[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PUT REAL DOLLARS INTO THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND

  (Mr. NEUMANN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. NEUMANN. Madam Speaker, I rise to follow on the 1 minute done by 
my colleague from Georgia.
  The Social Security System this year is collecting about $450 billion 
from taxpayers all across America, including my 15-year-old son who is 
paying about $300 into that system. So they are collecting about $450 
billion this year.
  They are paying about $360 billion back out to our senior citizens in 
benefits, and that leaves a $90 billion surplus in the Social Security 
Trust Fund, and this is a true surplus. But instead of putting that 
money into a savings account to preserve and protect Social Security, 
that money, instead, is being put into the government's big checkbook, 
or general fund, and is being spent on other programs.
  In the President's budget he did not propose that we take the 
surplus, whatever is left over in that big government checkbook, and 
put it into Social Security. Instead, his budget proposes we take that 
surplus, whatever is left over, which is not the way Social Security 
should be treated, and he proposes we take that and pay off nonSocial 
Security debt. He does not propose we put that money back down into the 
Social Security Trust Fund where it actually belongs.
  This is a big problem facing our country; and it is here in the near 
term, not in the long term. It is time to put Social Security first by 
putting real dollars into the Social Security Trust Fund.

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