[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 5 (Tuesday, February 3, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H227-H231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
                       SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the Majority Leader.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about a lot of the 
issues that are facing the country today and what we are hearing about 
as it relates to the President's budget plan. I rise in particular to 
talk about an issue that I think many of our senior citizens, many of 
our folks in their 50s and 40s and many of our young people are also 
concerned about, and that is Social Security.
  My son, who mowed lawns last summer and earned a reasonable amount of 
money doing it, like $1,500, because he did a lot of them, talked to me 
about whether or not he should pay any taxes on it. And, of course, for 
a young person in their teenage years who mowed lawns last summer and 
earned some money, there is no Federal taxes due. But then I said to 
him, ``You still have got to file, Matt; you have still got to file a 
tax return.''
  And my 15-year-old son, who is going to file his tax return, has to 
pay into the Social Security Trust Fund. As a matter of fact, he found 
that he paid over about 15 percent of all of his earnings into the 
Social Security Trust Fund because he would be treated as a self-
employed person.
  So when we talk about the Social Security issue, it is certainly very 
important to our young people to understand very clearly that they are 
putting this money away for retirement. But, in fact, it does not seem 
to affect them because they do not believe Social Security is going to 
be there for them; and they are certainly, at age 15, are not very 
interested in thinking ahead to retirement. They are more interested 
buying a car and their college education than they are in thinking 
ahead to retirement.
  So when we think about this Social Security issue, I start with the 
younger group to understand that it does have an impact on them. When 
we get to the folks in their 30s and 40s, they are putting this money 
away. It is being taken out of their paychecks. But instead of being 
put away in a fund for them, it goes into the Social Security Trust 
Fund.
  I would like to spend a little time tonight talking about how the 
United States Government handles this money that is being taken out of 
their paychecks and how that affects our senior citizens and the 
potential of Social Security actually being there for them when they 
reach the retirement age.
  If I could ask one of our pages to bring that stand over, I brought a 
couple of pictures with me.
  For any of my colleagues that have seen these numbers before, we took 
the time today to update the Social Security numbers so that it 
reflects what is actually going on in the Social Security system in 
1998.
  This whole thing becomes relatively easy to understand as it relates 
to Social Security if we just take a look at how much money is actually 
coming in and how much is going out to our senior citizens in Social 
Security.
  Virtually every worker that has a paycheck has money taken out of 
their paycheck for Social Security. Altogether, the United States 
Government in 1998 will collect about $480 billion in Social Security 
money from the paychecks of workers in America. The Social Security 
system will write out checks to our senior citizens of $382 billion.
  This is pretty straightforward. They are collecting $480 billion, and 
they are paying $382 billion out to our senior citizens. That leaves a 
$98 billion surplus. That is to say, they are collecting $98 billion 
more than they are paying back out to our senior citizens in benefits.
  That money is supposed to be put away. It is supposed to be put into 
a savings account so that when they are, these two numbers turn around, 
the baby-boom generation is clearly headed toward retirement, and 
eventually we reach a point where there is not enough money in and too 
much money being written out in checks to our senior citizens. Well, 
this money that is supposed to be put away in a savings account today 
is not actually happening today.
  I would like to talk about this and the reference of what the 
President referred to in his budget address and something that many of 
us in this Congress feel very strongly about.
  That $98 billion that came in goes directly into the big government 
checkbook, the general fund. Now we spend all the money out of the 
general fund, and when we are all done spending that money there is not 
enough money left to put the $98 billion down in the Social Security 
Trust Fund. So, instead, what our Government does is it makes an 
accounting entry and simply puts an IOU down here in the Social 
Security Trust Fund.
  The technical name for this is a nonnegotiable Treasury bond. But the 
bottom line is that $98 billion of surplus goes straight into the big 
government checkbook. They spend all the money out of the big 
government checkbook, and there is nothing left to put in the Social 
Security Trust Fund. So they simply make an accounting entry. It is 
called a nonnegotiable Treasury bond that goes down here.
  It is important to understand what nonnegotiable Treasury bond means. 
Nonnegotiable Treasury bonds means it cannot be sold.
  So when we come back to this other picture and we take a look at what 
happens down the road a little ways when the baby-boom generation gets 
here, remember the revenues, the amount of money that is coming in 
today, is higher than the amount of money that is being paid out to our 
seniors in benefits. So today it works.
  The idea is that when those two numbers turn around, there is not 
enough

[[Page H228]]

money coming in, we are supposed to be able to go to this trust fund 
and get the money to make good on the Social Security payments. The 
problem is this: Since that trust fund is full of IOUs, or 
nonnegotiable, nonmarketable, something you cannot sell, it is full of 
IOUs, and since it is full of IOUs, when the time comes that there is 
not enough money coming in and too much going out, where is the money 
going to come from? And at that point in time, we reach the point where 
we either have to raise taxes on workers or we have to reduce benefits 
to our senior citizens; and neither one of those are very desirable.
  Now, what has happened in the budget plan, we heard the President say 
that he was going to put Social Security first in our consideration. 
And when we listened to the rest of the State of the Union address, 
Social Security first, and then we heard about a whole series of new 
spending programs.
  Now I think it is important to understand that when we say we are 
going to put Social Security first and then we describe a whole raft of 
new spending programs that what is actually happening is Social 
Security is not actually being put first but someplace else down the 
list.
  So let us look at what happened in the State of the Union address and 
in the budget that the President presented this week.
  The extra Social Security money, that $98 billion, it is still going 
in the government checkbook. We are still spending virtually all of the 
money out of that big government checkbook.
  But the President said, okay, we are going to run a surplus for the 
first time; and that is good. We should not downgrade this or say this 
is all bad. The good news is that this is the first time since 1969 
that, even with the Social Security money, they got to a point where 
they balanced the budget, according to Washington definition.
  Here is what the President proposed. He proposed to keep putting the 
$98 billion into the big government fund. When we are all done spending 
all the money that we spend for a year out of the big government 
checkbook, whatever is left over we will put aside for Social Security.
  Today I sat in the Committee on the Budget, and I had a chance to 
listen to Mr. Raines describe exactly what was going to happen. I think 
it is very, very important that my colleagues understand the $98 
billion still goes into the big government checkbook; the money gets 
spent out of the big government checkbook. The only things we are 
talking about is that small surplus or $9 billion, that is the leftover 
amount out of this checkbook; and it does not even get put into the 
Social Security Trust Fund. What they actually are going to do is pay 
down debt with that money.
  Now, paying down debt is good. Getting to a balanced budget is good. 
Spending less money than we have in our checkbook, that is good. But 
the idea that the only thing we are going to do for Social Security is 
put the leftovers down there, that is not okay, and that is the reason 
I am here tonight talking about the Social Security issue.
  About 2 years ago we wrote in my office a bill called the Social 
Security Preservation Act, and I am happy to say many people on both 
sides of the aisle are now cosponsors on the Social Security 
Preservation Act.
  Here is what it does. The Social Security Preservation Act simply 
takes that $98 billion and directs it straight down here into the 
Social Security Trust Fund. What we want to do is cut off that cash 
flow into the big government checkbook so that Social Security, in 
fact, is treated first.
  Now what this would do is put all $98 billion down into the trust 
fund this year; and that would mean that, instead of reporting a $9 
billion surplus, we would instead be reporting approximately an $87 
billion deficit.
  I do not want to take anything away from the people that have done a 
lot of hard work, good hard work, out in this city to get us to a 
``balanced budget.'' We need to understand, in Washington when they say 
``balanced budget,'' what they mean is the dollars coming into the 
Federal Government is equal to the dollars going back out from the 
Federal Government. By that definition, their budget was balanced here 
for the first time since 1969; and, again, that is good. That is 
important, and it is good. But what we really need to do is start 
putting this money right straight down here in the Social Security 
Trust Fund so we honestly reflect the situation that exists out here.
  I come from the private sector. Before 1995, I never held a public 
office. In the private sector, when we ran a business, if we would have 
taken the pension money, put it in our general account and spent all 
the money out of the general account and put an IOU in the trust fund, 
the way Social Security is working today, they would have arrested us 
in the private sector. It would be absolutely illegal to do the same 
thing in the private sector that we do with Social Security today.
  So I am here tonight to call on my colleagues to join us in the 
Social Security Preservation Act. I do not consider it an Einstein kind 
of bill. It is pretty common sense, pretty straightforward. It simply 
says the extra money coming in for Social Security ought to be put down 
here in the Social Security Trust Fund. It is bill H.R. 857, and I am 
asking tonight that my colleagues join me in this bill.
  We have been working at this for 3 years out of my office, and I am 
happy to say it has now come to the forefront. Let us not accept 
anything less than truly putting Social Security first as we look at 
the budget this year. There is no good reason at this point in time 
that we cannot be putting true money, real dollars, down here in the 
Social Security Trust Fund so that our senior citizens are once again 
safe.
  I should add in this conversation, this is not only about preserving 
Social Security for our senior citizens. This is about people in their 
40s and 50s who are expecting to get Social Security when they retire; 
and, equally important, it is about those same people in their 30s and 
40s and 50s that, if this is not done and we reach a point where there 
is not enough money coming in for Social Security to pay the benefits, 
that choice between cutting Social Security benefits for our senior 
citizens or raising taxes for workers is going to be a very tough 
choice. And it is something that we need to head off right now by 
simply doing what the Social Security system was set up to do in the 
first place.
  I think it is time that H.R. 857, our Social Security Preservation 
Act, gets brought to the floor of the House of Representatives; and I 
think it is time that we have enough cosponsors of this bill. We have 
got 85 or 90.
  And, again, I want to emphasize that there are both Republicans and 
Democrats on this bill. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue 
about what is right for the seniors of this country, what is right for 
the workers of this country, and what is right as we look forward into 
the future as it relates to Social Security.
  Having said this, I think it is important that we look at where we 
are at in this budget before we hear lots of new proposals for 
spending.
  If I could ask to bring those other charts and just take a little 
look back on where we have been and a little look forward of where we 
are going to. And, again, for any of my colleagues who have seen parts 
of this presentation before, we have updated these charts.
  I always show the first one, which we have not changed. That is the 
growing debt facing our country. What this shows is the growth in debt 
from 1960 all the way up to where we are today. We will notice the debt 
is still rising today. Even though in Washington we are hearing that 
the budget is balanced, most people would think that when the budget is 
balanced the debt stops growing.
  But, again, I talk about the Social Security issue. Remember that 
even when the budget is balanced, that is to say the dollars coming 
into Washington are equal to the dollars going out of Washington, and 
again remember that is the first time in nearly 30 years that has 
happened, that is good. But even when we get to that point, there is 
still a debt to the Social Security Trust Fund. That is why we see 
that, even though we are hearing about a balanced budget, the debt is 
still rising.
  I think it is also important to understand just how big this debt is. 
For anybody that has seen parts of this presentation before, a week ago 
I brought the numbers out here that were approximately a year and a 
half

[[Page H229]]

old, and it was $5.3 trillion. The reality is the debt, the United 
States Government debt, has now grown to $5.5 trillion.
  Let me put that another way. The United States Government has spent 
$5.5 trillion on behalf of the American people more than what they 
collected in taxes.
  That is an awful big number. So let me translate that into English. 
If we divide that debt by the number of people in the United States of 
America, the debt is now $20,400 for every man, woman, and child in the 
United States of America. Or, for a family of five, like mine, the debt 
is now $102,000.
  The kicker of this whole thing is really the bottom line here. We see 
a lot of people say, ``So what if we are in debt?'' But the ``so what'' 
part is that we are paying interest on that debt; and a family of five, 
like mine, or any group of five in America, they are actually paying 
$580 a month every month to pay nothing but the Federal interest on 
that debt.
  We need to put this in perspective of where we are at today and what 
is really going on in this country as we listen to budget discussions.
  We saw the President on TV recently where he put that big zero in 
there; the budget is balanced. We need to not forget that this debt is 
still out there and that our families are paying $580 a month every 
month to pay nothing but interest on the debt.
  And for any of my colleagues who think their families are not paying 
that much every month to pay interest on the debt, just think about 
walking in the store and buying a pair of shoes for your kids. The 
store owner makes a small profit when you buy that pair of shoes and, 
of course, part of that profit gets sent out here to Washington, D.C.

                              {time}  1945

  As a matter of fact, $1 out of every 6 that the United States 
Government collects from taxpayers gets spent on nothing other than 
interest on this Federal debt.
  The beauty is we are going forward. And they start talking about 
running surpluses, and as we eventually start running true surpluses, 
surpluses that allow for the Social Security money to be set aside, if 
we start running true surpluses, we can start paying this debt down.
  A second bill I would like to mention tonight is called the National 
Debt Repayment Act. What the National Debt Repayment Act is is really 
the second part of restoring Social Security. It is much like a home 
mortgage payment.
  I come from the home building business before I was elected to 
office, so it is kind of like the same thing we used to do with folks 
when they moved into a house. This debt is much like a home mortgage 
for many people. What we suggested we do in the National Debt Repayment 
Act is simply set up a home mortgage-type repayment plan and pay the 
debt off.
  Under our plan, under the National Debt Repayment Act, the entire 
Federal debt would be paid off by the year 2026, and maybe sooner. It 
could go faster. We use two-thirds of any surpluses to go to debt 
repayment. We dedicate the other one-third to the other problem that I 
think is very real in this country, and that is taxes are too high. So 
two-thirds of any surpluses that materialize go to debt repayment.
  I have dedicated much of this tonight to Social Security. Let me talk 
about how this affects the Social Security System. The theft of that 
Social Security Trust Fund money, the taking of that money and spending 
it on other government programs, that has been going on since 1983. 
There is about $600 billion that is supposed to be in the Social 
Security kitty today that is not there.
  The first thing we need to do for Social Security is what I described 
earlier, the Social Security Preservation Act. We need to stop taking 
the money out this year, $9 billion. We need to put that money into the 
Social Security Trust Fund. But that doesn't solve the problem of that 
$600 billion that has been taken since 1983. So the second thing we 
need to do is recognize that $600 billion is part of this $5.5 
trillion.
  Now, as we repay this debt, our National Debt Repayment Act would put 
the money back into the Social Security Trust Fund. Let me say that 
again, because it is a little confusing, because it is a little 
difficult to understand that this $5.5 trillion, it represents a whole 
bunch of different things. But one of the things that makes up this 
$5.5 trillion is the Social Security Trust Fund money, the $600 billion 
that has been taken out since 1983. So under our National Debt 
Repayment Act, as we are paying down the Federal debt, we are also 
restoring the Social Security Trust Fund.
  That bill again is called the National Debt Repayment Act, and what 
it does is dedicate two-thirds of any surpluses to reducing the debt, 
paying the debt back, like a home mortgage repayment plan, and the 
other one-third to another big problem in our country, which is taxes 
are too high on the American people. So two-thirds to debt repayment, 
one-third to lowering taxes.
  Now, as we start repaying this Federal debt, I think a couple other 
things happen. First, as the debt goes down, the amount of interest we 
need to collect from the taxpayers goes down. So as the debt goes down, 
we should be able to provide tax relief to the workers out there.
  The overall bill when we look at the National Debt Repayment Act, it 
pays off the debt in its entirety by the year 2026, so we can give this 
Nation to our children debt-free; it restores the Social Security Trust 
Fund. It puts the money back into Social Security that has been taken 
out. And for the people in the work force today, there will be no need 
to collect the additional tax money, because we will not need the money 
to pay interest on the debt as we keep paying this thing down.
  It is also significant to just take a look at some of the things that 
have changed from before to where we are at today. This will probably 
make a little more sense right-side up than it does upside down. I 
think it is important to take a glance at least briefly at this chart 
to understand how it is we got to where we are today.
  I have heard a lot of discussions about who gets credit; it is the 
Democrats, the President, it is the Democrats in the House, it is the 
Republicans in the House. I think it is time as Americans we recognize 
it really doesn't matter who gets credit. The fact is we have reached 
for the first time in nearly 30 years a point where the United States 
Government did not spend more money than they had in their checkbook.
  We still got problems. The Social Security Trust Fund is a huge 
problem. It needs to be put first, and it needs to be put truly first, 
not first after we create a whole bunch of new spending programs.
  I would like to show this chart, because it helps people understand 
just exactly how we got to where we are today.
  When I took office in 1995, we had just lived through the 1993 tax 
increase and more broken promises of a balanced budget than I care to 
think about. You can start back to Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in 1985 or 
1987, or the budget deal in 1990, or the 1993 deal where they raised 
taxes significantly. The bottom line is the theory was that if we could 
take more money out of the pockets of the American people, the people 
that were here in office, they were going to take more money out of the 
pockets of the American people, and somehow if they took enough money 
from the American people, that would lead us to a balanced budget.
  When we were elected in 1995, that changed. That theory that raising 
taxes was going to balance the budget was thrown out. As a matter of 
fact, that 1993 tax increase is why a lot of us are here. The American 
people did not want higher taxes and more Washington spending. They 
wanted a balanced budget by controlling the growth of Washington 
spending. They wanted less Washington and more money in their own 
pockets. They wanted less Washington, a balanced budget and lower 
taxes. That is what they wanted. That is why there was a changeover in 
1995. In 1995, before we got here, the spending growth rate in 
Washington was 5.2 percent. That is this red column. That is how fast 
spending was going up each year on an average basis over the previous 
seven years.

  Since we have been here, it is going up by 3.2 percent. So the growth 
of Washington spending has been dramatically slowed over the last three 
year period of time. It is down by 40 percent.

[[Page H230]]

  The good news is the year we just completed, it was not only below 
3.2, but actually down to 2.6 percent. It is the first time in a long 
time it has been actually under the rate of inflation.
  Let me say that again so it makes a little more sense. The rate of 
growth of spending in Washington was actually less than the rate of 
growth of inflation in our country. So Washington did actually shrink, 
perhaps for the first time in a generation, last year in real dollar 
terms.
  Now, do not let anybody mistake me saying that that means Washington 
is small enough. Washington still takes way too much money from the 
American people, they spend too much money out here, and there is all 
kinds of waste that should be eliminated. So I am not trying to lead 
anybody to believe the job is done. This job is not done. We have a 
long ways to go.
  Are we on the right track? Slowing the growth of Washington spending 
by 40 percent in two years, getting us to a point where we actually 
have a balanced budget and spent less money than we have in our check 
book for the first time since 1969? That is all good stuff.
  We need to keep this in perspective of the Social Security Trust 
Fund, we need to understand we have a long ways to go, we need to 
recognize the progress that has been made, but at the same time we are 
recognizing that progress, we need to recognize how far we still have 
to go.
  There is one other topic I would like to briefly discuss today. We 
talked about the past and how we had broken promises and how we had tax 
increases from 1993. We have talked about our new theory of less 
Washington, leading us to a balanced budget and more money in the 
pockets of the people.
  I would like to talk specifically about that more money in the 
pockets of the people, because last year, for the first time, taxes 
were cut for the American people.
  I was somewhat shocked this weekend, I was at a particular place in 
our district, we had about 200 people there, in our state, we had about 
200 people there, not many people actually knew that the tax cut 
package had been passed into law and was available right now in January 
1998 for virtually any taxpayer with a child under the age of 17 
earning less than $110,000 a year.
  Right now, today, January 1998, if a child under the age of 17 is in 
your family, you can fill out a new W-4 form and start taking home $33 
a month more right now, this January. It is a $400 per child tax 
credit.
  Now, if you do not do anything, you are still going to get the tax 
credit, but you are not going to get it until 1999. By going in and 
filling out a new W-4 form, any parent or constituent of ours or my 
colleagues out there in America can literally start taking home $33 a 
month more right now. The $33 a month is the $400 tax credit divided up 
amongst the 12 months. All we have to do, all that has to be done, is a 
new W-4 has to be filled out.
  Let me make that very clear. If we have a family in our districts 
that has a child under the age of 17, and they go in and fill out a new 
W-4, and then they look at their December paycheck and they compare it 
to their January paycheck, their January paycheck should be $33 bigger 
than their December paycheck. For a family with three kids, that is 
$100 a month. All a family has to do is simply go in and fill out a new 
W-4, and a family with three kids under the age of 17 starts taking 
home $100 a months more immediately.
  There is more to the tax cut package. We put education as a top 
priority. If you have a freshman or sophomore in college, in virtually 
all cases they are eligible for a $1,500 tax credit.
  Again, let me translate that. Because if the people do not do 
anything, they are going to get the $1,500 dollars back at the end of 
the year, April of 1999. But you can start getting that money back in 
your pocket right now.
  The college students I know, they have got college tuition bills to 
pay right now and in the fall of this year. If a senior in high school 
is looking ahead to college, that college bill comes due in fall of 
this year, not in April of 1999.
  So what the parents need to do is go in and change the W-4 forms. If 
you are going to have a freshman or sophomore in college, you start 
taking home $125 a month right now, January 1998. There is no reason to 
wait.
  There is another problem with not doing it. If you do not fill out a 
new W-4 form to take that extra money into their home right now today, 
that means that Washington is going to be getting $33 per month per 
child, or $125 a month for a freshman or sophomore in college, and that 
money is going to be coming out here to Washington, instead of the 
people keeping it in their own homes. When Washington sees this big 
pile of money that actually belongs out there in the homes of the 
American people, when Washington sees that big pile of money, they are 
going to want to spend it.
  So the problem with this waiting until 1999 to get the tax credit is 
that Washington gets the people's money in the interim, and it is very 
difficult in this city when people see this money to get them to not 
spend it.
  So it would be a tremendous help to all of the elected officials, all 
of my colleagues here and myself in Washington, if the people would 
very simply keep their own money in their homes. For juniors and 
seniors in college, it is 20 percent of the first $5,000 cost, up to 
$1,000 total.
  If folks own their own home, and I am going on with some of the other 
tax cut provisions that are included, if folks own their own home and 
they sell it, they have been there for two years or longer, there is no 
longer any Federal taxes due in the vast majority of the cases.
  If someone has made an investment in stocks and bonds, and, again, I 
spend a lot of time with people in Wisconsin, and as I ask people in 
Wisconsin, I ask rooms full of people how many own a stock or bond or 
mutual fund, and virtually every hand in the room goes up. We are in a 
day and an age where people have made investments into stocks and bonds 
and mutual funds. I talk to them about the fact if they make a profit, 
and I tell them I hope they make a profit, I do not know of anybody who 
invests in stocks or bonds or mutual funds with the intent of losing 
money, I hope they make a profit. That means the economy is good. That 
is what this is all about.

  So when they make that profit, instead of sending 28 cents out of 
every dollar to Washington, they now only send 20 cents, because 
capital gains is reduced from 28 percent to 20, and if you earn less 
than $41,000 a year, it was reduced from 15 percent down to 10. These 
are very significant changes.
  Then I talk to a lot of folks in the room where the kids are grown 
and gone and they are starting to think seriously about retirement. I 
talk to them about the Roth IRA. It is a new kind of IRA where you can 
put $2,000 per person per year into this account, and you do not get 
the tax break up front, but all of the interest and earnings that 
accumulates on that $2,000 between whenever you put it in and 
retirement, it accumulates absolutely tax-free, and when you take it 
out there is no taxes due. A monumental change in the Tax Code.
  One other thing to mention in the Tax Code change, there are a lot of 
middle income families in America today that, for whatever reason, to 
find out they can't have their own children and would like to adopt a 
child. I think this is a very important, very significant Tax Code 
change.
  In America today, it costs about $10,000 to get through the legal red 
tape to adopt a child. So what we have done in the Tax Code is provided 
a $5,000 adoption tax credit, so that if a middle income family finds 
themselves in a situation where they cannot have their own children and 
they would like to adopt a child, that tax credit is now available to 
assist and to help in that particular situation.
  I have talked about a lot of issues here tonight. If I could close 
with where we started basically, and that is the Social Security issue, 
I think it is very, very important as the people listen to the debate 
here in Washington and my colleagues talk about Social Security and 
putting Social Security first, I think it is very important that we 
remember Social Security is collecting this year alone $98 billion more 
than it is paying out our seniors in benefits. That money is being 
spent on other government programs right now. At this point the 
proposal is simply to give the leftovers to Social Security.
  It does not have to be that way. The Social Security Preservation Act 
would require that that $98 billion, not IOU's, real money, gets put 
directly

[[Page H231]]

into the Social Security Trust Fund, so Social Security would once 
again be safe and solvent for our senior citizens.
  There is $600 billion that has been taken out of the Social Security 
Trust Fund and spent on other government programs between 1983 and 
today. Our National Debt Repayment Act, we do not have to ignore that 
money. It is not gone. We do not have to say we cannot pay that money 
back.
  That $600 billion that has been taken out of the Social Security 
Trust Fund, that is all part of the national debt, the $5.5 trillion. 
All we have to do is pass the National Debt Repayment Act and as we 
repay that Federal debt, we find ourselves in a position where part of 
that debt is the Social Security Trust Fund, so the money gets back 
into the Social Security Trust Fund.
  So tonight I am encouraging my colleagues to join me in two separate 
bills, the Social Security Preservation Act, which truly would put 
Social Security first, and the National Debt Repayment Act, which would 
pay off the entire Federal debt by the year 2026, so our children 
inherit a debt free Nation. It would restore the Social Security Trust 
Fund, so Social Security would again be solvent for our senior 
citizens, and it would lower taxes, taking one-third of any surpluses 
and dedicating it towards tax reduction.

                          ____________________