[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 20, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H10372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 DEMOCRATS TRY TO FRACTURE REPUBLICANS

  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday and for the past week the folks 
on this side of the aisle, the Democrats, have said the Republicans are 
going to take money from the Social Security Trust Fund to balance the 
budget.
  Now, CBO, of course, issued a letter to the Speaker of the House on 
October 1, 1999 saying this was not true. Yet we have the Democrats 
continuing to say the opposite.
  Now we have in the Associated Press an interesting quotation. The 
Democrats admit a raid on Social Security. ``Privately, some Democrats 
say a final budget deal that uses some of the pension program's 
surpluses would be a political victory for them, because it would 
fracture the GOP by infuriating conservatives.'' That was October 19, 
1999.
  The bottom line is that Democrats are using this whole thing of 
Social Security as a political gimmick. They are politicizing this 
whole process because they are trying to fracture Republicans. The 
bottom line is Republicans are not going to raid the Social Security 
Trust Fund.

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