[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 24, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL ON SOCIAL SECURITY DOES NOT DO WHAT THEY SAY IT 
                                WILL DO

  (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, to sit and listen to all these wonderful 
speeches about saving Medicare and Social Security is a wonderful 
thing, but the President's proposal does not do what they say it is 
going to do. The President's proposal does not change structurally 
Social Security and Medicare. It just puts a bunch of cash in after a 
system that is failing because fewer people are going to work and more 
people are retiring.
  Indeed, the President's budget borrows $800 billion out of the Social 
Security Trust over the next 10 years and puts IOUs in its place. Is 
that not what we have been doing for the last 30 years? Is that not 
what we are trying to get out of, borrowing from Social Security and 
putting IOUs in place?
  Indeed, the President's budget increases spending by a trillion 
dollars over 10 years and adds $800 billion to the national debt. This 
is hardly saving anything. If we want to save Social Security and 
Medicare, we are going to have to make structural reforms, structural 
reforms that extend not into the next 10 years but in the next 
generation and beyond.
  Allowing workers to put their own money into investments over time 
will do that, and the President is not proposing that at all.

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