this constitutional amendment could put 
Social Security checks at risk.
  Some in this debate have said that the budget that President Clinton 
just submitted to Congress counts the Social Security surpluses 
reaching a balanced budget by the year 2002. They said if President 
Clinton counts Social Security in his budget, then why not count it in 
the balanced budget constitutional amendment? But the difference 
between a balanced budget, which we will achieve by 2002, and a 
permanent constitutional amendment are immense, especially for Social 
Security.
  In the Clinton budget, the laws protecting Social Security from the 
rest of the budget are still in place. There is nothing that President 
Clinton or any other President or Congress can do to jeopardize Social 
Security. Under the current law, President Clinton and future 
Presidents and Congresses must balance the budget without affecting 
Social Security. If they want to change Social Security, they have to 
change the Social Security law directly. The last thing we should do is 
change it indirectly by a vague constitutional amendment.
  In its present form, this balanced budget constitutional amendment 
undercuts Social Security. Social Security would have to fight its way 
on an equal basis with highway construction, defense, welfare, 
education, and every other Federal program. Congresses have worked for 
many years, ever since the Reagan administration first tried to cut 
Social Security, to protect the Nation's senior citizens and Social 
Security from the annual Federal budget wars.
  For 15 years, a solid bipartisan coalition of Republicans and 
Democrats have agreed that Social Security should be safe from that 
result. In 1983, the Greenspan commission recommended that Congress 
should place Social Security outside the Federal budget. The commission 
said that we need to build up a surplus in the trust funds now in order 
to have enough funds to provide benefits to the current generation when 
they begin to retire. Both Democrats and Republicans support that 
result.
  The commission's 1983 recommendations were enacted in a law sponsored 
by Senator Dole and Senator Moynihan, and their bill required Social 
Security to be placed off budget within 10 years. In 1985, 2 years 
later, Congress accelerated the process by placing Social Security 
outside the rest of the Federal budget. The Deficit Control Act of 
1985, the so-called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, exempted Social Security 
from across-the-board cuts of sequestration. That law also said that 
Social Security could never be included in the unified budget of the 
U.S. Government. Senator Gramm emphasized during the Senate debate on 
the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings proposal, ``This bill takes Social Security 
off budget. So if you want to debate Social Security, go to the museum, 
because that debate is over. The President cannot submit a budget that 
says anything about Social Security. It is not in order for the Budget 
Committee to bring a budget to the floor that does anything to Social 
Security. Social Security is off budget and is a freestanding trust 
fund.''
  From that point out, when Congress has adopted the annual Federal 
budget resolutions, Social Security is not included. The last time 
Congress voted on a budget that included Social Security was 1985. The 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law was approved by overwhelming majorities, 61-
31 in the Senate and a 271 to 154 vote in the House of Representatives.
  Then in 1990 some Members of Congress proposed to put Social Security 
back in the Federal budget, but Senator Hollings and Senator Heinz 
rejected this unwise suggestion. They insisted that Social Security 
remain off budget and the Senate approved an amendment to protect 
Social Security by a 98 to 2 vote. In fact, the Budget Enforcement Act 
of 1990 speaks forcefully of Congress' intention to continue to protect 
Social Security.
  Section 13-301 of the act reads ``Exclusion of Social Security from 
all budgets''--it says plainly that Social Security shall not be 
counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, deficits, or 
surplus for the purposes of the budget of the U.S. Government as 
submitted by the President, the congressional budget, or the balanced 
budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
  In 1995, section 22 of the congressional budget resolution amended 
the Budget Act even further to protect Social Security in a provision 
entitled the Social Security Firewall Point of Order. It said that any 
effort to include changes in Social Security in the Federal budget were 
subject to a 60-vote point of order in the Senate. The proposed 
balanced budget constitutional amendment would reverse these 15 years 
of steady progress in protecting Social Security. It would be turning 
its back on all of this history and expose Social Security to all the 
budget battles that lie ahead.
  Further, in a major recent study, the Congressional Research Service 
suggested that the proposed constitutional amendment may actually place 
the trust funds off limits. The funds will be sitting there and the 
Social Security Administration will need them to write Social Security 
checks, but if the balanced budget amendment is adopted the 
Constitution will say no.
  Here is what the Congressional Research Service concluded in its 
analysis for Senator Daschle on February 5:

       Because the balanced budget amendment requires that the 
     required balance between outlays for that year and receipts 
     for that year, the moneys that constitute the Social Security 
     surpluses would not be available for the payment of the 
     benefits.

  Therefore, the money that had been set aside, the time when more 
funds are being paid into the Social Security benefits, at the year 
2019 when there will begin to be some deficit between the amounts paid 
in and the amounts that have to be paid out, what the Congressional 
Research Service is saying is you will not be able to use the surpluses 
that have been built in all of these next 20-odd years. We will have to 
only look at the year that the money comes in and that the money goes 
out. That is, I think, understandable when you look on page 2 of the 
amendment and under line 7, it says ``total outlays for any fiscal year 
shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year.'' Those are the 
operative words which led the Congressional Research

[[Page S1528]]

Service to that conclusion which puts it in danger not only of the 
possibility for balancing the budget in terms of any period in the 
future but risks the surpluses that have been put in place over these 
next several years.
  Now, Republicans asked the Congressional Research Service to clarify 
its opinion. They hoped, if they asked again, they would get a 
different answer, but instead the Congressional Research Service 
reaffirmed the opinion of February 12 that Social Security is at risk 
under the proposed constitutional amendment. CRS said again that under 
the proposed constitutional amendment when Social Security payments are 
estimated to exceed Social Security receipts from payroll withholdings, 
which is expected to happen beginning in the year 2013, Social Security 
payments can be made from the trust funds only if spending for other 
programs is reduced by the same amount. In other words, for each dollar 
drawn down from the trust fund, a dollar must be cut from education or 
defense or some other Government program.
  Employees have worked hard all of their lives. Social Security has 
been withheld from their paycheck month after month. They are expecting 
the money to be available when they retire. But this proposed 
constitutional amendment suddenly freezes all that money that they had 
paid in over the years. When this happened, if Social Security is not 
off budget, we would have only three choices: We could cut Social 
Security benefits, we could raise taxes, or we can cut billions of 
dollars from education, health, national defense, other priorities, to 
keep the Social Security checks flowing. Clearly, Social Security 
benefits are at risk under the proposed constitutional amendment.
  Now, some supporters of the balanced budget constitutional amendment 
want this result. When the Judiciary Committee was debating this 
amendment on Social Security, my amendment on January 30, Senator 
Hatch, the chair of the committee, said that under the constitutional 
amendment Social Security ``would have to fight its way just like every 
other program.'' Senator Hatch went on to say that he believed Social 
Security has the easiest of all arguments to fight its way. But half of 
the members of the Judiciary Committee rejected that position. I had 
offered the amendment to protect Social Security during the committee's 
markup of the proposal. The committee was evenly split on the issue, 9-
9. So in the very committee that is responsible for this amendment, 
half the membership, half of the membership, believed that Social 
Security is at risk under the proposed constitutional amendment.

  Nothing in the proposed constitutional amendment, nothing, assures 
our senior citizens that their Social Security checks will survive the 
budget battles that lie ahead. Elderly Americans deserve more than 
expressions of good will by supporters of the constitutional amendment. 
If those who favor this unwise constitutional amendment are committed 
to protecting Social Security, they should write that protection in 
their proposal and adopt the Reid amendment.
  President Clinton wrote to the Senate Democratic leader on January 28 
about the risk to Social Security, and said to Senator Daschle, ``I am 
very concerned that Senate Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional 
amendment to the balanced budget, could pose grave risks to the Social 
Security system.'' We cannot let that happen. I say we must--and we 
will, balance the budget. We must--and we will take steps to protect 
Social Security in the future. We should have that debate openly and 
honestly, but we should not jeopardize Social Security indirectly by 
subjecting it to the requirements of this blunderbuss constitutional 
amendment. I urge my colleagues to protect the Social Security by 
supporting the Reid amendment.
  Mr. President, basically, just to sum up where I believe we are, if 
we look at the record of the Congress since the recommendation of the 
Greenspan commission of 1983, Social Security amendments in 1983 to put 
Social Security in order, and the recommendation, the unanimous 
recommendation was that Social Security was to be considered off 
budget, and that the commission itself urged them to do that in the 
next 10 years. Those recommendations were adopted 58 to 14, with 32 
Republicans and 26 Democrats. This was a bipartisan effort to protect 
the Social Security system.

  As I mentioned before, with Social Security, unlike other items in 
the Federal budget, people pay in in order to be able to receive later. 
I am a great supporter of education, but the students of this country 
have not paid in previously in order to receive either a grant or a 
loan. I am a great supporter of medical and biomedical research, but 
the researchers have not paid in in order to be able to receive 
funding. I am a great believer in child care, but the parents have not 
paid in so that they can receive money for child care.
  The one program people have paid into in order to receive is Social 
Security. That is why, Mr. President, we have the recommendations--
unanimous recommendations--of the bipartisan commission, supported by 
the ranking member of the Finance Committee--by Republicans and 
Democrats alike--that said we should take the recommendations of the 
Greenspan commission and, within 10 years, adopt a proposal that would 
effectively put Social Security off budget. We didn't wait 10 years. We 
waited 2 years. There was Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in 1985, which was 
adopted by 61 to 31, with 39 Republicans and 22 Democrats supporting. 
This is what it said: ``Exempt Programs, section 255. Social Security 
benefits shall be exempt from reduction under any order issued under 
this part.'' This is in the Deficit Control Act. What they are saying 
is that we will not put at risk Social Security. And then a little 
later in that act, they pointed out that what we had was a 
sequestration, which meant there was going to be a reduction in various 
programs and done so on an across-the-board percentage. What happened 
in the Congress? What was accepted at that time? It said: ``The Social 
Security benefits program shall be exempt from reduction under any 
order.''
  So it is saying doubly sure, don't include it, and if somehow it gets 
in, don't reduce it. This was the overwhelming position. Why? Because, 
as I stated earlier, it is the solemn pledge and commitment of the 
United States to our seniors, the lifeline for their lives, their well-
being, their ability not to live in poverty, their ability to live with 
some degree of respect and dignity. These are men and women who have 
built this country, fought its wars and made it the great Nation that 
it is.
  Then we had the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, another opportunity to 
deal with the issues in Social Security. If it was not clear enough 
previously under the existing amendments, which have been stated, we 
had an amendment offered by Senators Heinz and Hollings, adopted 98 to 
2. ``Exclusion of Social Security from all budgets.'' There it is 
again. Recommended in 1983, enacted in 1985, clarified again in 1985 
under the sequestration. If there is going to be any question about it, 
in 1990, here is the amendment, 98 to 2, Republicans and Democrats, to 
take it off budget. And then, in 1995, we have the firewalls, those 
walls to try to separate the various functions of Government as to what 
areas could be cut or shifted, in terms of budget allocations. It was 
very clear again in 1995--Social Security firewall point of order in 
the Senate. It points out, once again, ``Not only is Social Security 
off budget, but any budget amendments affecting Social Security are 
subject to a point of order.'' This is what they call the pay-go 
provisions.

  Once again, every indication, coming from 1983 all the way up to the 
present time, Republicans and Democrats alike, when it came to the 
issues of dealing with budgetary considerations and the challenges that 
we as a country were facing, said Social Security is different. Social 
Security is different. The reason that it is different is self-evident 
for, I think, every Member of this body. It is because it is different 
that we are going to treat it differently from other general budget 
expenditures. Sure, we are going to have belt-tightening in some areas 
that many of us would hope that we would not necessarily have. We will 
have differences on where we ought to tighten the budget. But 
Republicans and Democrats have repeated time after time after time 
after time that we were going to exclude this program and let it be 
considered on its own, in terms of a trust

[[Page S1529]]

fund, because it isn't the Social Security trust fund that has brought 
us to the kinds of deficits we have had over any period of time, and it 
is not the fault of our senior citizens.
  I am not out here today to review what actions we took in 1981 that 
set us on a path toward the growth of the large deficits. We can debate 
that at another time. That is not relevant to this. What is relevant 
are the actions, in a bipartisan way, that have been taken at every 
single opportunity when this body has addressed the issues of budget. 
And now we are being asked in the most significant and important 
request of all to say that when it comes to a constitutional amendment, 
we are going to make sure that Social Security is going to be included. 
We are going to make sure it is going to be included.
  How do we know that? Because when we ask to take it out, we are told 
we can't take it out. The primary sponsors of this program have said 
that Social Security is going to have to fight it out with the other 
programs, is going to have to fight it out with education, fight it out 
with national security, fight it out with other kinds of priorities for 
the Nation. We have to ask ourselves--some of us have very recent 
memory when we saw the kinds of potential cuts that were being proposed 
in Social Security-related programs in the last Congress--cuts in the 
Medicare Program, not unrelated to Social Security, cuts in the program 
to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals.
  Are we going to say now that we are going to wrap this potential cut 
in Social Security in this constitutional amendment, and that somewhere 
down the road it may be used as a piggy bank for trading off other 
kinds of budgetary requirements? I say, no. We have a chance to prevent 
that. This body is either serious about what we have done over the last 
15 years and what we have stated to be the position of this 
institution, in a bipartisan way, and say Social Security is out, or we 
are telling our senior citizens that Social Security is being put at 
risk.
  Now, Mr. President, we have to understand some other items. There are 
those who have said, well, if we pass the balanced budget, some of this 
legislation will still be out there, and it might provide some 
protection for Social Security. Well, they ought to read the 
Constitution one more time, because the Constitution is what controls 
statutes. It is the Constitution that is the law of the land. It is the 
Constitution that will be the driving factor and force on this 
particular issue, not what we have done in various statutes, not what 
we have done in budget orders, not actions that have been taken by 
other Congresses. It will be the Constitution.

  So what we are saying, Mr. President, is we are going to put at risk, 
if the Reid amendment is not accepted, the future in terms of Social 
Security. All of these actions and protections that have existed there, 
with strong, overwhelming bipartisan support, not just simple 
majority--98 to 2--all of that is gone with the wind, all of that is 
past, all of that is sand, all of those pillars of marble that are out 
there are now effectively dust, in terms of protection.
  Now, Mr. President, I know we will hear those who will say, well, the 
best we can do for our senior citizens is to have a sound economy. That 
is fine. We are going to work for a sound economy. But let's not put 
the senior citizens who have paid into this fund at risk in terms of 
their future and vital needs. This is a lifeline for our senior 
citizens. It is a fundamental and basic commitment that we have made 
over the more than 60 years it has been in effect. It has been 
reaffirmed and reaffirmed in this body. Without the Reid amendment, we 
are putting the Social Security system at serious and grave risk. That, 
I believe, is unwise, unjustified, and wrong. I hope the Reid amendment 
will be accepted.
  I thank the Senator from Nevada again, and I thank my friend from 
Utah for working out the schedule.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am always happy to work out the schedule 
for my colleague from Massachusetts and always enjoy hearing my 
colleague. I think it is good for the acoustics from time to time, and 
it is also good for all of us who seem to talk at just a normal level. 
I always enjoy hearing my colleague, and I have enjoyed hearing him on 
this today, as bad and as dire and stressful as he seems to think 
things are. But then again, let's go back.
  Simply put, Senator Reid's amendment would exempt Social Security 
from section 1 of the balanced budget amendment, which requires that 
total outlays for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts for that 
fiscal year unless a three-fifths vote of both Houses concurs. Senator 
Reid, and many of those who favor exemption of Social Security, make 
the rhetorical points that we should not balance the budget on the 
backs of the elderly; that the Social Security trust funds will be 
raided. Poppycock. The fact is, those funds are going to be invested in 
the very same bonds, no matter whether it is off budget or on.
  The question is, what is the best budgetary approach to take? What is 
in the best interests of our senior citizens? What is in the best 
interests of our senior citizens is to understand that everybody in 
Congress will protect Social Security, and it is better off having it 
in the unified budget where it has always been protected. Show me a 
time when it wasn't. It has always been protected, at least in all the 
time I have been here. Put aside whether it is a riverboat gamble or 
whether it is a risky gimmick; it is pretty pathetic when you stop and 
think about it.
  We have heard a lot of talk about how our uses of surpluses would be 
criminal conduct if done by business people and done in the private 
sector. But no one is going to prison around here. The fact is that 
removing Social Security from the protection of the balanced budget 
amendment would be the worst thing we could do to senior citizens. Talk 
about a risky gimmick, a riverboat gamble.
  The primary paradox of this debate, as I have said before, in a 
debate full of paradoxes is the fact that removing Social Security from 
the protection of the balanced budget amendment would create an 
overwhelming incentive to do exactly what these critics say they fear. 
For this would focus budget pressures on the Social Security trust 
funds that could destroy the very viability of the Social Security 
program itself. It is a folly that has no real relationship to the 
goals sought. And that goal should be the protection of the Social 
Security trust funds.
  Furthermore, another paradox that I will mention is that exempting 
the trust funds is simply unwarranted. There already exists a statutory 
scheme of firewalls that protect the trust funds from Presidential and 
congressional tampering. Nothing in the balanced budget amendment is 
inconsistent with the statutory firewall scheme that would warrant the 
firewall protections being declared unconstitutional. The truth is, the 
passage of Senate Joint Resolution 1, the balanced budget amendment, 
will be the best protection to Social Security that we can get.

  Yet another paradox is that the Reid amendment does nothing to 
respond to the concern that Social Security benefits will be reduced. 
There is no language in his proposal that would protect Social Security 
recipients from either further budget cuts or tax increases. In fact, 
the Reid amendment expressly reserves the right to cut benefits. Get 
that. It expressly reserves the right to cut benefits.
  Removing Social Security from the protection of the balanced budget 
amendment would weaken the financial integrity of the Social Security 
system. Presently, the Social Security program is producing annual 
surpluses because the huge baby boomer generation is still working and 
paying FICA taxes into the system. But the surpluses will end no later 
than the year 2019, when most of the baby boomers retire.
  Moreover, under current projections, Social Security will have 
exhausted the trust funds and will be running a huge deficit by the 
year 2029. By the year 2070, Social Security will face a startling $7 
trillion annual shortfall. Excluding Social Security ignores this 
problem and places this system in dire jeopardy. Including Social 
Security in the budget calculations forces Congress to address the 
pending crisis in a responsible manner before it becomes too late.

[[Page S1530]]

  Let me just explain this in more detail. Let me talk about the Social 
Security exemption that they are asking for here. This risky gimmick of 
exempting Social Security would open up a loophole in the amendment and 
siphon off revenues from the trust funds. Placing the trust funds off 
budget will harm the Social Security program and make balanced budgets 
a virtual impossibility. The consequences of this could be very dire 
indeed. Further, I must emphasize that nothing in the Reid amendment 
protects recipients from either budget cuts or tax increases.
  Under the Reid amendment, we would have two budgets. One would be 
based on sound principles of solvency and the other, the Social 
Security budget, would not be. One budget would be required to be in 
balance unless a supermajority votes to allow a deficit. The other, the 
Social Security budget, if they have their way, would be raided and 
bloated with costly unrelated projects. Anybody who doesn't believe 
that has not watched this outfit for the last 28 years as we unbalanced 
the budgets in each of the last 28 years.
  Social Security--don't leave it out. If you leave it out, you are 
going to have special interest rats eating all the Social Security 
cheese, whereas if we leave it in, it is protected by the balanced 
budget amendment. We protect it because we keep a sound, good economy. 
We all know who these rats are. They are special interests that come in 
here and buy their way into influence. Taking Social Security off 
budget will subject funds to Washington special interest scavengers. 
When you have rats in your house, you need to plug all of the holes. If 
you do not, they are going to find a way in.
  If we leave Social Security off budget, new and old special interest 
spending initiatives which cannot survive or make their way if they 
have to compete against other programs, will smell out the scent of 
Social Security and destroy it just like these high-class rats are 
destroying the cheese here on this chart. That is what is going to 
happen to Social Security. We all know it.

  This is a game. The people who are arguing for it, with the exception 
of a few--certainly, Senator Reid is very sincere about this--the 
people arguing for this hate the balanced budget amendment. It puts the 
screws to their spending programs, programs that are eating us alive 
and mortgaging our children's and our grandchildren's future. They want 
to defeat this amendment at all costs. And, therefore, they use these 
phony arguments that taking Social Security off budget is going to 
protect it when everybody knows it will not. This loophole will not 
only blow a hole in the balanced budget amendment, but it would also 
seriously harm Social Security.
  Senator Reid and supporters of the Reid amendment incorrectly contend 
that including present day Social Security surpluses in the unified 
budget would ``raid'' the trust funds. This is a complete misnomer. 
Here is how it works. The people pay the FICA tax. The Social Security 
Administration gets it and then sends it to the Treasury. All FICA tax 
proceeds are commingled with the general funds. The Social Security 
Administration receives Treasury bonds in recognition of the debt--and 
those bonds are the greatest redeemable securities in the world, United 
States bonds. They buy them to be redeemed later. The only way they are 
going to be redeemed is if we have a sound economy. The only way we are 
going to have a sound economy is if we live within our means. We 
clearly are not living within our means.
  These documents are just 28 years. If we put the 58 years of the last 
66 years, my goodness, what we have done to America is criminal. That 
is the where the real criminals are: people who continue to spend.
  The fact is if you are looking for people who have committed wrongs, 
then look to Congress, and it would be a double wrong if we moved 
Social Security out the protection of the balanced budget amendment, 
where it is vulnerable, where it is out there open, where all these 
special-interest rats can attack it because it is the only thing left 
to be able to spend and spend and spend. That is exactly what is going 
to happen here if we do not watch out. The FICA tax, moneys that they 
get from the bonds of Social Security, are going right now for 
entitlement spending and discretionary spending. Many of these programs 
are critical programs. If you take this Social Security off budget in 
the sense they want to in the Reid amendment, every one of the 
important social spending programs we have in this country, every one 
of them is going to be hurt. And in the end Social Security will be 
hurt because then there will be that much more of a push to go to that 
nice big second budget there that is not subject to balanced budget 
requisites and hang all these programs on it. If that happens, mark my 
word, senior citizens, every one of you are going to be hurt.
  Social Security receipts are by law used to purchase interest-bearing 
securities, as I have said. Nothing in Senate Joint Resolution 1 would 
change the Social Security program, but if Social Security were removed 
from the protection of the Senate Joint Resolution 1 balancing 
requirements, the trust fund really would be raided. Under the Reid 
amendment, Social Security receipts would not be designated as 
``receipts'' or ``outlays,'' as under the balanced budget amendment. 
Spending Social Security surpluses, therefore, would not have to be 
offset by other receipts as it must if there is no exemption. This 
creates a powerful, yet perverse, incentive for Congress to spend the 
surpluses by redesigning other programs as Social Security.
  That is what they will do to you. You know that. They want it off so 
they can redesign other programs, call them Social Security and eat up 
the surpluses and add to the deficit that we are all dying from right 
now.
  Look, it is the biggest con job I have ever seen. Sincere or not, it 
is a con job. Let me just say this. This would be real raiding because 
what constitutes ``Social Security'' will be expanded, with the present 
day surpluses funding newly relabeled programs, only they will be 
called Social Security, and they will just continue to spend just like 
we have been doing for 58 of the last 66 years. This is only 28 of 
those unbalanced budgets, the last 28.
  If projects are not immediately redesignated Social Security as I 
just discussed, thereby consuming accumulated Social Security 
surpluses, surplus proceeds would be used in the only possible manner 
that would avoid section 1's prohibition on outlays exceeding receipts, 
and that is to make debt repayment.
  Normally, this would be wonderful, but, in fact, it creates a 
dangerous mechanism for the Congress to continue deficit spending if we 
adopt the Reid amendment. If the surplus is used to pay down the public 
debt, the total debt level will be reduced, creating a gap between the 
public debt total and the statutory debt ceiling. As a result, Congress 
would then be able to increase spending out of Social Security, which 
is not constrained by a balanced budget rule, without immediately 
bumping into the statutory debt ceiling. This would in essence allow a 
future Congress to again increase the Nation's debt without facing the 
balanced budget amendment's required three-fifths vote. Thus, any 
surplus generated by Social Security and used to pay off the debt would 
be squandered because the Congress could simply deficit spend under the 
Social Security exemption until the statutory debt ceiling is reached. 
This scenario would not be possible if Social Security was not exempted 
from the balanced budget amendment.

  This secondary loophole constitutes an indirect way of using surplus 
Social Security receipts.
  So, Mr. President, through one loophole or another, the Reid 
amendment would drain off the Social Security surpluses in the short 
term and fail to protect Social Security from tremendous deficits in 
the long term. Consequently, the Reid amendment not only fails to 
protect Social Security but is a risky gimmick, a riverboat gamble that 
will endanger the trust funds.
  The net effect of the loopholes will be the depletion of the trust 
funds years early. When the balanced budget amendment does take effect 
in the year 2002, the trust funds will stop growing as all annual 
surplus funds would be reallocated for programs that have been 
redesignated Social Security. So instead of growing from 2002 to 2019, 
the years the trust funds are estimated to stop growing, the system

[[Page S1531]]

would become stagnant. Exemption of Social Security from the balanced 
budget amendment will consequently speed up the system's demise.
  If you do not believe that, then you have not watched Congress over 
the last 28 years. I think there might be some logic to what they say 
if you really stretched the cord, if you did not have the good old 28 
years of unbalanced budgets sitting here, knowing the Congress cannot 
stop spending unless there is something in the Constitution that says 
we have to stop; you have to start living within your means; you have 
to start budgeting; you have to start doing what is right for the 
American people and especially the future of our children.
  Removing Social Security from the protection of Senate Joint 
Resolution 1 would make balancing the budget virtually impossible. 
Based on the gimmickry of the past, the most likely scenario Congress 
will follow is to pass legislation to fund any number of programs off 
budget through the Social Security trust funds. The budget could be 
balanced simply by shifting enough programs into the Social Security 
trust funds. Where would the senior citizens be then? You would be the 
ones who are being ripped off. You talk about criminal conduct.
  Congress could simply add to an exempted Social Security enough 
budget items to make up any deficit from the official budget. Congress 
could then eliminate the deficit by simply transferring costly programs 
to the exempted Social Security program. We would have a balanced 
budget but on paper only. Talk about a risky gimmick.
  FICA taxes have grown significantly over the years. Odds are that the 
loophole would only accelerate this increase. In fact, all kinds of new 
``Social Security'' taxes would be enacted such as a ``Social 
Security'' income tax or a ``Social Security'' value-added tax. As this 
process continues, the loophole created by this exemption by the Reid 
amendment would easily swallow both the spending and taxing provisions 
of the balanced budget amendment.

  The balanced budget amendment will allow the use of Social Security 
surpluses to fund benefits.
  Some Senators have proffered another argument in support of removing 
Social Security from the protections of Senate Joint Resolution 1. They 
allege that the very wording of the balanced budget amendment will not 
allow the use of surpluses in following years. This is so, they claim, 
because in succeeding years the spending for benefits from the saved 
surpluses becomes ``outlay'' under the constitutional amendment. They 
created quite a storm when they claimed that a CRS memorandum confirmed 
this. The only problem with their elaborate theory is that it is wrong.
  Simply put, Mr. President, I must say once more that passage and 
ratification of the balanced budget amendment will not harm the Social 
Security Program. In fact, the very passage of Senate Joint Resolution 
1 will help stabilize the program. CRS never concluded that the 
balanced budget amendment will harm Social Security. I believe that the 
Congressional Research Service memorandum my friend from Nevada was 
alluding to was, unfortunately, quoted out of context.
  Let me explain. The CRS memorandum, dated February 5, that my 
colleague was alluding to, did not conclude in any way whatsoever that 
the balanced budget amendment would harm Social Security. All the CRS 
memorandum concluded was that, assuming the Social Security surplus 
survived through to the year 2019, the year Social Security will start 
running huge annual deficits, this previously accumulated surplus could 
be used to help pay for future deficits but only if it is offset by 
revenue or budget cuts.
  Now, despite what my good friend asserted, under the balanced budget 
amendment, assets of the Federal Treasury could be drawn upon to ensure 
payments to beneficiaries when the system starts running deficits, 
annual deficits, that is.
  To clear up any confusion, the Congressional Research Service 
produced another memorandum dated February 12, 1997, at Senator 
Domenici's request. This memorandum stated ``We,'' that is, the 
Congressional Research Service, ``are not concluding that the trust 
fund surpluses could not be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The 
balanced budget amendment would not require that result.''
  So where is the problem? In the near future, when Social Security 
runs in the red, the Congressional Research Service concluded that 
under the balanced budget amendment, ``The trust funds will be drawn 
down to cover the Social Security deficit in that year, and the 
Treasury will have to make good on the securities with whatever moneys 
it has available.''
  Senator Mack and I also requested that the Congressional Research 
Service clear up any confusion concerning the use of the February 5 CRS 
memorandum. CRS stated, in a letter dated February 14, that its 
memorandum was quoted out of context, and reiterated that under the 
balanced budget amendment, Federal receipts, including Social Security 
surpluses, could be used to pay for Social Security benefits.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter dated February 14, 1987, be 
printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                   Congressional Research Service,


                                      The Library of Congress,

                                Washington, DC, February 14, 1997.
     Hon. Orrin G. Hatch,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Hatch: This letter is in response to inquiries 
     made by you and Senator Mack about the conclusions CRS was 
     reported to have reached in various responses to requests 
     about the impact of the pending Balanced Budget Amendment 
     (BBA) on the Social Security program. We note that you were 
     engaged in a debate about these responses on the Senate floor 
     on February 12, 1997.
       Let me first say that CRS will always seek to respond to 
     the specific needs of the congressional requestor, but will 
     do so in a manner consistent with our obligation to provide 
     research and information that is accurate and nonadvocative. 
     We place the highest importance on these characteristics of 
     our work and make every possible effort to maintain them. I 
     want to assure you that CRS has applied these principles in 
     responding to requests on the question of the BBA's effects 
     on Social Security.
       Although the National Journal's ``Congress Daily AM'' 
     report of February 12, 1997 and other subsequent press 
     accounts suggest that CRS drew a conclusion in a February 5, 
     1997 memorandum to Senator Daschle that Social Security would 
     be threatened by the enactment of the Balanced Budget 
     Amendment (BBA), we did not.
       In fact, we were careful in that memorandum to make sure 
     the reader understood that there was a range of possible 
     outcomes. We realize that considerable attention was drawn to 
     the following statement in the memorandum:
       ``Because the BBA requires that the required balance be 
     between outlays for that year and receipts for that year, the 
     moneys that constitute the Social Security surpluses would 
     not be available as a balance for the payments of benefits. 
     [The word `surpluses' here was referring to the accumulated 
     securities held by the Social Security trust funds.]''
       The reader, however, only needed to go to the next and 
     final paragraph of the memorandum to know that we were not 
     concluding that this would be a problem for Social Security. 
     It stated:
       ``Now, of course, this does not mean that Social Security 
     benefits could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into 
     the treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this 
     amount could be used to offset the Social Security deficit. 
     And, again of course, tax or expenditure provisions, or both, 
     could be altered to create a new balance.''
       We came to realize from the immediate Congressional 
     inquiries we received that there was a perception among some 
     Members and staff that the statement, when taken in 
     isolation, meant that if the BBA were enacted, the Social 
     Security trust funds could not be drawn down to pay benefits 
     if in any year the program was running a deficit. The 
     statement in question simply was referring to how the 
     drawdown from the trust funds would be scored under BBA 
     accounting rules, not to what would happen to the program or 
     trust funds. Nevertheless, in responding to subsequent 
     congressional requests, we addressed this perception. In a 
     February 12, 1997 memorandum prepared for Senator Domenici, 
     which he inserted in the Congressional Record the same day, 
     we pointed out first that
       ``the Trust Funds will be drawn down to cover the Social 
     Security deficit in that year, and that the Treasury will 
     have to make good on those securities with whatever moneys it 
     has available.'' [Congressional Record, February 12, 1997, 
     pp. S1294, 1295.]
       We further pointed out that the earlier statement--that the 
     drawdown from the trust funds would not count as receipts 
     under BBA scoring rules--was not a conclusion by CRS that the 
     trust Funds surpluses could not be drawn down to pay 
     benefits. In fact, we said that the BBA would not require 
     that result.
       In both instances, CRS was asked specific questions on the 
     same issues, but from different Members with different 
     perspectives,

[[Page S1532]]

     and we gave consistent answers. I further would point out 
     that in a CRS memorandum for general congressional 
     distribution prepared February 7, 1997 for the purpose of 
     discussing the impact of the BBA on Social Security 
     generally, where we did not have to respond to a specific 
     question from a Member, we made a similar statement about the 
     topic:
       ``Regardless of whether Social Security is included in 
     calculating the budget, under the intermediate projections 
     [of the 1996 Social Security trustees' report] its outlays 
     must be reduced or its revenues increased to avoid insolvency 
     in 2029. Whether it is more or less likely that these changes 
     would occur if Social Security were or were not included in 
     the Balanced Budget Amendment is a matter of conjecture.'' 
     [Memorandum entitled ``Analysis of effects of the balanced 
     budget amendment on Social Security, including the effect of 
     enactment of H.R. 3636,'' by Geoffrey Kollmann, February 7, 
     1997]
       With numerous CRS staff from different disciplines 
     responding to questions from many Members and offices with 
     varying perspectives, which is a common occurrence on major 
     legislative issues, we are conscious of the possibility that 
     we could approach and respond to questions about an issue 
     inconsistently. Consequently, we expend considerable effort 
     to coordinate our analyses and responses, particularly 
     through the extensive CRS review process. On this particular 
     issue, I believe we have taken a consistent position on what 
     we do know and don't know about the impact of the BBA on 
     Social Security, both in responses to specific questions from 
     individual Members and in our general products.
       In closing, I would emphasize again the importance CRS 
     attaches to its unique role as a source of accurate and 
     balanced research and information. I trust this communication 
     has demonstrated our commitment to preserving the reputation 
     for integrity that we have earned from the Congress over 
     eighty years.
           Sincerely,
                                              Daniel P. Mulhollan,
                                                         Director.

  Mr. HATCH. Furthermore, to nail the point home, the nonpartisan 
Concord Coalition entered the fray. In a memorandum dated February 18, 
1997, the Coalition concluded that the Senate position--that if the 
balanced budget amendment does not exempt Social Security it will 
somehow nullify Social Security benefits and prevent payments of 
benefits to retired baby boomers--is, and I quote, ``nonsense.'' Let me 
quote further.
  ``What the balanced budget amendment would do is to raise national 
savings, and thus make Social Security--along with the myriad other 
claims on tomorrow's economy--more affordable. It would be ironic 
indeed if concern about funding Social Security, whether real or 
pretended, turns out to be the issue that sinks the balanced budget 
amendment.''
  ``Let us be clear,'' they go on to say, ``The balanced budget 
amendment would in no way alter the status of the Social Security trust 
funds.''
  I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled ``Facing Facts, The 
Truth about Entitlements and the Budget, A Fax Alert from The Concord 
Coalition,'' dated February 18, 1997, be printed in the Record at this 
point.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Concord Coalition, Feb. 18, 1997]

              More Nonsense on Social Security and the BBA

       Last week, Senator Byron Dorgan and several like-minded 
     colleagues held a news conference at which they warned that 
     if the balanced budget amendment (BBA) does not exempt Social 
     Security it will somehow nullify the program's trust-fund 
     surpluses and prevent Congress from paying promised benefits 
     when Boomers retire. This conclusion, they said, has been 
     corroborated by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
       All of this is nonsense. What the BBA would do is to raise 
     national savings and thus make Social Security--along with 
     the myriad other claims on tomorrow's economy--more 
     affordable. It would be ironic indeed if concern about 
     funding Social Security, whether real or pretended, turns out 
     to be the issue that sinks the BBA.


                          a deficit time bomb

       Let's be clear: The BBA would in no way alter the status of 
     the Social Security trust funds. After enactment of the BBA, 
     the Treasury IOUs held in the trust funds would be precisely 
     as meaningless as they are today. With or without the BBA, 
     these ``assets'' can only be redeemed if Congress hikes 
     taxes, cuts other spending or borrows more from the public to 
     raise the cash. The BBA, by requiring that the unified budget 
     be in balance in every future year, would simply curtail the 
     borrowing option--which, in effect, is all CRS says.
       Apparently, what the senators really want is some guarantee 
     that Congress translate Social Security's trust-fund 
     surpluses into genuine economic savings by running unified 
     budget surpluses of equal size. This may be a laudable policy 
     goal--and there is nothing in the BBA to prevent Congress 
     from pursuing it. But embedding trust-fund accounting in the 
     Constitution by exempting Social Security from the BBA is a 
     terrible idea.
       Why? While the Social Security trust funds are officially 
     projected to run modest surpluses until 2019, thereafter they 
     are due to run ever-widening deficits. And once the deficits 
     begin, the BBA-cum-exemption would allow Congress to run a 
     unified budget deficit equal to the Social Security trust-
     fund deficit every year. By 2025, the allowable annual 
     unified budget deficit would rise to $315 billion; by 
     2040, it would rise to $2.1 trillion. if the economy takes 
     a dip, moreover, deficits could begin much sooner--by 
     2007, according to the Trustees' high-cost projection. In 
     this case, a BBA that goes into effect in 2002 would 
     guarantee very little near-term addition to national 
     savings--but would allow a Niagara of deficit spending in 
     future years.
       And even this assumes that legislators won't redefine 
     ``Social Security'' so that the exemption becomes an 
     immediate highway for any amount of deficit spending. With 
     the White House now proposing to keep Medicare ``solvent'' by 
     shuffling outlays between its trust funds, such shenanigans 
     hardly seem farfetched.


                            time to wake up

       It's time we focus less on process and more on substantive 
     economic results. Trust-fund accounting is (and always has 
     been) an arbitrary legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund 
     is in surplus or deficit has little economic relevance. What 
     does matter is the net difference between total federal 
     revenues and outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget 
     balance.
       The senators should wake up and look around. The principal 
     effect of their exemption would be to allow the nation to run 
     huge unified budget deficits at a time when a massive age 
     wave will be straining the productive capacity of America's 
     younger generations.
       Yes, it probably is sound policy to run unified budget 
     surpluses today to boost our lagging savings rate and prepare 
     for the coming demographic transformation of our society. But 
     let's not do so merely to fulfill some narrow trust-fund 
     logic--and especially not as way to justify and allow massive 
     budget deficits in the future.
       Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water. 
     The purpose of the BBA is to require Congress to raise the 
     deck above water and keep it there. The Social Security 
     exemption would defeat this purpose. As for running budget 
     surpluses, nothing in the BBA prevents Congress from doing so 
     whenever it so decides.

  Mr. HATCH. Even more important, yesterday, the very same Concord 
Coalition revealed a major analysis studying the effects of exempting 
Social Security from the unified budget.
  This is the Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security, the 
Concord Coalition Issue Analysis, 97-1, dated February 24, 1997, as of 
yesterday. Because of the significance of the analysis, let me quote 
its major conclusion:

       Trust fund accounting is, and always has been, an arbitrary 
     legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund is in surplus or 
     deficit has little economic relevance. What does matter is 
     the net difference between total Federal revenues and 
     outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget balance.
       Although some Senators and Representatives mistakenly 
     believe that exempting Social Security from the balanced 
     budget amendment would protect boomer retirees, it would, in 
     reality, do nothing to guarantee future Social Security 
     benefits, which would remain mere statutory promises, subject 
     to change by Congress at any time.

  ``Instead,'' and let me go to this next chart--``Instead,'' it says:

       . . . legislators should focus on how the balanced budget 
     amendment without an exemption for Social Security would 
     strengthen the Social Security program and the ability of our 
     Nation to finance retirement benefits not only for the baby 
     boom generation, but for succeeding generations as well. The 
     BBA, the balanced budget amendment, would raise national 
     savings and thus make Social Security--along with Medicare 
     and other claims on tomorrow's economy--more affordable.

  That's a statement of the Concord Coalition, The Balanced Budget 
Amendment and Social Security--6, in 1997.

       The Concord Coalition is a nonpartisan group made up of 
     Democrats and Republicans, business people and nonbusiness 
     people, people who are concerned about fighting these budget 
     battles in an appropriate way. They do not have any axes to 
     grind except they are leading the fight to try to balance the 
     budget. They are not playing games with the letters from the 
     Congressional Research Service. Which really has occurred in 
     this matter.

  ``Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water,'' the 
Concord Coalition goes on to say.

       The purpose of the balanced budget amendment is to require 
     Congress to raise the deck above water and keep it there. The 
     Social Security exemption would defeat this purpose.


[[Page S1533]]


  I ask unanimous consent to have the Concord Coalition's Issue 
Analysis 97-1, the Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security, 
printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Concord Coalition, Feb. 24, 1997]

           The Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security

                          Issue Analysis 97-1

       On February 5, 1997, the American Law Division of the 
     Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a one-page 
     memorandum (Appendix 1) evaluating whether the proposed 
     balanced budget amendment (S.J. Res. 1) would preclude, at a 
     future time, the use of Social Security trust fund surpluses 
     to pay out benefits. This memorandum was Exhibit One at a 
     press conference held by Senator Byron Dorgan and several 
     like-minded colleagues to warn that the balanced budget 
     amendment to the Constitution (BBA) would somehow nullify the 
     program's trust-fund surpluses and prevent the payment of 
     benefits when the baby boom generation retires.
       In fact, the CRS memorandum did not buttress the Senators' 
     point. After explaining that payments from the trust fund 
     would, indeed, count as federal outlays, the CRS memorandum 
     stated explicitly.
       ``. . . this does not mean that Social Security benefits 
     could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into the 
     Treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this amount 
     could be used to offset the Social Security deficit.''
       Because the point of the February 5 memorandum was so 
     widely misreported to say the opposite of what the author 
     intended, CRS issued a second, clarifying memorandum on 
     February 12. (Appendix 2) The second memorandum stated,
       ``We are not  concluding that the Trust Funds surpluses 
     could not be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The BBA would 
     not require that result. What it would mandate is that, in as 
     much as the United States has a unified budget, other 
     receipts into the Treasury would have to be counted to 
     balance the outlays form the Trust Funds and those receipts 
     would not be otherwise available to the Government for that 
     year. Only if no other receipts in any particular year could 
     be found would the possibility of a limitation on drawing 
     down the Trust Funds arise. Even in this eventuality, 
     however, Congress would retain authority under the BBA to 
     raise revenues or to reduce expenditures to obtain the 
     necessary moneys to make good on the liquidation of 
     securities from the Social Security Trust Funds.''
       These two CRS memoranda make clear that the Senators' 
     allegations are nonsense.


                          a deficit time bomb

       Let's be clear: The BBA would in no way alter the status of 
     the Social Security trust fund. After enactment of the BBA, 
     the Treasury IOUs held in the trust fund would be precisely 
     as meaningless as they are today. With or without the BBA, 
     these ``assets'' can only be redeemed if Congress hikes 
     taxes, cuts other spending, or borrows more from the public 
     to raise the cash. This bears repeating: even if the BBA is 
     never enacted, when the time comes to draw several hundred 
     billion dollars from the Trust Fund in a particular year in 
     order to pay benefits, the money to turn the government bonds 
     held by the Trust Fund into cash will have to be found 
     somewhere, and it will have to be found in that year. These 
     funds can come from only three sources: raising taxes, 
     reducing other spending elsewhere in the budget, or borrowing 
     from the public. The BBA, by requiring that the unified 
     budget be in balance in every future year, would simply 
     curtail the borrowing option--which, in effect, is all the 
     CRS memoranda say.
       Apparently, what some Senators and Representatives really 
     want is some kind of guarantee that Congress translate Social 
     Security's short term trust-fund surpluses into genuine 
     economic savings by running unified budget surpluses or equal 
     size. This is a laudable policy goal--and there is nothing in 
     the BBA to prevent Congress from pursuing it. In fact, the 
     Concord Coalition hopes that Congress will run substantial 
     surpluses during extended periods of peacetime prosperity, 
     and we invite Senators and Representatives to work with us on 
     budget plans that not only reach balance by 2002 but contain 
     credible, equitable, and politically realistic policies to 
     achieve annual surpluses shortly thereafter roughly equal to 
     Social Security surpluses.
       But embedding trust-fund accounting in the Constitution by 
     exempting Social Security from the BBA is a terrible idea.
       Why? While the Social Security trust funds are officially 
     projected to run modest surpluses until 2019, thereafter they 
     are due to run ever-widening deficits. These deficits will 
     not be a temporary phenomenon that will subside once the 
     period of the baby boomers' retirement is over. The boomers' 
     retirement marks the abrupt beginning of what will be a 
     permanent demographic shift. The analogy is not a python 
     trying to swallow a pig; the analogy is a python trying to 
     swallow a telephone pole.
       While one might be able to make a case for borrowing money 
     to ride out a temporary crisis, no one can justify trying to 
     borrow our way out of a permanent change. Once the deficit 
     begins, the BBA with the Social Security exemption would 
     allow Congress to run a unified budget deficit equal to the 
     Social Security trust-fund deficit every year. By 2025, the 
     allowable annual unified budget deficit would rise to $315 
     billion; by 3040, it would rise to $2.1 trillion. If the 
     economy takes a dip, moreover, deficits could begin 
     much sooner--by 2007, according to the Trustees' high-cost 
     projection. In this case, a BBA that exempts Social 
     Security that goes into effect in 2002 would guarantee 
     very little near-term addition to national savings--but 
     would allow a Niagara of deficit spending in future years.
       And even this assumes that legislators won't redefine 
     ``Social Security'' so that the exemption becomes a 
     superhighway for any amount of deficit spending. With the 
     White House now proposing to keep Medicare ``solvent'' by 
     shuffling outlays between its trust funds, this hardly seems 
     farfetched.


                            time to wake up

       It's time we focus on substantive economic results. Trust-
     fund accounting is (and always has been) an arbitrary 
     legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund is in surplus or 
     deficit has little economic relevance. What does matter is 
     the net difference between total federal revenues and 
     outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget balance.
       Although some Senators and Representatives mistakenly 
     believe that exempting Social Security from the BBA would 
     protect boomer retirees, it would, in reality, do nothing to 
     guarantee future Social Security benefits, which would remain 
     mere statutory promises subject to change by Congress at any 
     time. The principal effect of the exemption would be to allow 
     the nation to run huge unified budget deficits at a time when 
     a massive age wave will be straining the productive capacity 
     of America's younger generations.
       Yes, it is sound policy to run unified budget surpluses 
     today to boost our lagging national savings rate and prepare 
     for the coming demographic transformation of our society. But 
     let's not do so merely to fulfill some narrow trust-fund 
     logic--and especially not as a way to allow and justify 
     massive budget deficits in the future.
       Instead, legislators should focus on how the BBA without an 
     exemption for Social Security would strengthen the Social 
     Security program and the ability of our nation to finance 
     retirement benefits not only for the baby boom generation, 
     but for succeeding generations as well. The BBA would raise 
     national savings and thus make Social Security--along with 
     Medicare and other claims on tomorrow's economy--more 
     affordable. It would be ironic indeed if concern about 
     funding Social Security, whether real or pretended, turns out 
     to be the issue that sinks the BBA.
       Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water. 
     The purpose of the BBA is to require Congress to raise the 
     deck above water and keep it there. The Social Security 
     exemption would defeat this purpose. As for running budget 
     surpluses, nothing in the BBA prevents Congress from doing so 
     whenever it so decides.
                                  ____


                               Appendix 1

                                   Congressional Research Service,


                                      The Library of Congress,

                                 Washington, DC, February 5, 1997.
     To: Hon. Thomas A. Daschle, Attention: Jonathan Adelstein.
     From: American Law Division.
     Subject: Treatment of Outlays from Social Security Surpluses 
         under Balanced Budget Amendment
       This memorandum is in response to your inquiry for an 
     evaluation of an argument made in connection with 
     interpretation of the proposed Balanced Budget Amendment 
     (BBA), now pending in the Senate as S.J. Res. 1. Briefly 
     stated, the contention is that the terms of the proposal, if 
     proposed and ratified, would preclude, at a future time when 
     Social Security outlays in a particular year begin to exceed 
     Social Security receipts in that particular year, the use of 
     surpluses built up in the Social Security trust funds to pay 
     out benefits.
       At the present time, surpluses are being accumulated in the 
     Social Security trusts funds, at least as an accounting 
     practice, as a result of changes made in 1983. It is expected 
     that when the receipts into the funds fall below the amount 
     being paid out that moneys from the surpluses will be used to 
     make up the differences.
       The BBA would have its impact on this legislated plan 
     because under Sec. 1 of the proposal ``[t]otal outlays for 
     any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that 
     fiscal year, . . . .'' Under Sec. 7 of the BBA, the two terms 
     are defined thusly: ``Total receipts shall include all 
     receipts of the United States Government except those derived 
     from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of 
     the United States Government except for those for repayment 
     of debt principal.''
       Therefore, under the BBA's language, there is mandated a 
     balance in each year of the outlays that year and the 
     receipts that year. Payments out of the balances of the 
     Social Security trust funds would not be counted as 
     Government receipts under the BBA, when in the year 2019, or 
     whenever the time occurs, the receipts in those particular 
     years into the Social Security funds are not adequate to 
     cover the outlays in those years. That is, payments out of 
     the trust fund surpluses could not be counted in the 
     calculation of the balance between total federal outlays and 
     receipts. Because the BBA requires that the required balance 
     be between outlays for

[[Page S1534]]

     that year and receipts for that year, the moneys that 
     constitute the Social Security surpluses would not be 
     available as a balance for the payments of benefits.
       Now, of course, this does not mean that Social Security 
     benefits could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into 
     the Treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this 
     amount could be used to offset the Social Security deficit. 
     And, again of course, tax or expenditure provisions, or both, 
     could be altered to create a new balance.

                                            Johnny H. Killian,

                                                Senior Specialist,
     American Constitutional Law.
                                  ____


                               Appendix 2

                                   Congressional Research Service,


                                      The Library of Congress,

                                Washington, DC, February 12, 1997.
     From: American Law Division.
     Subject: Treatment of Outlays from Social Security Surpluses 
         under BBA.
       This memorandum is in response to your inquiry with respect 
     to the effect on the Social Security Trust Funds of the 
     pending Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). Under S.J. Res. 1 as 
     it is now before the Senate, & I would mandate that ``[t]otal 
     outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts 
     for that fiscal year .  .  .  .'' Outlays and receipts are 
     defined in Sec. 7 as practically all inclusive, with two 
     exceptions that are irrelevant here.
       At some point, the receipts into the Social Security Trust 
     Funds will not balance the outlays from those Funds. Under 
     present law, then, the surpluses being built up in the Funds, 
     at least as an accounting practice, will be utilized to pay 
     benefits to the extent receipts for each year do not equal 
     the outlays in that year. Simply stated, the federal 
     securities held by the Trust Funds will be drawn down to 
     cover the Social Security deficit in that year, and the 
     Treasury will have to make good on those securities with 
     whatever moneys it has available.
       However, Sec. 1 of the pending BBA requires that total 
     outlays for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts for 
     that fiscal year. Thus, the amount drawn from the Social 
     Security Trust Funds could not be counted in the calculation 
     of the balance between total federal outlays and receipts. We 
     are not concluding that the Trust Funds surpluses could not 
     be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The BBA would not require 
     that result. What it would mandate is that, inasmuch as the 
     United States has a unified budget, other receipts into the 
     Treasury would have to be counted to balance the outlays from 
     the Trust Funds and those receipts would not be otherwise 
     available to the Government for that year. Only if no other 
     receipts in any particular year could be found would the 
     possibility of a limitation on drawing down the Trust Funds 
     arise. Even in this eventuality, however, Congress would 
     retain authority under the BBA to raise revenues or to reduce 
     expenditures to obtain the necessary moneys to make good on 
     the liquidation of securities from the Social Security Trust 
     Funds.

                                            Johnny H. Killian,

                                                Senior Specialist,
                                      American Constitutional Law.

  Mr. HATCH. The Reid amendment will make it harder to balance the 
budget. And it will harm not only Social Security, but other social 
programs.
  Furthermore, in another paradox, the exclusion of the present-day 
surpluses in the budget would make it extraordinarily difficult to 
balance the budget by the year 2002, the date Senate Joint Resolution 1 
mandates balancing. Between now and the year 2002, the surplus is 
estimated to be over $500 billion; over $500 billion. On this chart we 
have 10 years of the surplus. You will notice at the bottom the 
surpluses are worth $1.067 trillion, that is 10 years from now. Mr. 
President, $1.067 trillion is more than our expenditure this year on 
Medicare, education, veterans' benefits, the environment, national 
defense, Social Security, transportation, and infrastructure and 
national resources combined. In fact, between the year 2002 and 2019 
when Social Security outlays will exceed receipts, the trust fund is 
expected to earn more than $1.9 trillion.
  Where do supporters of the Reid amendment propose to come up with the 
money necessary to cover this supposed shortfall? This is an annual 
surplus average of approximately $100 billion each year. According to 
current budgetary figures, $100 billion per year is more than our 
current annual expenditure on education, the environment, 
transportation and infrastructure. Where will we come up with the money 
if this goes off budget to fund these programs if we exclude Social 
Security surpluses from the unified budget, and if we are serious about 
getting to a balanced budget by the year 2002? Show me the money. We 
are going to have to come up with $1.067 trillion, and it is going to 
have to come out of these programs that are critical programs, if you 
follow this amendment that the distinguished Senator from Nevada has 
filed here.
  Federal programs would have to be cut under his amendment, or taxes 
raised by that amount to reach the balanced budget goal. If the 
American people think they are taxed enough now, wait until they have 
to be taxed to make up part or all of $1.067 trillion in the next 5 
years. Keep in mind, the fact of the matter is, Social Security goes 
from the people to the Social Security Administration, funds go into 
the Treasury, and then they are invested, the surplus funds are 
invested in bonds that go back to the Social Security Administration to 
be redeemed later. They happen to be invested in the most important 
securities in the world. The only way we are going to be able to pay 
those bonds is if we have a balanced budget amendment without any 
gimmickry or games, and especially risky gimmicks at that, that 
literally help us to have a good enough economy to redeem those bonds.
  If we do not do that, then many of these discretionary spending 
programs such as Head Start, education, entitlement spending programs 
such as veterans' pensions and benefits are going to be seriously 
harmed. It is just that simple.
  Additionally, I have to point out again, not all of President 
Clinton's budgets have included the Social Security surpluses in their 
calculations. Doesn't that bother you, that the President says, ``Oh, I 
think we ought to take Social Security out just like Senator Reid 
does?'' Why doesn't he? Why doesn't he take it out? Because he knows he 
cannot even make a claim to getting close to a balanced budget without 
those surpluses and he also knows he would have to cut most of the 
expensive social welfare programs that he and most of us up here would 
like to keep going in the best interests of people.

  Indeed, Secretary Rubin, the Secretary of the Treasury, testified in 
a recent judiciary hearing, that without including the surpluses in 
budget calculations, it would be virtually impossible to arrive at a 
balanced budget. In his recent press conference President Clinton 
admitted the same when he confessed, and this is what he said, 
``Neither the Republicans nor I could produce a balanced budget 
tomorrow that could pass if Social Security funds cannot be counted.'' 
And the reason is because those surpluses are now being used to help 
balance the budget. But the obligation will be the same. The bonds are 
still going to be there. It will still be invested in bonds, whether 
the Reid amendment passes or whether we continue the same system. So, 
to say if we were in the private sector doing this we would all go to 
jail is not only a misnomer, or a misstatement, the fact is that we are 
putting them into the securities that are the only great securities in 
the world.
  But they are only as great as this country is. And if this country 
continues to spend into bankruptcy, we will not have the money to 
redeem those securities. If we do what the distinguished Senator from 
Nevada wants done here, we will not have the monies. Then you really 
will harm those trust funds by putting them out there all alone, not 
subject to balanced budget requisites, not subject to any reforms that 
need to take place with regard to the whole budget as a whole, but out 
there, vulnerable to the special interest rats who come along and eat 
it like cheese.
  The Social Security trust funds consist not of cash but of debt 
securities, as this chart shows. And they will be, whether this 
amendment passes, the Reid amendment passes, or not. But these debt 
securities have to be paid back.

  How do you pay them back if you don't get the country's spending 
under control? If you look at reality--that is these 28 budgets that 
have been unbalanced since 1968--how are we going to get spending under 
control so we can pay back those bonds and redeem those bonds and pay 
back that money to the Social Security fund?
  Part of the problem in addressing the Social Security issue in this 
debate results from the confusing terminology used by our opponents. 
They complain that the present trust fund surplus will be ``raided'' if 
we have a unitary budget that includes Social Security. But the fact is 
the Social Security trust funds are not a giant wallet of $100 bills or 
$1,000 bills or gold, for that matter. The

[[Page S1535]]

FICA tax receipts come from the people to the Social Security 
Administration, and the bonds are given to the surplus, which are used 
to balance the budget today, and it will be the same system if the Reid 
amendment is adopted. The only difference is there is no balanced 
budget amendment. That is the only difference.
  (Mr. GORTON assumed the chair.)
  Mr. HATCH. The Social Security FICA tax receipts are used to pay 
benefits, and any excess is, by law, loaned to the Treasury to pay 
other Federal obligations in exchange for Treasury bonds. These bonds 
are interest-bearing bonds. That is all. They are evidence of the debt 
the Federal Government owes itself.
  The most important question for future retirees is whether the 
Federal Government will be able to pay off its debts. The only way they 
will be redeemed in the future is if a budget is balanced and we have 
enough revenue to redeem the securities.
  Mr. President, the best protection for Social Security is passing and 
ratifying Senate Joint Resolution 1. This would create the needed 
discipline to balance the budget. Payments on debt interest would be 
substantially reduced. The chance for Government default would be 
significantly diminished. The economy will grow at a brisker pace, 
repayment of Social Security obligations will be more secure, and we 
will end this process of never-ending mounting national debts, which 
have been continuing since--well, 58 of the last 66 years, but 28 of 
the last 28 years.
  As I stated, the Social Security system is facing a future crisis. By 
the year 2029, the system will be bankrupt. We will put that chart up 
and you can see, when you get up to 2029, the system is bankrupt and we 
go into very serious deficit. Sadly, the Social Security trust fund's 
board of trustees estimates that by the year 2070, Social Security will 
be facing a $7 trillion annual deficit. In 1996 dollars, that amounts 
to more than $1 trillion in deficits each year. Our current total 
annual Federal budget is only $1.5 trillion. Where will we get the 
revenue to redeem the Social Security securities, then, unless we plan 
and budget for it as required under our balanced budget amendment?
  The trust fund securities are only a claim on the General Treasury 
funds with no capital to back up that claim. If the country ever 
defaults on its debts, the Social Security trust funds will suffer. For 
this reason alone, Social Security recipients, both current and future 
and those who are concerned about them, should strongly support the 
balanced budget amendment--for that reason alone.

  The biggest threat to Social Security, therefore, is our growing debt 
and concomitant interest payments. The Government's use of capital to 
fund debt slows productivity and income growth and, thereby, lessens 
the pool of revenues available to fund Social Security. The real way to 
protect Social Security benefits is to pass Senate Joint Resolution 1. 
The proposal to exempt Social Security will not only destroy the 
balanced budget amendment, or any plan to balance the budget, but in 
all probability will also pose a real risk to the Social Security 
system.
  Section 13301 of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 does not require 
that Social Security be placed ``off budget.'' Supporters of exempting 
Social Security argue that section 13301 of the 1990 Budget Enforcement 
Act literally exempts Social Security trust funds from the President's 
and the Congress' budget calculations. They claim that the balanced 
budget amendment would change this because it requires a unified 
budget.
  These critics of the balanced budget amendment are wrong on both 
counts. Under section 13301(a) of the Budget Enforcement Act, the 
receipts and outlays of the Social Security trust funds are, indeed, 
not counted in both the President's and Congress' budgets, but only for 
certain specific purposes. The primary purpose for this exclusion was 
to exempt Social Security from sequestration by the President under the 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings procedures and from the act's pay-as-you-go 
requirement.
  In addition, as added protection, sections 13302 and 13303 of the 
Budget Enforcement Act also created firewall point of order protections 
for Social Security trust funds in both the House and the Senate. All 
this is made clear by the conference report accompanying the 1990 act.
  Indeed, the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act does not preclude both 
Congress and the President from formulating a unitary budget that 
includes Social Security trust funds for national fiscal purposes. 
Surely the opponents of the balanced budget amendment are not 
suggesting that the President of the United States and the Congress 
have been flouting the law when they include the Social Security trust 
funds in their respective budget calculations. Look, we all know that 
Social Security will need reform if it is to continue to be viable over 
the long haul. This chart shows that. There is no way that we can 
continue to go the way we are going without reforming Social Security.
  We all know that, but the problem is not the inclusion of Social 
Security trust funds in the budget. The problem is that at the time of 
the retirement of baby boomers, there will not be enough FICA taxes to 
fund their retirement. Moreover, the surplus Social Security taxes 
being collected today will not cover the future cost of the system. 
Most of the current Social Security taxes are used to cover benefit 
payments to present retirees.
  Outlays will exceed receipts of the system in about the year 2019, 
maybe even before. The guarantee of future benefits, therefore, will 
depend on the Federal Government's future ability to pay benefits.
  Not including Social Security in the budget would harm the program. 
Congress could redesignate programs as part of the exempted Social 
Security system. The distinguished Senator from Nevada yesterday said 
Social Security is statutorily defined. Let's understand what that 
means. When something is statutorily defined, a subsequent statute can 
change the definition of it, and that only takes a simple majority in 
both Houses of Congress to do. Anybody who doesn't understand that 
doesn't understand the legislative process.

  Let me tell you, if you don't include Social Security in the budget, 
the program is going to be harmed. Congress could rename anything 
``Social Security,'' as they have done before, by a simple majority 
vote. If they just name it Social Security and use the FICA taxes to 
fund these programs, then you will really see the program raided.
  The problem that the Reid amendment raises in reality is not with the 
balanced budget amendment, but with the problems that the Social 
Security Program faces. We need to fix that, and adopting the balanced 
budget amendment and getting rid of these unbalanced budgets is a heck 
of a good start.
  The balanced budget amendment does not overturn existing statutory 
protections for Social Security. In a related argument that seeks to 
justify the exemption, some have argued the balanced budget amendment 
will override the existing statutory protections for Social Security. 
Contrary to this assertion, it is clear that the current statutory 
protections for Social Security would not be eliminated by the 
amendment. Of course, the supremacy clause of the Constitution provides 
that any legislation contrary to a constitutional provision must fail. 
As the great Chief Justice John Marshall held in the landmark 1803 
decision of Marbury versus Madison: An act of the legislature repugnant 
to the Constitution is void.''
  But what critics fail to mention is that there is absolutely nothing 
in the balanced budget constitutional amendment that is inconsistent 
with current statutory schemes. The Social Security statutory 
protections are not legislative acts ``repugnant to the Constitution'' 
as amended by Senate Joint Resolution 1. Congress, under the balanced 
budget amendment, can also create statutory protections for the Social 
Security Program.
  Further, the Reid amendment has absolutely no protection against 
Social Security benefit cuts. The plain fact is that the best thing we 
can do for Social Security, the best thing we can do for retirees, and 
the best thing we can do for all Americans is to enact the balanced 
budget amendment without loopholes, without exemptions, and bring 
fiscal sanity and a little common sense back to Government.
  Opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 1 who argue for a Social 
Security exemption contend that the balanced

[[Page S1536]]

budget amendment will not in reality produce a balanced budget because 
gross debt will still rise. This is clever but it is misleading.
  Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment does indeed require a 
balanced budget. Outlays must not exceed receipts under section 1 of 
Senate Joint Resolution 1. But it is also true that gross debt may 
still increase even if the budget is balanced. That is because the 
Government's exchange of securities for incoming FICA taxes is counted 
as gross debt. It is merely an accounting or bookkeeping notation of 
what one agency of Government owes another agency. It is analogous to a 
corporation buying back its own stock or debentures. Such stock and 
bonds are considered retired obligations that once paid have no 
economic or fiscal significance. Thus if we enact the balanced budget 
amendment the debt the United States owes to everyone but itself will 
stop growing.
  This is very different from obligations owed by the Federal 
Government to the public. This type of debt--termed net debt or debt 
held by the public--is legally enforceable and is what is economically 
significant. If net debt zooms--because of interest payments of debt--
which last year amounted to more than $250 billion--budget deficits 
balloon with all the dire economic consequences. To assure that budgets 
will be balanced unless extraordinary situations arise, debt held by 
the public cannot be increased unless three-fifths of the whole number 
of each House concur.
  That net debt is considered to be of far greater economic 
significance than gross debt is a widely held truism among economists. 
Indeed, in the study ``Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the U.S. 
Government Fiscal Year 1998,'' the Clinton administration no less 
concludes that net debt or ``borrowing from the public, whether by the 
Treasury or by some other Federal agency, has a significant impact on 
the economy.''
  On the other hand, the study also maintains that gross debt or debt 
issued to Government accounts ``does not have any of the economic 
effects of borrowing from the public. It is merely an internal 
transaction between two accounts, both within the Government itself.''
  Now, it is true that the balanced budget amendment does not by itself 
reduce the $5.3 trillion national debt. But what it does do is 
straighten out our national fiscal house and make it orderly. Passage 
of Senate Joint Resolution 1 will increase economic growth and allow us 
to run surpluses. With this, our national debt may be decreased if 
Congress desires to do so in the interest of national economic 
stability and prosperity. Without Senate Joint Resolution 1, this would 
be and will be an impossibility.
  The Reid amendment, on the other hand, adds nothing to protect the 
trust funds from accumulating debt. In fact, by creating this loophole, 
this risky gimmick, this riverboat gamble, the Reid amendment may cause 
the trust fund to dry up sooner and run deeper deficits. Thus, the Reid 
amendment is a risky gimmick that endangers Social Security.
  The Reid amendment is confusing and its application is going to harm 
Social Security. Let me just say, finally, Mr. President, the Reid 
amendment should be rejected because it is confusing. As I have said, 
its application may harm the Social Security Program, the very thing 
the Reid amendment claims to protect. The amendment exempts the Social 
Security trust funds from the balancing requirement, but it also 
includes the proviso ``as and if modified to preserve the solvency of 
the Funds.''

  Explicitly exempting Social Security by placing it in the 
Constitution may ``constitutionalize'' the program in perpetuity unless 
a subsequent constitutional amendment provides for the program to be 
altered or abolished. As a result of the Reid amendment, do minor 
technical changes to Social Security every year require amendments to 
the Constitution? The constitutional amendment process was designed by 
the Framers to be lengthy, to prevent specious changes to the 
Constitution. If we must go through this time-consuming process for 
every change to Social Security because we have written specifically a 
statutory scheme into the Constitution, a statutory program into the 
Constitution --even minor technical alterations--I fear major needed 
reforms to Social Security will come far too late if at all.
  Similarly, does the proviso language mandate the solvency of the 
Social Security system, or does that language merely allow the Congress 
to take such steps? If the answer is that Congress must take measures 
to assure solvency, does this require mandated tax increases or benefit 
cuts?
  Frankly, this proviso language strands us in unchartered territory. 
We do not know exactly how this language is going to be interpreted. 
Once it becomes part of the Constitution, assuming this amendment would 
pass, this language could also very well mean that the scope of Social 
Security as a constitutional provision could be amended by statute. For 
instance, in 1965, Social Security was broadened by a statue to include 
hospital insurance. That is, part A of Medicare. My question is this: 
If under the Reid amendment Social Security can be variously modified 
by statute, would we be constitutionalizing a massive loophole through 
which we could constitutionally enforce spending on any program 
redesignated as ``Social Security?'' If, on the other hand, we can only 
modify Social Security by constitutional amendment, will that not 
require a two-thirds Senate vote, approval of 37 States, and a 7-year 
delay to enact even the most minor changes?
  All of this demonstrates the danger that the Reid amendment as a 
whole creates--that Congress ought to be responsible and not amend the 
Constitution to include specific statutory programs like Social 
Security. A constitutional amendment should be timeless and reflect a 
broad consensus and not make narrow policy decisions. We should not 
place technical language or overly complicated mechanisms in the 
Constitution and undercut the simplicity and universality of the 
balanced budget amendment. Explicitly exempting Social Security may 
constitutionalize the program in perpetuity unless a subsequent 
amendment provides for the program to be altered or abolished. It would 
also invite, in the opinion of many, gaming, and I can tell you it will 
invite gaming and endless litigation as the terms of the program are 
altered.
  Former Assistant and Acting Attorney General Stuart Gerson and 
attorney Alan Morrison, on different sides of the fence, both 
have extensive experience litigating constitutional issues and 
testified in a Judiciary Committee hearing on Senate Joint Resolution 
1. Although the two disagree about the wisdom of the balanced budget 
amendment, they agree that exempting Social Security is a bad idea, and 
both strongly oppose exempting Social Security from the balanced budget 
amendment. Stuart Gerson is for the balanced budget amendment. Alan 
Morrison was against. But both agree Social Security should not be 
exempted. Nothing should be. It ought be in the unified budget, to 
approach it intelligently.

  According to Alan Morrison, a liberal, against the balanced budget 
amendment, a litigator with Public Citizen who opposes the balanced 
budget amendment and testified for the minority:

       Various proposals have been floated to exclude Social 
     Security from the amendment, presumably as a means of 
     attracting additional votes. Given the size of Social 
     Security, to allow it to run at a deficit would undermine the 
     whole concept of a balanced budget. Moreover, there is no 
     definition of Social Security in the Constitution and it 
     would be extremely unwise and productive of litigation and 
     political maneuvering to try to write one. If there is to be 
     a balanced budget constitutional amendment, there should be 
     no exceptions.

  That is pretty important testimony given before the Judiciary 
Committee by a person who, although he hates the balanced budget 
amendment and does not want it as a liberal, nevertheless believes it 
would be tremendously detrimental to the Constitution if we put a 
statutory scheme in the Constitution.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, the biggest threat to Social Security 
is our growing debt and concomitant interest payments. Debt-related 
inflation hits hardest on those on fixed incomes, and the Government's 
use of capital to fund debt slows productivity and income growth and 
siphons off needed money for worthwhile programs. The way to protect 
Social Security benefits is to

[[Page S1537]]

pass Senate Joint Resolution 1, get rid of the year after year of 
unbalanced budgets, get us living within our means. The proposal to 
exempt Social Security will not only destroy the balanced budget 
amendment, but in all probability would also cause the Social Security 
trust funds to run out of money sooner than they would have without an 
exemption, perhaps mortally wounding the very program the Reid 
amendment was designed to protect. That would be the paradox indeed.
  Let me just finally conclude, anyone who believes Social Security 
will not be harmed are simply wrong.
  The Reid amendment is a risky gimmick. The Reid amendment is a 
gamble. Special interest scavengers will sniff out Social Security. 
Before long, we will be using Social Security to fund all sorts of 
perks like the S.S. Social Security battleship. If we can put that 
chart up to make the point. We can see it happening. Now, that is 
bizarre but not nearly as bizarre as what has been done for 28 years, 
with all these unbalanced budgets. There is nothing in the Reid 
amendment that protects Social Security. Indeed, the Reid amendment 
threatens Social Security. It is a risk, it is a gamble, and it should 
be defeated.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Utah entertain a 
unanimous-consent request? I will explain it. I was going to ask that 
we lay aside the Reid amendment, call up the Kennedy amendment No. 10, 
have it considered, then lay that aside and go back to the Reid 
amendment.
  Mr. HATCH. Let me first suggest the absence of a quorum with the time 
to be divided equally.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the 
time be divided equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. 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 Agreement

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment 
of the distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Kennedy] 
amendment No. 10, be deemed as qualified and having been brought up, 
but without altering the order of other amendments in their normal 
course or by unanimous consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Amendment No. 10

(Purpose: To provide that only Congress shall have authority to enforce 
the provisions of the balanced budget constitutional amendment, unless 
Congress passes legislation specifically granting enforcement authority 
              to the President or State or Federal courts)

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf 
of Mr. Kennedy and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], for Mr. Kennedy, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 10.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 3, at the end of line 14, insert the following: 
     ``Unless specifically otherwise provided by such law, 
     Congress shall have exclusive authority to enforce the 
     provisions of this Article.''


                            Amendment No. 8

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield the floor and the control of the 
time on the Reid amendment to the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, 
[Mr. Feingold].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the floor manager. I yield myself such time as 
is necessary.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Susanne 
Martinez, Sumner Slichter, Mary Murphy, and Michael O'Leary, of my 
staff, be granted the privilege of the floor during Senator Joint 
Resolution 1 and all rollcall votes thereto.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to support the Reid amendment. I 
want to commend my friend and the distinguished Senator from Nevada for 
offering it.
  Mr. President, Social Security is unlike any other program in the 
unified budget. In fact, the surpluses generated by Social Security are 
the principal reason that the unified budget was created in the first 
place.
  Social Security is, fiscally and politically, a special program, and 
those special traits require us to separate it out from the rest of the 
budget. Social Security is singular as a public contract between the 
people of the United States and their elected Government.
  What happened here with Social Security, Mr. President, is that the 
elected Government promised that if workers and their employers paid 
into the Social Security fund, they would be able to draw upon that 
fund when they retire--a simple proposition. But the singular nature of 
Social Security and the special regard in which it is held by the 
public, Mr. President, does not flow from some fleeting sense of 
nostalgia. Rather, Social Security has provided real help for millions 
of seniors.
  According to AARP, Social Security keeps 15 million beneficiaries of 
all ages out of poverty. Today, 13 percent of recipients rely on Social 
Security for all of their income; 1 in 4 count on it for at least 90 
percent of their income; 3 in 5, Mr. President--60 percent--depend on 
it for at least half of their income.
  For those seniors, and for millions of others, the Social Security 
contract is very real and a vital necessity, and anything other than 
partitioning Social Security off from the rest of the budget risks a 
breach of that public contract, Mr. President.
  Beyond the issue of our moral obligation to such a contract and 
keeping our promise, there are critical fiscal reasons for making a 
special distinction in this new constitutional budget structure.
  Most obvious is the enormous temptation Social Security will provide 
to those who might seek to raid the trust fund to alleviate the 
deficit. This scenario is not hard to imagine. It is not some kind of a 
nightmare or a pipe dream. We already do it now. A unified budget masks 
the true, on-budget deficit. This is not a weakness of one party or one 
branch of Government. But it is a problem that we need to address, and 
it is a problem we need to address quickly. If we do not, the Social 
Security surpluses will be used to distort the true deficit picture, 
and it will undercut the deficit reduction that needs to be done. In 
fact, what will happen is we will pretend that we really have a 
balanced budget. But we will not because we will have used Social 
Security dollars to make it look in balance.
  So, Mr. President, we have to begin to rid ourselves of the addiction 
to the Social Security trust fund and to begin to learn how to balance 
the budget without it if we are to fulfill the promise we made to 
today's workers that the Social Security benefits would be there for 
them when they retire; that those benefits will be there for them when 
they need it.
  Some may argue that current law provides adequate protection for 
Social Security; or, many say, that, if the balanced budget amendment 
is ratified, Social Security can and will be protected though passage 
of implementing legislation. There are several responses to those 
claims.
  First, let us recall that many of those who make that argument are 
also the people who maintain that mere statutory mandates are 
insufficient to move Congress to do what it has to do. The argument, 
when it comes to the subject of balancing the budget, is that only 
constitutional authority is sufficient to engender the will necessary 
to reduce the deficit.
  Let's use the reasoning of these supporters. Using their reasoning, 
the willpower needed to resist the temptation to raid the Social 
Security ``cookie jar'' can presumably only come from

[[Page S1538]]

a constitutional mandate, or, more specifically, a specific reference 
in this amendment that protects Social Security. Those who oppose 
giving extra constitutional protection for Social Security often 
suggest that there is no practical need for the protection because 
``Social Security will compete very well * * *'' with other programs.
  I heard the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
reassure us time and again during the committee proceedings of this 
claim that we don't have to worry; that once we pass the balanced 
budget amendment Social Security is going to do very well; nothing to 
worry about.
  Mr. President, Social Security should not have to compete with 
anything. As many have noted, it is a separate program with a dedicated 
funding source intended to be self-funding.
  In addition, any assessment of the political potency of any 
particular program is going to have to be reappraised if we ever enter 
the brave new world of the balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. President, let us take a look at the current environment to get a 
clue as to what might happen after the balanced budget amendment is 
passed, ratified, and implemented. In the current environment, it isn't 
even Social Security that receives the most preferred treatment. In the 
last 2 years that status, the greatest preferential status, has been 
reserved for military budgets that receive billions more than the 
Pentagon even asks for. That higher status has also been reserved not 
for Social Security but for corporate tax loopholes which were 
specifically exempted from the new line-item veto authority that many 
of us supported and sent on to the President last year.

  What is more important, Mr. President, the proposed constitutional 
amendment imposes a new burden on Social Security that it doesn't even 
impose on other programs. Not only is Social Security not exempted, or 
protected, but it has the problem the way this amendment is drafted 
that other programs don't face. Because outlays cannot exceed receipts 
in any year, we are effectively barred from drawing on savings built up 
to fund future outlays. It is the very approach that we have to rely on 
to fund the expected ballooning of Social Security benefits as 
generations such as the baby boom generation reach older age.
  Mr. President, the surplus of Social Security revenues produced today 
contribute to the equivalent of a giant savings account which will have 
to be used to pay for the expected bulge in beneficiaries when the baby 
boomers begin to retire. By 2002 the combined Social Security trust 
fund balance will exceed $1 trillion. By 2010, the balance will exceed 
$2 trillion. And by the year 2020, Mr. President, that figure will 
approach $3 trillion. All of this money is intended for and is supposed 
to be for Social Security benefits. And we are going to need it. But 
the proposed constitutional amendment would impose a three-fifths 
majority requirement on that financing structure, and no statutory 
approach would be able to overcome the problem. It will have been 
enshrined in the Constitution.
  So, if we want to address the problem, if we want to be able to use 
that surplus fund to pay for these benefits in the future, it has to be 
done as part of the constitutional amendment itself.
  So, Mr. President, the bottom line on this proposed constitutional 
amendment is--that is right--that it does not treat all programs alike. 
Programs like Social Security which require a buildup of savings into 
the future somehow have to reach the higher standard and muster a 
three-fifths majority. But the defense budget, special interest 
spending done through the Tax Code, and corporate welfare all get a 
free pass in the brave new world of the balanced budget amendment.
  So, Mr. President, unless this is altered along the lines perhaps of 
the amendment proposed by the Senator from Nevada, the proposed 
constitutional amendment will not only enshrine the current practice of 
using Social Security surpluses to disguise the size of the budget 
deficit, it will actually make it nearly impossible to use those 
surpluses for Social Security when we need them. It will turn a 
bookkeeping gimmick into a $3 trillion heist.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleague to support the Reid amendment and 
at least give Social Security the same chance every other program has.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. How much time does the Senator need?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I do not recall how much I had.
  Mr. HATCH. I yield such time as the Senator needs.
  I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, and fellow Senators, I note that my good 
friend, Senator Reid, is on the floor. Let me say that it is with great 
reluctance that I say to the Social Security recipients across America 
that the Reid amendment threatens Social Security. Let me repeat. The 
Reid amendment threatens Social Security. Senator Reid and others have 
introduced their own version of a balanced budget amendment which would 
require a balanced budget in 2002 excluding the Social Security trust 
fund.
  It is interesting right off. The President of the United States 
opposes the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. One of the 
reasons he gives is that Social Security ought to be off budget. 
Everyone should know the President has been touting to all Americans 
that he has a balanced budget. And he said to the Republicans, ``Why 
don't you work with me, and maybe together we can have a balanced 
budget by 2002?'' Everybody should know that the President does that 
balanced budget with Social Security on budget--not off budget. He has 
never once ever said in a budget document that he sends up here that we 
ought to take Social Security off budget so we will protect Social 
Security. Never, never, never has he done that.
  The people on the other side of the aisle have proposed their own 
balanced budgets in the past, and I am going to say, since I am not 
sure of one those budgets, that every single one ever offered included 
Social Security on budget--not off budget. Isn't it interesting when 
the time comes that you are really going to insist that the American 
people are protected in the future from big Government and big deficits 
that now the excuse is Social Security should not be on budget. It 
should be off budget.
  Those same people argue that Social Security in the balanced budget 
effectively authorizes the raiding of the Social Security trust fund 
and the surpluses that are in that trust fund for purposes of balancing 
the budget.
  Mr. President and fellow Senators, I believe the argument that is 
being made, and this argument in particular and the Reid proposal in 
particular, is nothing more than a smokescreen. It is intended to 
divert public attention from the real issue--constitutionally required 
fiscal discipline. It provides an excuse for some who supported the 
balanced budget in the past to vote against it now, now that their vote 
really matters, for this is obviously within one or two votes at the 
most of leaving the Senate and going to the House, after which there is 
a real chance it will go to the sovereign States to see if three-
fourths of them want constitutionally imposed fiscal restraint.
  Let me repeat. Now that the chips are down, that a vote is a real 
vote, excuses are coming forth from the walls in abundance, and the 
biggest excuse and risky gimmick is that we should leave the largest 
program of the Federal Government, into which the largest amount of 
American taxes are entrusted, that we should not have it on the budget. 
I believe the American people will ultimately see through this 
smokescreen because it is obviously a charade. It is not about Social 
Security. It is about defeating the balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution.
  It is clear to me that it is their version of a balanced budget that 
would lead to the so-called raiding of Social Security, while our 
balanced budget would protect the trust funds. Let me repeat, it is 
very, very interesting to note that the argument is being made that you 
must take Social Security off budget or you will harm Social Security 
when as a matter of fact from what I can tell, and I think I understand 
budgeting, to take it off is to put it more at risk. Let me see if I 
can explain why.

[[Page S1539]]

  Make no bones about it. The Social Security trust fund, who gets paid 
and how much they get paid, what is subject to the trust fund and what 
can they pay out of it, is not enshrined in the Constitution. It is 
totally, purely, Mr. President, legislation. Social Security is defined 
by whom? It is not defined by God. It is not in the Ten Commandments. 
It is written by legislators. They define it. They write into that law 
who can get money, what programs might be within the Social Security 
trust fund, and here we go.
  The Reid amendment says balance the rest of the budget but leave this 
very large trust fund to float hither and yon on its own, subject to 
what, Mr. President? Subject to what Congress wants to do with it. 
Senior citizens, you are being duped, if you are coming here in large 
numbers telling us to leave it off the budget. Leave it off the budget, 
for what? For what? So that Congress can do with it what it wants 
without regard to the budget.
  Now, I am not suggesting that any Member of the Senate has that in 
mind, I say to the Senator from Oklahoma. I am not suggesting that my 
great friend from the State of Nevada has that in mind, but I am 
suggesting that when you enshrine in the Constitution a balanced budget 
that leaves Social Security out of the budget, you then have to ask the 
question over time, what might happen to that trust fund? I submit, in 
the past 15 years on at least one occasion that I am aware of, believe 
it or not, the now bankrupt Medicare fund, a trust fund, had a surplus, 
I say to my friend from Oklahoma, and Social Security was hurting. So 
guess what we did under the leadership of the chairman of the Finance 
Committee, Russell Long. We borrowed money from the Medicare fund and 
put it in the Social Security fund.

  We made up for that later. But now what we are going to do is take 
Social Security and put it out there all by itself. Guess what is going 
to happen in the next decade. The Social Security fund has a lot of 
money in it. It is growing. It has a lot of surplus. And guess what. 
Its sister fund for hospitalization for seniors is diminishing. We are 
all running around saying let us keep it from bankruptcy. What if we do 
not keep it from bankruptcy, I say to my friend, the occupant of the 
Chair? What if we do not keep Medicare from bankruptcy and in 8 years 
it is desperately in need of money? Where do you think Congress might 
look to get the money? This budget that has Medicare on it will be a 
tough budget because it has to be in balance. So I think it will be as 
easy and as axiomatic as anything that goes on, like day following 
night, Congress will say, let us take it out of the trust fund. Then 
somebody will rise up and say, but what about the balanced budget? Then 
some will stand up and say, well, we did not put it in that balanced 
budget because we wanted to protect it. Then somebody will say, protect 
it? Let us use it. So they will borrow from it. Or in fact make the 
payments for Medicare out of it saying we will fix it later.
  Now, frankly, I truly believe there is a higher probability of that 
happening than there is the probability that when the Social Security 
trust fund needs the cash that its reserves represent, that we have 
borrowed for the Federal Government, there is a higher chance of 
harming it by taking money out of it than there is the chance we will 
not have the money when the time comes that the surpluses have to 
really be turned into cash available.
  Then, might I suggest, if the whole purpose of a constitutional 
amendment--and I do not deny the sincerity of those who propose a 
constitutional amendment other than ours, than the one we propose. My 
friend from Nevada probably really wants a constitutional balanced 
budget, but the truth of the matter is the purpose of that is so that 
you get to the point in time, fellow Senators, the point in time when 
you cannot borrow any more money. Right? That is the whole purpose of 
this constitutional amendment. It is structured in that way and there 
is no question about it.
  Now, I ask you to just take a look at this one chart. I will use no 
more than this one. You see the black dotted line. That comes down to 
about 2020. That is the period of time when there will be a surplus 
that Congress can play with and spend if they would like because it is 
sitting out there, and in the Reid constitutional amendment it is 
subject to no limitation.
  Now, if the purpose then of the balanced budget amendment that my 
friend, Senator Reid, introduces is to say we are not going to be 
borrowing more money after we get to balance, then I ask what is going 
to happen in 2022 when that trust fund starts going in the red and you 
need to borrow money if you have not fixed the program? That is the red 
line. If we do not fix Social Security out there in the future, the 
difference between that green line and that red line, that great big 
triangle, is the amount of money that would have to be borrowed if we 
do not fix Social Security.
  Now, let us assume that it is sitting out there in 2024. That is not 
farfetched because the constitutional amendment is supposedly forever, 
right, for 100, 200 years. Now, here we are. The whole purpose of the 
Reid constitutional amendment is to put us in the position where you 
cannot borrow any money after you are in balance.
  I ask the Senator from Utah [Mr. Hatch] what happens when Congress 
says, well, we need $650 million for Social Security; it is going in 
the red? So somebody proposes, why, America has a great, strong 
economy. Let us borrow the money. Right?
  Mr. HATCH. Right.
  Mr. DOMENICI. What will there be in the constitutional amendment, if 
the Reid amendment became law, that says we cannot borrow that money? 
Nothing, Senator Nickles. It can be borrowed. So we have kind of a 
charade going. You write a constitutional amendment that says when you 
finally get to balance you cannot borrow any more money, right? But 
that is only on that budget. On this other budget that is floating over 
here, there is no limitation on borrowing. I ask, if you are trying to 
protect the American economy and future generations from borrowed 
money, is there any difference between the borrowed money that might go 
into the first budget as compared with borrowed money that might go 
into the Social Security fund? I think not. I think both have the same 
negative effect on the future of our children and the growth and 
prosperity of the Nation.
  So, if we want to stop at $5 trillion in deficits, when we finally 
get to balance under the Hatch constitutional amendment, we are saying 
we should not borrow any more money. But if the Reid amendment becomes 
law, we are not saying that. We are saying, for Social Security 
purposes you can borrow as much as you want. If that isn't a sorry 
state of affairs, after we have adopted a constitutional amendment if 
we were to adopt the Reid constitutional amendment, then I have not 
seen one; a situation which is more dissimilar after the fact than 
this. For after the fact there is no limitation on borrowing money.
  Having said that, I choose, today, not to take up the second part of 
my comments other than to say we are struggling here today--have I used 
all my time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 15 minutes have expired.
  Mr. DOMENICI. May I have an additional 2 minutes?
  Mr. HATCH. I yield 2 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We are struggling today to see if we can make a deal 
with the President of the United States. We are trying to get a 
balanced budget by the year 2002. It is hard to do. The President 
struggled, he said, with putting one together and said how hard it was. 
We are now looking at how we would do it and we say the President's is 
not a very good budget, but still we have to get there.
  If, in fact, we got a constitutional amendment like the one my friend 
from Nevada offers, it says you will be balanced in 2002 without Social 
Security surpluses being counted. I will just tell you what the 
President would have to add to his budget in order to be in balance 
under that definition by 2002: $75 billion more in Medicare cuts. We 
are having trouble, arguing between $120 billion in savings and $160 
billion in savings. But you would have to add $75 billion to the 
President's. Mr. President, $35 billion more in Medicaid; $28 billion 
more in civil service, military retirement, and other mandatories, and 
$158 billion more in education, environment, law enforcement and 
discretionary spending. Mr.

[[Page S1540]]

President and fellow Senators, we all know that cannot happen. I mean, 
we cannot even settle on a balanced budget using the unified budget. It 
is difficult to get done.
  So I must submit, in all deference and with as much respect as 
possible, that the Reid amendment is not intended to become the law of 
the land. It is not intended to become the constitutional amendment 
that goes to our sovereign States for ratification. For, if it was, it 
would have no chance of being ratified, for who would support it under 
the circumstances I have described?

  I thank the Senate and thank Senator Hatch for yielding and I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield me 8 minutes?
  Mr. HATCH. I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I wish to compliment my colleague, 
Senator Hatch from Utah, for his leadership in this bill as well as 
Senator Domenici for his excellent statement. I hope our colleagues had 
a chance to listen to the Senator from New Mexico. He probably knows 
more about the budget than most all of us. He made an outstanding 
presentation.
  I urge our colleagues to vote against this amendment. I recognize 
this amendment may be good politics. It sounds kind of good. I have 
heard some people say, ``If you vote for this amendment you are going 
to protect Social Security.'' I totally disagree. As a matter of fact, 
I think it may have just the opposite result, or opposite conclusion. 
But it looks good. And, if it is reported by the press, ``Well this one 
amendment was trying to protect Social Security,'' if they write it 
like that, some people are going to assume that is correct. I think it 
has just the opposite result.
  I think, if we pass a constitutional amendment that says we are going 
to balance the budget, we are not going to spend any more than we take 
in but, oh, incidentally, we are going to exempt the largest and most 
popular program in Government, in other words we want to be in balance 
except for this very important, popular program, you just gutted the 
balanced budget amendment. There is no reason to have a balanced budget 
amendment. The amendment would say we are going to exclude the old age 
and survivors and Federal disability insurance program. You could 
include a lot of other things. Why not include Medicare? A lot of 
people think Medicare is the same thing as Social Security. It is all 
paid for by a payroll tax. Right now American citizens pay 12.4 percent 
for Social Security, which includes retirement and disability. And they 
pay another 2.9 percent in Medicare. There is no reason why we would 
not include that. You could define that as Social Security.
  As a matter of fact, in the President's budget he takes home health 
care--basically he takes it out of the Medicare trust fund and moves it 
over from part A to part B, and then says it is all going to be paid 
for by the Federal Government.
  My point is, you can shift around trust funds and I think you would 
find a multitude of programs running to be defined as Social Security. 
Let us throw in Medicare. Let us throw in welfare. Let us throw in 
anything else, and it will all be exempt from the balanced budget 
amendment requirement. That makes the balanced budget amendment a 
facade, it makes it a fraud, it makes it worthless.
  I am not saying this is from the sponsor of the amendment, but I 
think a lot of people who are going to vote for the amendment want that 
to happen. There are a whole lot of people who are going to vote for 
the amendment of the Senator from Nevada--not that they hope it will 
pass, they do not support a balanced budget amendment anyway. And I 
would include President Clinton in this category. He does not support a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But now he raises the 
specter of Social Security, maybe to scare people into thinking that is 
a good way to kill the amendment; to kill the constitutional amendment 
to balance the budget. I regret that.

  I looked at a statement President Clinton made on January 28 at a 
press conference. He said, dealing with whether or not we should 
exclude Social Security that we couldn't right now. ``Neither the 
Republicans nor I [and the Congress] could produce a balanced budget 
amendment tomorrow that could pass if Social Security funds cannot be 
counted,'' if you will, as part of the budget.
  So the President is saying: Wait a minute, I use Social Security 
surpluses right now in my budget to get down to zero in the year 2002. 
So do the Republicans. President Clinton has in every single budget 
that he has had in the past. So have other Presidents. My point being 
he is now saying we will try to pass that amendment because he knows it 
is a killer amendment, not because he believes it is good policy. He 
knows it is bad policy. I think everybody, if they were asked 
legitimately, is this good policy, they would say, ``No.'' Is it good 
politics? They may say, ``Well, it may be.'' It might be good politics 
but it certainly is bad, bad policy.
  You should not have a constitutional amendment that says we are not 
going to spend any more than we take in and exclude the largest program 
in Government. You should not open it up to a program that is not 
really defined by the Constitution, and therefore every other program 
in Government could be added as part of Social Security. All of which 
would be excluded from the constitutional requirement.
  I think, frankly, when you are talking about the Constitution you 
should not be trying to write in the Constitution an exclusion for a 
particular Federal program. That does not fit. Again, it may fit for 
political purposes but it does not fit in the Constitution. It does not 
belong in the Constitution.
  So, Mr. President, I mention this, I have the greatest respect for my 
colleague and friend from Nevada. I am afraid a lot of people will be 
looking at this amendment and saying it has a lot of political appeal 
but substantively it should not be in the Constitution. We are dealing 
with serious business. We are right on the throes of having the vote to 
pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I hope that we 
will in the next few days. We will not, in my opinion, I will tell my 
colleagues, we will not if we come up with this amendment.
  I have heard some people say if we just agree to this amendment I 
would vote for it in a minute. I don't think they would, not if they 
looked at what the results would be, not if they looked at the changes 
that would have to be made. I don't think that is accurate. This 
Senator would not vote for it because I think of it as a fraud. I think 
it would be misleading the American people and I don't want to do that. 
I think we should be serious in our legislating and I think we should 
be doubly serious when we are talking about a constitutional amendment 
in any form, and certainly one to balance the budget.
  So, Mr. President, with all respect I urge my colleagues to vote 
``no'' on the Reid amendment and, hopefully, it will go down and then 
we will be able to pass a constitutional amendment to balance the 
budget in the next few days.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has 46 minutes 35 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. REID. And my friend from Utah?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirteen minutes forty-seven seconds.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wrote a letter to a number of people in 
Nevada, and this is what I said in the last paragraph of the letter:

       There is no question Congress must face up to the tough 
     task of balancing the Federal budget. I'm the first to accept 
     responsibility for this task, but I draw the line on 
     devastating the Social Security trust fund to accomplish this 
     task.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon signing the Social Security Act, said,

       We can never insure 100 percent of the population against 
     100 percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we 
     have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of 
     protection to the average citizen and to his family against 
     the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.

  I received numerous responses after writing this letter, but one 
response I received, as I mentioned on the floor yesterday, was from 
Helen Collins who said:


[[Page S1541]]


       I have been a widow since age 21. I never considered 
     applying for any kind of welfare assistance. I worked, and 
     raised and educated my son. He got a master's degree. Sad to 
     say, at age 71, I am totally on my own on quite a limited 
     budget. By being very careful, I get by. However, I do worry 
     about getting more seriously ill and losing Social Security. 
     For many of us, these are not the golden years. But I, for 
     one, thank God that good people like you are helping us 
     maintain our dignity and independence.

  That is what this debate is all about. It is about the Helen 
Collinses of the world, not the people who are running full-page ads in 
the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The people on Wall 
Street want this to pass because it gives them an easy opportunity to 
balance the budget.
  Mr. President, I heard my friend, my good friend, with whom I serve 
on a subcommittee--I am the ranking member of the subcommittee, and I 
have served on the Appropriations Committee with him since I have been 
in the Senate--I heard my friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico, 
say that what we are trying to do is keep Social Security on its own. 
That is absolutely true, we are. We are trying to keep Social Security 
on its own. It is not part of the unified budget. It shouldn't be part 
of the unified budget. We have passed laws in this body so it would not 
be part of the unified budget.
  Here is what happened over the last decade: The Greenspan commission, 
where we established, by a majority vote, a bailout of the Social 
Security system, and it was to last to the year 2060; in 1985, we 
passed the Deficit Control Act, which further strengthened Social 
Security; in 1990, we passed the Hollings-Heinz amendment which took 
Social Security off budget.
  What right do we have to suddenly start including it in the unified 
budget? We don't have any right to do that. Everyone has said you can't 
balance a budget unless you use Social Security. That is my whole 
point. If we are going to balance the budget, we should do it the right 
way, the hard way.

  I think the most telling thing, Mr. President, was when my friend 
from New Mexico came and gave this very well-meaning speech--he is a 
sincere man, but I think it is glaring that he did not respond to the 
statements that I have made and the junior Senator from South Carolina 
has made over the last 2 days about his own words from 1990. These were 
his own words:

       I voted for Senator Hollings' proposal because I support 
     the concept of taking Social Security out of the budget 
     deficit calculation. But I cast the vote with reservations.

  What were his reservations that he came to this floor and did not 
respond to? His reservations:

       We need a firewall around those trust funds. . . .

  That is what this amendment is all about.

       We need a firewall around those trust funds to make sure 
     the reserves are there to pay Social Security benefits in the 
     next century. Without a firewall or without the discipline of 
     budget constraints, the trust fund would be unprotected and 
     could be spent on any number of costly programs.

  It is here, and that is what my amendment is all about. Social 
Security should not be used to pay--in the words of the present 
chairman of the Budget Committee, ``the trust funds would be 
unprotected and could be spent on any number of costly programs.'' 
These moneys should be spent on one thing and one thing only: paying 
old-age benefits.
  Silence is golden. My friend from New Mexico did not, in his 20 
minutes on the floor, even respond to the statements he gave in 1990. 
They are in the Congressional Record. Not a word.
  Mr. President, we received today almost a million signatures from a 
group of senior citizens who signed these petitions in the last few 
days. They have a right to do that. Of course they do, because, Mr. 
President, American seniors are exercising a powerful right to stop a 
devastating wrong. The right to petition our Government for wrongs is 
guaranteed in the first amendment of the Constitution. This right is a 
cornerstone of our democracy and deserves to be enshrined in the 
Constitution, and it was. Giving Congress and the courts the power to 
permanently raid Social Security should not be guaranteed by the 
highest, most powerful legal document in our country.
  So, Mr. President, I believe that what is taking place here is a 
cheap, easy, deceitful way to balance the budget. It is contrary to law 
to take the Social Security surpluses and use them for other purposes. 
And even if it weren't law, you shouldn't do it because it is a trust 
fund, and a trust fund should not be spent for any purpose other than 
for what the trust fund was established.
  My friend from Utah, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, talked 
about the Concord Coalition and others who last Congress said we would 
protect this program through enabling legislation. What they were 
saying in the last Congress is maybe what we can do is have a statute 
to preserve Social Security. I am sure they must have checked with 
somebody who is in their first year of law school who told them that a 
statute will not override the Constitution. And after having checked 
with a first-year law student, they came up with a new pitch, and that 
is, ``Let's go along with it. Let's just raid Social Security.'' And 
that is what they have said.

  Mr. President, my good friend from Utah has also said the 
Congressional Research Service changed the memo the second time, it 
doesn't really say what they said it says. The Center on Budget and 
Policy Priorities disagrees. The Center on Budget and Policy 
Priorities, among other things, says, all three memos, the two from CRS 
and theirs, explain that under the Hatch balanced budget amendment, 
outlays in any year, including outlays for benefits paid from the 
Social Security trust fund, may not exceed receipts in that year. All 
three memos note that any funds drawn down from the accumulated Social 
Security surpluses to help pay for Social Security benefits of retired 
baby boomers would not count as receipts in those years.
  They go on to say:

       Under the balanced budget amendment, the Social Security 
     surplus could not be tapped and interest earnings on the 
     surplus could not be used unless there was offsetting surplus 
     in the rest of the budget.

  Mr. President, we have a number of other people saying that, and one 
person saying it is not a first-year law student but a graduate of one 
of the finest universities in America today, the person who is in 
charge of the Office of Management and Budget, a person who has a great 
reputation, Franklin D. Raines.
  Franklin Raines said, in writing this letter to Senator Daschle, the 
minority leader:

       Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing in response to your inquiry 
     regarding the February 5, 1997, Congressional Research 
     Service memorandum entitled ``Treatment of Outlays From 
     Social Security Surpluses Under a Balanced Budget 
     Amendment.''
       That memorandum noted that the 1983 Social Security reforms 
     called for accumulating those surpluses to allow payments 
     even when annual trust fund income is no longer sufficient to 
     make those payments. It concluded that, under S.J. Res. 1 and 
     without further congressional action, accumulated trust fund 
     surpluses could not be used for the full payment of Social 
     Security benefits in any year when outlays would otherwise 
     exceed receipts. That conclusion is correct.
       Under current law, expenditures from trust funds are 
     governed by the amount of funds available in the trust fund 
     balances and by congressional spending authorizations. This 
     general rule applies to the Social Security trust funds.  .  
     .
       S.J. Res. 1 would require overall federal government cash 
     flow balance on a year-by-year basis. In the event that 
     revenues are projected to fall below outlays for a given 
     year, outlays would need to be adjusted for the remainder of 
     the year. Such a shortfall would most likely occur toward the 
     end of a fiscal year, when only a limited base of 
     discretionary outlays would be available for reduction. 
     Consequently, programs with monthly payments would be unable 
     to avoid exposure to such reductions.
       All entitlement expenditures--including Social Security--
     would be treated as expenditures under S.J. Res. 1 and, thus, 
     would be exposed to reductions. This would mean that, due to 
     operation of the proposed constitutional amendment, the 
     government might not be able to make payments from trust 
     funds with both available balances and full congressional 
     authority to make expenditures from the trust fund. 
     Reductions in entitlement spending would have a particularly 
     perverse effect if the revenue shortfall was caused by a 
     recession, and where payments subject to limitation are part 
     of the automatic stabilizers.

  So, Mr. President, it is very clear that the underlying amendment 
would devastate Social Security. Well, there are some who say, ``Why 
are you trying to protect Social Security, there are other trust 
funds?'' Mr. President, the reason I am trying to protect Social 
Security is that is where the money is. The other trust funds are 
pittances.

[[Page S1542]]

 They are bits and kibbles. There really is not much money there. 
Social Security is the finest social program in the history of the 
world, and I feel an obligation, a moral obligation, to protect it.
  The reason that there has been all this emphasis on Social Security 
is they are going after the moneys just as Senator Domenici in 1990 
said we should try to prevent. ``We need a firewall around those trust 
funds,'' said Senator Domenici, ``to make sure the reserves are there 
to pay Social Security benefits in the next century. Without a firewall 
of the discipline of budget constraints, the trust funds would be 
unprotected and could be spent on any number of costly programs.''
  That is a direct quote.
  So, Mr. President, I think we have to narrow the focus of what this 
is all about. The focus is whether or not we are going to allow the 
Social Security trust fund to be raided on a yearly basis until it runs 
out of money and then, of course, Social Security would be wiped out.
  I say, Mr. President, that I suspect, and I feel that I cannot direct 
this to anybody in the Senate because I do not know, but there are 
people in the leadership in the House of Representatives who believe 
the Social Security program is a bad program. Again, I do not think you 
have to be real bright to figure out that is how they feel. This is a 
statement from the majority leader, the present majority leader of the 
House of Representatives. Again, I quote: ``Social Security is a rotten 
trick. I think we are going to have to bite the bullet on Social 
Security and phase it out over time.''
  Now, does that appear to be somebody that is pushing a balanced 
budget amendment and wanting to protect Social Security? Would you 
trust someone of that philosophy to try to draft a statute to avoid a 
constitutional provision? First of all, you cannot. But even if you 
could, would you trust someone with that philosophy? I think not. There 
are people supporting this amendment, recognizing that doing so will 
wipe out Social Security.
  I think we should not do that. I think we should look at the Helen 
Collinses of the world and say the money that she is talking about is 
just a small amount of money. We have a number of letters here that my 
staff has brought me. One woman talks about getting 300-some-odd-
dollars a month. That gives her a little bit of independence. This 
amendment protects her interest by excluding Social Security from the 
calculations of the balanced budget amendment. It protects the interest 
of the Helen Collinses of the world.
  Social Security is, therefore, not at fault for the deficits that 
have been accumulated. Not a single Social Security recipient is the 
cause of the deficit. Social Security is not running up deficits. In 
1983 we passed legislation to forward fund Social Security. The reason 
this amendment is so important to some people is that is where the 
money is. They do not want to balance the budget the hard way.

  We heard statements here from President Clinton saying it is going to 
be real hard to balance the budget if you do not use Social Security. 
No kidding. I understand that. We all understand that. But if we pass 
my amendment we would have a true balanced budget and we would also 
preserve Social Security. I think that is a pretty good deal and I 
think it is worth the risk.
  The Social Security trust fund is being used to mask the size of the 
deficit. Each time the Government dips into the Social Security trust 
fund to help pay for the deficit it hurts Social Security. We should 
stop that.
  Because the Constitution will require the Federal Government to 
balance the budget, Social Security moneys will have to come from one 
of four places.
  I see my friend from Florida. Does he care to make a statement? I am 
happy to withhold and allow my friend from Florida to make a statement.
  Mr. MACK. If you want to take a few more minutes to finish your 
thought, fine. However I would like to have the opportunity to speak.
  Mr. REID. Please go ahead.
  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, again, I thank my colleague for allowing me 
to take this time to address the Senate on the issue of the balanced 
budget amendment.
  I have spoken many times in the past years on this issue, both in the 
House and here in the Senate. I think it is a vital one. It is truly a 
debate about whether we are committed to the belief that the era of big 
Government is over. The reason there is such a debate about this issue 
is because it really is fundamental to that.
  Before I make some additional comments I think I might just make a 
statement or two with respect to the issue of Social Security. I 
represent the State of Florida, and therefore I think it is fair to say 
I am pretty sensitive to the retiree, the elderly vote in my State and 
their concerns about Social Security. I make the claim that probably 
the most significant way to protect Social Security is, in fact, to 
pass a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
  My feeling is that, in fact, it is a risky gimmick, I think, to be 
taking Social Security off budget. For that matter, I think it is to be 
proposing that a whole series of programs be taken off budget. We need 
to address the balanced budget constitutional amendment from the 
standpoint of all the expenditures, all the income and all the 
expenditures of the Federal Government, not separating them off into 
different accounts and considering only one group of expenditures at a 
time. Again, I think it is a risky gimmick to take Social Security off 
budget.
  Mr. President, over the last couple years I had the opportunity to 
read several books on the Constitution. One written by Catherine 
Drinker Bowen, and maybe this comes back to my mind after having 
watched the special on Thomas Jefferson that was on PBS last week. I 
thought it was a terrific 3-hour presentation and discussion about the 
roots of our Government, the roots of this Nation. Catherine Drinker 
Bowen's book, called ``Miracle at Philadelphia,'' was all about the 
debate about the establishment of the Constitution. I know that some 
have said, ``Well, the Constitution did not have a balanced budget 
amendment or a balanced budget requirement as part of it.'' Therefore, 
people would make the claim if they did not feel it was important then, 
and they were certainly some of the brightest minds we have ever 
experienced in Government, who are we to claim that there needs to be 
an amendment to the Constitution to address this issue, the need for a 
balance within our expenditures?
  I think that the people who make that claim fail to take into 
consideration how our Constitution has been amended over the years and 
the fact that the Senate used to be appointed. I believe it was either 
in 1912 or 1916--I have forgotten the specific date--when the 
Constitution was changed to require a direct vote on Members of the 
Senate. Well, there was an intricate balance that the writers of the 
Constitution came up with that was changed, with the result of the 
Senate being directly elected by the people. If you will remember, the 
fear that many had in those days was that the House, directly elected 
by the people, would be off pursuing many different ideas of great 
popular support, and that there needed to be some kind of restraint 
that would be placed on the people's House, and that would come from 
the Senate. Again, that has been changed. So some of the restraint was 
built into the system to be able to say, no, we don't think we ought to 
pursue that particular program or that particular expenditure. That was 
taken out as a result of the change in the direct election of Members 
of the U.S. Senate.
  I think it is fair to say that we ought to address the particular 
point that, today, there is a tendency to think of this debate as being 
a debate about economics. The reality is this is about human behavior 
and how we are going to control the desire on the part of some people 
to support all the different initiatives that might come from our 
constituents. So I think, from a constitutional perspective, one can 
say that the conditions have changed significantly, to the point where 
it is completely legitimate to be arguing today that we need an outside 
restraint on the ability of the Members of the Congress to spend our 
taxpayers' dollars. I have supported the constitutional amendment since 
I have entered Congress, which was back in 1982.

[[Page S1543]]

  I want to take just a moment or two to talk about the benefits that 
are derived. Again, all too often we find ourselves talking about some 
very intricate aspect of this debate, and we fail to address what I 
believe are the important benefits that come from a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget, a requirement that we balance the 
budget. I believe, in the long term, we will end up with lower taxes, 
higher growth, more jobs, less Government, and lower interest rates.
  Again, lower interest rates can, I think, produce some very tangible 
benefits to our constituents. We have made estimates, for example, that 
lower interest rates would save the average family $125 a month. Now, 
some people might say that is not a great deal of money. I say to my 
colleagues, then go stand out in front of a grocery store and ask the 
individuals coming out whether they think an extra $125 a month is 
meaningful. I believe it is. We believe the way they can save that kind 
of money is, again, because of lower interest rates. Mortgage payments 
would be lower, automobile loans would be less expensive, student loans 
would be more affordable. That is a direct benefit that is passed on to 
our constituents.
  Again, I have a tendency to think at this time about the kinds of 
people that will be affected by what we do. I again ask my colleagues 
to consider the folks back home--the mother who might have two jobs who 
is being asked to support funding of all these various programs at the 
Federal level, the family where the husband and wife both work. In 
fact, I remember one particular individual coming up to me and 
explaining that he works all week and comes home and takes care of the 
children over the weekends while his wife works over the weekend. These 
are the kinds of people who we are asking to pay taxes to the Federal 
Government to fund the various programs. I can only think of one way we 
can finally put some restraint, again, on the Members' ability to spend 
their money, and that is to pass a balanced budget constitutional 
amendment.
  At this point, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the Senator 
from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was listening to my friend from Florida, 
Senator Mack, someone for whom I have great regard and affection. The 
interesting thing about this debate is that we essentially agree that 
we ought to balance the budget. There is no disagreement about the goal 
here. There is a disagreement about the methods of achieving that goal.
  Earlier this afternoon, I heard someone come to the floor of the 
Senate and speak of the Reid amendment. He said that the Reid amendment 
actually threatens Social Security. Well, that is the most byzantine 
argument I have heard, perhaps, in all the time I have served in the 
U.S. Senate--the Reid amendment injures or threatens Social Security. 
The Reid amendment is designed to make sure that we do two things at 
once--balance the Federal budget by exacting the discipline needed to 
do that in the Constitution, but while we do it, keeping our promise to 
those who we made a promise to with the Social Security system, saying 
that you are paying taxes into the system, that taxes are dedicated for 
one purpose, and we are going to honor that. That is what the Reid 
amendment is about.
  Without the Reid amendment, this constitutional amendment doesn't 
balance the budget. I came here this morning at 9:40 and spoke in favor 
of this amendment. I asked a question, and I am going to ask the 
Senator from Nevada, who has been on the floor all day because he has 
been managing his amendment, whether anybody has come to the floor to 
respond to that question. I asked this question, and the question 
itself strips naked the proposition that what is on the floor from the 
majority party requires a balanced budget. If we passed this proposal, 
just like that, 20 seconds from now, and if we then passed a proposal 
to balance the budget, as offered by the majority, just like that, 20 
seconds later, and it is the year 2002, why then does the budget 
require that the Federal Government increase its debt limit by $130 
billion in a year in which the proponents claim the budget is balanced? 
I have not heard anyone respond to that. If the budget is balanced, why 
is there a requirement to increase the Federal debt limit by $130 
billion?

  I know the answer, but I am asking it of the other side because I 
want to hear them say what I know to be the case. The reason you have 
to increase the debt limit by $130 billion when you claim the budget is 
in balance is because the budget isn't in balance, precisely because of 
the kind of thing Senator Reid is trying to address. You take, on that 
side, the Social Security revenues and add them in over here and say, 
look what we have done, we have balanced the budget, implying somehow 
there is no obligation over here to use those moneys in Social Security 
when the baby boomers retire.
  The Senator from Nevada offers an amendment that says if we are going 
to do this, let's do it the honest way. I suspect there are not the 
votes in the Senate to pass the amendment of the Senator from Nevada. I 
intend to vote for it. But I suspect it will be defeated so we can have 
the same old same-old here of claiming to balance the budget when, in 
fact, the Federal debt limit continues to increase.
  I ask the Senator from Nevada, has anybody come and answered the 
question of why, using this approach, enshrining this practice into the 
Constitution, when they say they have balanced the budget, why the 
Federal debt would then increase by $130 billion in the very year they 
claim they balanced the budget?
  Mr. REID. I left breakfast early so I could be here early to hear all 
the debate. The Senator has asked this question more than one time, and 
I thought this would be an appropriate time for someone to respond to 
the question. You have asked it at least a half dozen times. I thought 
that, with all the power behind this underlying amendment, Senate Joint 
Resolution 1, someone would come and be prepared to answer your 
question. There has not been a single word spoken in response to your 
question.
  Mr. DORGAN. I think the reason for that is that this is a giant dance 
that goes on. The farther they get from the truth, the faster they 
dance. I am talking about those who are suggesting to us that they have 
an approach that will balance the budget, even as that balanced budget 
requires the Federal debt to continue to increase.
  There was a hearing on this subject. I went and testified at the 
hearing. At the hearing they had the debt clock. That is the neon clock 
with the numbers that keep increasing that shows how the Federal debt 
is increasing. I made the point that debt clock actually reinforces 
what I was asking. I said, it is interesting. When you say that you 
have balanced the budget that debt clock is going to keep increasing. 
Until you turn the debt clock into a stopwatch you have not balanced 
the budget and nobody in my home town thinks you are going to balance 
the budget.
  So, if you accept the Reid amendment, which is a perfecting amendment 
to the underlying constitutional amendment that balances the budget, 
you will solve that problem. It is not so hard to do. Accept the Reid 
amendment, and I think we can enact this constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget with 70 to 75 votes, mine included. But this is 
important because it relates to the underlying question of are we 
really about balancing the budget, or are we about altering the 
Constitution so that we can claim we have done something that we have 
not in fact done? That is what is at the root of this issue.
  Mr. President, we will have an opportunity to vote for a perfecting 
amendment that Senator Reid is offering. If we lose that, we will have 
the opportunity to vote for a substitute constitutional amendment which 
incorporates the Reid amendment that I will offer.
  So we will have two votes on this. If those who study this subject 
decide that they don't want to change it so that we do this in a way 
that really does balance the budget, which does require a balanced 
budget, and which does not increase the Federal debt after you have 
claimed the budget is in balance--if they don't want to do that, then I 
guess there will not be a constitutional amendment. If they want to do 
it, all they have to do this afternoon is accept the Reid amendment. 
This is not just on our side of the aisle. Congressman Neumann, Senator 
Specter,

[[Page S1544]]

and many other folks said the same thing that Senator Reid and I are 
saying. So this is not just a group of folks who are on one side of the 
political aisle that makes this case. This is a $1 trillion issue over 
the next 10 years. It is very important to a very important program. It 
is also important in terms of the question of whether we actually are 
going to balance the budget and at the same time meet our obligations 
for Social Security in the years ahead.
  I appreciate the Senator from Nevada yielding to me.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and 
I had an agreement that I would have the last 5 minutes and that he 
would have 5 minutes prior to that. So will the Chair notify me when I 
have about 5 minutes left on my side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Chair would be happy to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when I yielded to my friend from Florida, I 
was saying at that time that if it passes it will require the Federal 
Government to balance the budget and Social Security moneys after that 
will have to come from four places.
  No. 1, raise the payroll taxes in order to cover the difference; No. 
2, cut benefits to beneficiaries; No. 3, cut Government expenditures 
and other needed programs to pay its debt to Social Security; and No. 
4, because of the language in the constitutional amendment, to get a 
three-fifths majority of each House to constitutionally raise the debt.
  That is a pretty rough row to hoe.
  Also, it is quite clear that because there is no vote required to 
borrow from the Social Security trust funds that there is a powerful 
incentive to borrow from those funds to pay for general programs.
  So I believe we should pass a balanced budget, which is not a 
gimmick. It isn't going to make it easy. I acknowledge that. If my 
amendment passes, it is going to be extremely difficult to balance the 
budget. But when we do, it will be a fair way to balance the budget. We 
will not be using the surpluses out of Social Security to balance that 
budget.
  Mr. President, last Saturday the President gave his weekly statement 
to the American public over the radio. He said in that radio address:

       Over the last several weeks, we've received the full data 
     on our country's economic progress for the last four years. 
     The economy created 11.5 million new jobs, for the first time 
     ever in a single term. That includes a million construction 
     jobs and millions of other good paying jobs.

  In fact, Mr. President, 60 percent of the jobs were high-paying jobs.

       Entrepreneurs have started a record number of new 
     businesses, hundreds of thousands of them owned by women and 
     minorities. We've the largest increase in home ownership 
     ever, a big drop in the poverty rate, and a big increase in 
     family income. And just this week, we learned that the 
     combined rate of unemployment and inflation over the last 
     four years is the lowest for a Presidential term since the 
     1960's.

  That is a direct quote from the President's address.
  There is more that he said. But, among other things, he said, if this 
amendment passes, that:

       . . . it could force the Secretary of the Treasury to cut 
     Social Security, or drive the budget into courts of law when 
     a deficit occurred when Congress was not working on the 
     budget. In a court of law, judges could be forced to halt 
     Social Security checks, or raise new taxes just to meet the 
     demands of the constitutional amendment.

  I say that isn't very pleasant.
  Also, there are millions of people out there young and old who 
believe that this Senate Joint Resolution 1 is bad. For example, the 
National Committee to Preserve Social Security stated in a February 11 
letter that my amendment will preserve the integrity of the Social 
Security fund under a balanced budget constitutional amendment. 
Borrowing from a reserve to finance the current debt will place a heavy 
burden on future generations because the debt to the trust fund must be 
repaid with interest.
  The American public support my position. Almost 75 percent of the 
people in the polling data in the last week say we want a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget, but not if you include 
Social Security.
  The argument being used by the proponents of this amendment is 
Orwellian. They are saying that because we have been stealing money 
from the Social Security trust fund in the past that we should go ahead 
and stick it in the Constitution. We are saying exempt it. That is what 
should be done.
  I know that my friend, the minority whip, wishes to speak. I am very 
happy to have him speak. But I want to just say, Mr. President, that 
this is not a group of Democrats only. Maybe in the Senate. But in the 
House we have some courageous Republicans--most of them sophomores--who 
have said we are not going to be taken down the path to destroy Social 
Security, and we will not vote for a balanced budget amendment unless 
we can vote on an amendment like Senator Reid is propounding.
  This is what Congressman David McIntosh, a sophomore Republican House 
Member from Indiana, said, ``Republicans cannot allow us to be defined 
as cutting Social Security even as we move forward with the balanced 
budget amendment.''
  I say that Congressman McIntosh has it right. We should follow his 
lead. Some of the people on the other side of the aisle and over here 
should follow this courageous young man and vote for my amendment.
  Mr. President, how much time does this side have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventeen minutes and thirty seconds.
  Mr. REID. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Nevada for allowing 
me the time to speak. I compliment him for his courage, for his 
ability, and for his tenacity. We have seen that before. We have never 
needed it any more than we do right now.
  Mr. President, just before I came up I was going through some letters 
that came into my office today. You always see something personal which 
just happened. Here is a fellow--I will not use his name--who said, ``I 
truly am concerned about my future as a citizen of the United States of 
America.'' He also adds, ``I am worried about my future. Will there be 
any Social Security money left for me to have and live on after I am 
retired?'' The concern is there. If you want a balanced budget, vote 
for the Reid amendment.
  Tomorrow you will have 70-some-odd votes. Now we are scrambling to 
get one more trying to pass it and force it down people's throats.
  In 1983, I had to cast a very, very hard vote. That is when we 
increased the taxes on Social Security. We did it so it would be there 
for the so-called baby boomers. We developed a surplus on purpose so 
they would be taken care of in the outyears. Now we find that, if this 
balanced budget amendment is passed as is without the Reid amendment, 
it will be a piggy bank that will not stand the crowbar of balancing 
the budget. They will break that piggy bank and use that Social 
Security money like it is going out of style. And I will not vote for a 
balanced budget amendment that desecrates the Social Security vote I 
cast in 1983.
  How many would have voted with Senator Dole when he came from that 
commission if he had told us that someday this money will go for 
welfare reform, that someday this money will go for foreign aid, and 
for other programs? I doubt seriously if it would have passed at that 
time.
  No. Here we are now with a balanced budget amendment that says to 
those that we have committed to--the senior citizens--that we are not 
going to cut them. But what happens to those that come after those that 
are on Social Security now? They are almost there. What about your 
children and my children that are 45 and 48 years old? They have been 
required to pay higher taxes. Some of them pay more Social Security 
than they pay withholding taxes. Now we are saying to them that in your 
older age for Social Security retirement it will not be there if this 
passes.
  There is one thing that ought to make everybody shiver. There is a 
possibility of the courts telling the legislative bodies to raise taxes 
and not to issue checks. So then we come subservient, and we are not a 
three-part Government any longer. Under this amendment the courts can 
tell a legislative body what to do. If that doesn't send chills up your 
spine, if that doesn't tell the people of this country that nonelected, 
appointed-for-life people, are

[[Page S1545]]

going to tell a legislative body, the Congress, what to do--that ought 
to send shivers up and down the spine of every American.
  We have been here for over 200 years; the best and strongest country 
in the world. And we are about ready to say the system that brought us 
to this point is about to be eliminated; the system that brought us to 
this point today is about to be eliminated because of the possibility 
of the courts telling the Congress to raise taxes and not to issue 
checks; things of that nature. Oh, we will hear the crocodile tears, 
the Reagan-Bush memorial over here on my right, you know. We hear all 
of that. But I say to my friends that I made a commitment. It is called 
the Social Security trust fund, and I gave my word, and the trust of 
the people of this country in this Congress ought to be upheld.

  In the last Congress, the Senate voted 83 to 17 to adopt a sense-of-
the-Senate amendment stating that Social Security should not be cut in 
order to balance the budget.
  Protecting the Social Security trust fund is not jut a seniors issue, 
according to this letter from this young person. We have promised not 
to reduce benefits for current Social Security beneficiaries in order 
to balance the budget, but what about this young person's concern about 
whether they will be able to secure Social Security based on what we 
have in this balanced budget amendment.
  Let me just go back to the possibility of what the courts might do. I 
do not think there is anyone in this body who wants the courts telling 
us what to do and how to do it. They will interpret whether it is 
constitutional or not. That is their prerogative. That is the way the 
system works. But I tell you when we pass an amendment that says the 
courts have the authority to run this country--unelected, appointed for 
life--I have some real concerns.
  ``Will there be any Social Security money left for me when I 
retire?'' this young person writes. ``I am truly concerned about my 
future as a citizen of the United States.'' I say to that young person, 
my vote will secure Social Security for her or him or whoever it might 
be out there, and I want their future as a citizen of the United States 
to be brighter. We can balance the budget, as the President says, if we 
cast the vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has 10 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. REID. I extend my appreciation to the Senator from Kentucky, a 
man who not only has served with distinction here in this body but who 
has balanced a few budgets as Governor of one of the biggest, most 
populous States in the Nation, the State of Kentucky. We respect his 
work on budgetary and other matters.
  Mr. President, I would ask the Chair to advise me when I have 5 
minutes remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will so advise.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my amendment is not one I want to direct to 
big numbers, even though that is what this body has talked about during 
these past few days. But I want to draw your attention to small 
numbers, people who draw Social Security checks on a monthly basis. 
They do not understand the billions and trillions of dollars we are 
talking about. They understand the hundreds of dollars they receive on 
a monthly basis because the check they receive represents the 
difference between retirement with dignity and retirement in poverty.
  The reason President Roosevelt signed the bill in August 1935 was to 
give seniors dignity, and, Mr. President, that is what Social Security 
has done. I repeat, it is the most successful social program in the 
history of the world. And we are about to give everyone an opportunity 
to see how they stand for Social Security.
  We have had people come to this floor and say, well, I am a big 
supporter of Social Security. I have a lot of seniors in my State.
  I have no doubt that is true. But if you want to protect Social 
Security, exclude it. Why? Because to do otherwise, these funds will 
continue to be raided and the Social Security trust fund will be a 
slush fund.
  Most, as I have indicated, express public support for continued 
maintenance of Social Security. But this is the test right now. Vote to 
support a balanced budget amendment, a true, honest, nondeceptive 
balanced budget amendment. Those who say they will not use Social 
Security to balance the budget cannot have it both ways. You cannot say 
we are not going to use Social Security, we are going to protect Social 
Security and say that we are going to do it. And I agree with the 
chairman of the Budget Committee when he said in 1990 there should be a 
firewall developed to protect Social Security. I want that firewall, 
and that is what this amendment is.

  We have communication from the Congressional Research Service, the 
President of the United States, the Office of Management and Budget, 
think tanks, who say if you pass this amendment, you are going to 
destroy Social Security. Absent an express exemption of the Social 
Security trust fund, we will place at risk the ability to draw down 
those reserves when the baby boomers begin to retire. We have both a 
moral and a fiduciary relationship to prevent this.
  We all know that the practice of misusing Social Security trust funds 
is wrong, so let us stop it. Let us terminate it. This is the chance to 
do that. About 75 percent of the American public agrees with us. Why do 
we not do something for a change that the American public thinks is the 
right thing to do, not continue the smoke and mirrors process that has 
been going on in this country so long that we have stacks of deficits 
that big, 4 or 5 feet high as indicated by my friend from Utah. It has 
been referred to as the Reagan-Bush budget deficit memorial. That is 
what it is. Huge deficits have accumulated during these years. They 
must stop. They have gone down in the last 4 years from over $300 
billion to a little over $100 billion. We can do better.
  My amendment, even as my opponents concede, is the only way to do 
this. But they say if you do it, it is going to be hard to balance the 
budget. I am willing to take that chance and make the hard, make the 
difficult choices because when we do it, it will not be smoke and 
mirrors. It will not be a gimmick. We will be balancing the budget the 
right way, the proper way, and we will protect the most important 
social program in the history of the world.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. I would ask the time run equally against the opponents and 
proponents of this amendment during the time that I suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. 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. HATCH. I ask how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Each side has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, it is my fervent hope that during the 
debate over the proposed exemption of the Social Security funds from 
the requirements of Senate Joint Resolution 1, I have convinced my 
colleagues to support the balanced budget amendment. As Justice 
Brandeis so eloquently wrote in the 1927 case of Whitney versus 
California, ``It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage 
of irrational fears.''
  I truly believe that many of my well-meaning colleagues' desires to 
exempt the Social Security Program is based on unfounded fears.
  Look, if we take the largest item in the Federal budget and put it 
outside of balanced budget purview, we are left with no mechanism at 
all for its protection. Social Security will be out there all alone, 
with no protections whatsoever. Whereas, if we keep a unified budget 
and keep everything in it, Social Security will be protected because 
everybody in the Congress wants to protect it, and it can compete 
better than any other Federal program for the available funds. Frankly, 
I know it would get them. Every one of us would vote for Social 
Security, for its protection.
  But if you agree to the risky gimmick of putting Social Security 
outside the budget, and everything else is

[[Page S1546]]

subject to balanced budget amendment requirements but Social Security, 
then those who want to destroy Social Security or those who want to 
continue to spend for social programs, all they have to do is 
statutorily--because that is all Social Security is, a myriad of 
statutes--statutorily add anything they want to to Social Security and 
go on spending forever more without any budgetary restraint at all. The 
more provisions they add to the total Social Security bill outside the 
purview of the budget, the more Social Security will be watered down, 
diminished, and eaten away. That is the difference here.
  We have a unified budget, and with a balanced budget amendment that 
unified budget is going to have to be balanced by the year 2002 or we 
are going to have to stand up and vote not to balance it. There is no 
reason in the world to put the largest item in the budget outside of 
the purview of the balanced budget amendment, since every dime that 
comes in from the FICA funds will be invested in Federal Government 
securities anyway. Whether we keep it in budget or put it out on its 
own without any budgetary restraints, those surpluses are going to go 
into Federal Government bonds, and the only way we can pay those bonds 
off, the absolute, only way, is if we pass this balanced budget 
amendment intact without excluding any program from its purview.
  Last but not least, in this limited time, if you write a statute into 
the amendment, that means you make it constitutional. Can you change 
Social Security to reform it or make it better or help people or 
increase funds without a constitutional amendment? Unfortunately, I am 
not sure we can answer that today. It might well be the case that it 
would take a constitutional amendment to do it. If that is so, that 
would be a tragedy.
  I do not think this amendment is well thought through. I hope our 
colleagues will not support it. Constitutionally, it is the wrong thing 
to do. Most important, even if you do what the distinguished Senator 
from Nevada sincerely wants to do here, you are not protecting Social 
Security because you cannot protect it outside of the budget from 
suspect spending practices. It is free floating without any of the 
budgetary restraints that the balanced budget amendment would put on 
the whole unified budget.
  Let us do what budget people really know we have to do, and that is 
live within the constraints of the unified budget, keep Social Security 
in there where it will compete better than any other program, and, in 
the end, I think our country will be so much better off because we will 
be able to balance the budget, reduce interest rates, and make this 
country really run properly.
  It is always helpful to put this debate in a larger context. Today, 
the accumulated national debt is nearly $5.4 trillion. Interest 
payments on this debt consumes $250 billion annually, which the 
Washington Times recently estimated, is more than the combined budgets 
of the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Education, Energy, 
Justice, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, and 
Transportation. This means that the share of the debt for every infant 
born today is about $20,000.
  There is a crying need for sound fiscal reform. Unless we do 
something, this Nation will continue to have stagnant economic growth 
with less jobs. Unless we do something, the interest payment on the 
debt will continue to devour capital that could be otherwise used for 
investment or Federal programs. Let's not kid ourselves that Washington 
politicians will remedy this problem; the blunt truth is that no 
balanced budget deal has worked in the past, that is why we need to 
amend the Constitution to provide for fiscal sanity.
  Yet, opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 1 argue that Social 
Security should be removed from the protection of the balanced budget 
amendment. But to do so as they request would be a risky gimmick that 
would harm Social Security and open a loophole in the constitutional 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. The 
Senator from Nevada has 4 minutes.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, even the great mind, Justice Scalia, who 
does not like legislative history, does not like to look at it, even 
Justice Scalia would recognize we have established in this matter a 
legislative history that is second to none. We are taking Social 
Security from the confines of this balanced budget amendment. This is 
not all alone, floating in the air. It is out on its own, as it was 
required by law in 1990. All of a sudden we are ignoring this law we 
passed. Any one of the Senators who voted for this in 1990 and now does 
not vote for my amendment better check his or her record on 
inconsistency, because this would probably be at the top of their 
inconsistency list.
  The only way to protect Social Security is the way we are doing it. 
We are not running full-page ads paid for by the Wall Street brokers 
and power brokers. We are trying to establish, through petitions signed 
by a million people that were received today, that what is being done 
with Senate Joint Resolution 1 is wrong. We are representing the 
recipients, the beneficiaries of Social Security, not the people who 
want to raid Social Security so it will be easier to balance the 
budget.
  We are supported by the beneficiaries past and those in the future 
and those in the present. We are supported by the American public by 
almost 75 percent in polls taken. We are supported by the National 
Committee to Save Social Security, by the President, in letter and in 
radio address. We are supported by the Office of Management and Budget.
  Mr. President, we are supported by Republicans in the House of 
Representatives who have stepped forward courageously to say we are not 
going to be seen as trying to cut Social Security. I repeat, I hope 
some of my friends on the other side of the aisle will step forward 
with the courage shown by Congressman McIntosh, Republican of Indiana.
  Mr. President, Franklin Roosevelt, when this legislation was signed, 
said that he had an obligation not only to protect business interests. 
I feel that same obligation to protect business interests. I am for 
reduction in the capital gains tax. I was for the legislation that gave 
significant incentives to small businesses last year that we passed in 
conjunction with the minimum wage bill. But as President of the United 
States, Franklin Roosevelt, said:

       . . . just as Government in the past has helped lay the 
     foundation of business and industry. We must face the fact 
     that in this country we have a rich man's security and a poor 
     man's security and that the Government owes equal obligations 
     to both. National security is not a half and half manner: it 
     is all or none.

  We have to help business and we have to help the small person. We are 
trying to help those people who are trying to survive to maintain their 
dignity. That is what this amendment is all about. I repeat, anyone who 
voted in 1990 to take Social Security off budget and now votes against 
my amendment had better recognize that that is probably about as 
inconsistent as you can be, legislatively.
  I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. It is the right thing 
to do for the American public.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to table and ask for the yeas and 
nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
lay on the table amendment No. 8, offered by the Senator from Nevada 
[Mr. Reid]. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 14 Leg.]

                                YEAS--55

     Abraham
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee

[[Page S1547]]


     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Enzi
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kempthorne
     Kerrey
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Robb
     Roberts
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith, Bob
     Smith, Gordon H.
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Cleland
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     McCain
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Specter
     Torricelli
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Inouye
       
  The motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 8) was agreed to.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to lay it on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                          ____________________