[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7693-H7694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REPAYING THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from

[[Page H7694]]

Washington (Mr. Adam Smith) is recognized during morning hour debates 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ADAM SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, in the early part of this 
decade, no problem seemed more unsolvable than the problem of our 
growing Federal deficit. It was at over $200 billion at that point, 
projected to hit $300 billion in rapid succession, and projected by the 
end of the decade to be well over $500 billion. Now, fortunately, we 
began to head in the right direction at that point and were actually 
almost in a position to get to a balanced budget.
  That is the good news. The bad news is that we are now looking like 
we are going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
  The biggest part of this problem comes from the talk that we have 
heard here recently about a surplus. I hear my colleagues talking about 
it, I see it on television, I even hear it in my local press, that 
there is going to be a $1.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years.
  The only problem with that is it is not really true. We are not going 
to have a $1.6 trillion surplus, and the talk about that surplus I find 
very disturbing, because it puts us in a position to back away from our 
commitment to a balanced budget. It gives us the illusion that we have 
money that we do not have, and I fear that it is going to get us to the 
point where we are not going to get to the balanced budget that we have 
worked so hard for over the past 7 or 8 years.
  It is important to explain these figures. So if we are not going to 
have a $1.6 trillion surplus, why are so many people saying we are 
going to have a $1.6 trillion surplus? It is because they count the 
money that we borrow from Social Security as income. It is just an 
unusual way of accounting that they do back here in Washington, D.C.
  Somehow, if we borrow money from a bank or from anyplace else, that 
counts as being borrowed, but if we borrow it from Social Security, it 
counts as income. Well, that is not true, because, just like the bank 
and like any other source, we have to pay the money back to Social 
Security, plus interest.
  Now, you might say, well, so part of the $1.6 trillion surplus comes 
out of the Social Security trust fund. Well, that still gives us some 
money to play around with.
  Unfortunately, when you look at the $1.6 trillion over 10 years, only 
$31 billion of that $1.6 trillion comes from any place other than the 
Social Security trust fund. So we truly do not have a surplus.
  Unless we are willing to spend money that comes directly out of the 
Social Security trust fund on something else, we do not have a surplus. 
We cannot consider it a surplus, and we must be honest in the way we 
evaluate those numbers.
  I find it particularly disturbing to hear some of my colleagues from 
the Republican side of the aisle talking about this surplus, because I 
remember back in the late eighties and early nineties they were the 
ones who first raised the argument that this was unfair, that we were 
masking the true size of the deficit.
  Now, at the time Democrats were in the majority, so it was in their 
political interest to make that point, because it made us look bad. I 
was very troubled by that argument at the time, and I was troubled by 
it as a Democrat for one very good reason: They were right and we were 
wrong. We needed to address that issue and change it. But now we are 
in the latter part of the 1990's, they are in the majority, and now 
they are talking about a surplus, as if the Social Security trust fund 
was income that we could spend any way we want.

  We need to stop doing that. We need to be honest about the numbers 
and make sure that we stay on a path to a balanced budget. A balanced 
budget is critical to this country. It helps our economy and protects 
our future. We need not to back away from it.
  I understand with why we do this. I have people come by my office 
every day who have ideas to spend money on a variety of programs or 
have ideas for tax cuts in a variety of areas, and rarely does someone 
come by my office and present an idea where I can honestly say no, that 
would be a complete waste of money. That would not do any good for 
anybody.
  Yes, there are programs that can use more money and taxes that could 
be cut, but the point is, where is the money going to come from? That 
is when you get to hard decisions.
  No one likes to make hard decisions, so what we want to do is we want 
to say we can take it from the surplus. That is the easy answer. It is 
free money. We can give you tax cuts, we can give you spending, 
everything you want, we can promise you the world, and we can simply 
take it that take it from this mythical surplus. So I understand why we 
want to do this, because it is an easy way out.
  But we were not elected to take the easy way out. We were elected to 
give people honest answers and give them an honest assessment of where 
the budget is. And the honest assessment is that we are doing okay. We 
are headed in the right direction. But we do not have a surplus this 
year, and we do not have that $1.6 trillion projected surplus that we 
have heard so much about over the last 10 years. Almost all of that 
money is taken from the Social Security trust fund, is borrowed from 
it. It is not money that we can spend, for the very good reason that we 
have to give it back. We have to give it back, plus interest. And if we 
have spent it, we are going to run up debts or not be in a position to 
pay the money back.
  I strongly urge this body in the last four or so weeks that we have 
in session here to not break down from our commitment. We have worked 
so hard to get to a balanced budget. Let us get there. Let us be honest 
about the numbers, and let us stop using the money that we borrow from 
Social Security to mask the true size of our deficit.

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