[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 55 (Wednesday, May 6, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2822]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                       SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND

  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the 
attention of my colleagues a bipartisan bill that we will be 
introducing. It deals with Social Security, the money that we are 
borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund.
  It does two things. It says, in the future when we borrow money from 
the Social Security Trust Fund, they will not be blank IOUs, as they 
are today, but they will be marketable Treasury notes that the trustees 
of the Social Security Administration can walk around the corridor and 
cash in when they need them.
  The second thing this bill does is that it says, in the future, when 
CBO and OMB, the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of 
Management and Budget, issue projections of deficits or balanced 
budgets, they will not include the money that is borrowed from the 
Social Security Trust Fund. I invite my colleagues to cosponsor that 
bill with us.
  It seems very important that we move ahead honestly and that we 
achieve a real, honest budget. Even though we have made great progress 
over the last several years, cutting down the deficit by $300 billion, 
let us move ahead.

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