[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 20, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H10596-H10602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE BUDGET SURPLUS, GENERAL REVENUE SURPLUS, SHOULD BE USED TO SHORE UP 
                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my Republican colleagues 
preceded me this evening because as much as I respect them dearly, and 
they are actually two very good gentlemen who I respect quite a bit, I 
have to disagree very much on what they said about the President's 
intentions, particularly with regard to Social Security.
  The bottom line is from day one, during his State of the Union 
address earlier this year, the President made it quite clear that 
whatever budget surplus existed and appeared over the next 5 or 10 
years, that he was determined that that budget surplus, general revenue 
surplus, be used to shore up Social Security. President Clinton has 
repeatedly said that whatever surplus is generated primarily has to be 
used for Social Security and, if not, for Medicare.
  What the gentlemen are confusing is they are suggesting that somehow 
the Social Security surplus is being spent by the President when, in 
reality, they are the ones that are doing it. The Republican 
leadership, the appropriations bills, the so-called budget that the 
Republicans have put forth over the last few months has repeatedly 
dipped in to the Social Security surplus.
  The interesting part of it is when they started to talk about 
emergencies and the need to spend money on some of the natural 
disasters that we have had, whether it be floods or some of the other 
natural disasters that have occurred, the bottom line is that they have 
appropriated the money for those natural disasters and essentially 
taken it out of the Social Security surplus. One can argue whether it 
is good or bad to do that, but the bottom line is it has been done.
  The Republican leadership and the appropriations bills that have 
passed here, the so-called budget bills, have repeatedly used various 
gimmicks; but essentially what they are doing is spending Social 
Security money.
  I think it is particularly ironic because during most of the summer 
what we heard from the Republican leadership is how we needed a huge 
tax cut bill, trillions of dollars that was going to be spent on a tax 
cut that was primarily going to benefit the wealthy in America, wealthy 
Americans; and the reason that the President vetoed that tax cut bill 
was because it was essentially taking money that was to be used for 
Social Security, because he wanted to make sure that whatever surplus 
there was was used for Social Security rather than a huge tax cut 
primarily for wealthy Americans. That is why the American people 
responded overwhelmingly and said they did not want the tax cut because 
they did not want us to dip into Social Security to pay for the tax 
cut.
  So I just think it is particularly ironic that now that some of the 
Republicans have suggested that they are going to sit down with the 
President and try to work out an agreement on the budget that they are 
suggesting that that means that there will be no more spending from the 
Social Security surplus. Well, they have already spent it. They have 
already spent it on emergencies. They have already spent it on a number 
of items, and they can hardly suggest in any way that they are not 
going to continue to spend it because that is exactly what their 
intention is.
  I just wanted to say, if I could, and I have to say it over and over 
again, that what the Republican leaders are doing is carrying out a 
budgetary charade. They continue to publicly promise not to spend the 
Social Security surplus; but no one, not even their own budget analyst, 
still believes them. The only question left to ask them is how much 
they are spending of the Social Security surplus. They clearly are 
spending the money, but how much?

  Well, let me just give an example of this hypocrisy. We have the 
Speaker of the House who is quoted as saying recently that we are not 
going to take money out of Social Security. We have the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), the Whip, who says, according to the New York Times, 
the bottom line is we are not going to spend a dime of the Social 
Security Trust Fund.
  But the Republicans' own Congressional Budget Office says Republican 
promises are bogus. According to their hand-picked budget chief, 
Republican spenders have already run more than $16 billion of the 
Social Security surplus. Even conservative commentators like George 
Will have said they have no other strategy other than dipping into $14 
billion in Social Security surplus, and the Washington Times, this is 
from October 1, said Congress has already erased the projected $14 
billion in non-Social Security budget surplus.
  What they are really doing is they are using gimmicks, gimmicks to 
pretend that they are not actually spending the Social Security 
surplus. They are delaying tax cuts for working families. They are 
pretending the fiscal year has 13 months. That was one of the cutest 
things, a 13-month year, and they are calling constitutional 
requirements like the Census emergency spending.
  I just wanted to point to a chart here, if I could, Mr. Speaker. I am 
glad that the previous speakers included my two Republican friends that 
were talking about emergency spending. Already emergency spending in 
the budget bills that the Republicans have passed for the next fiscal 
year 2000 exceeds the amount of spending in the previous year by 17 
percent, or $24.9 billion.

[[Page H10597]]

  We can see that some of that emergency has been for FEMA, that is, 
for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for disaster aid, fuel 
assistance, defense O&M, the census, which I mentioned, and 
agricultural emergencies. Now, I am not going to suggest that some of 
these expenditures are not important.
  My friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), previously 
talked about the need to spend money for people who were the victims of 
natural disasters, but the bottom line is that this spending has 
already occurred and has come out of Social Security. They cannot deny 
it. It is a fact. The other chart, if I could, Mr. Speaker, talks about 
the other types of budget gimmicks that are being made here. In other 
words, they do not want to admit that they are taking money from the 
Social Security surplus, so what they do is they come up with these 
budget gimmicks.
  I already mentioned the emergency. But we have delayed outlays; we 
have advanced appropriations where they basically say they are going to 
advance money that is going to be spent in the future and other types 
of scoring gimmicks here that basically create all of these gimmicks; 
and they are denying and playing this game that somehow they are not 
spending the money from Social Security, but in reality that is exactly 
what they are doing.
  I wanted, if I could, Mr. Speaker, to particularly make reference, if 
I could, to what this strategy is all about, because it was back in 
August, I think, in the New York Times, Friday August 6, that the 
majority whip, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), basically 
explained, if I could for a minute, how he was going about this 
charade.
  Basically, what he said is that the plan, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. DeLay) said, was for Republicans to drain the surplus out of next 
year's budget and force President Clinton to pay for any additional 
spending requests out of the Social Security surplus, which both 
parties have pledged to protect. He said, we are going to spend it and 
then some. From the get-go, the strategy has always been we are going 
to spend what is left, he admitted.
  The Republican strategy, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) said, 
will also force the President to sign the Republican Party spending 
bills for the next year.
  He, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), said that even if the 
spending swallowed up the budget surplus, the Republicans had a plan to 
use various budgetary mechanisms that would allow them to say they had 
stuck to the strict spending caps they imposed in 1997. We will 
negotiate with the President, after he vetoes the bills, on his knees.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. Speaker, let me just briefly summarize again what this charade is 
all about based on the statement I just read from the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Delay). Basically what the Republicans are going to do is 
they are going to bring up appropriations bills one by one. There are 
13 all together. Each of those individually or collectively, if we look 
at it all, will spend a significant amount of money from Social 
Security. They already have.
  But what they are going to do is they are going to keep sending these 
to the President. They do not want him to look at the overall strategy 
of what this all adds up to. What the President said today, which I 
think was most significant when these negotiations started for the 
first time with the Republican leadership, and he was willing to sit 
down with them, he said, ``Do not keep sending me these individual 
bills, like the Foreign Ops, because I am going to veto them.''
  I think it is the ultimate in hypocrisy that my colleagues who 
preceded me tonight talk about the President vetoing as if that 
indicates he wants to spend money. I mean, it is just the opposite. The 
reality is he is going to veto these bills because he wants to see what 
the whole budget plan is. He knows that, if it continues at the 
spending levels that they have already appropriated with these bills 
that have passed, then it is going to significantly dip into Social 
Security; and he is saying, ``That is not acceptable. I will continue 
to veto bills until you lay it all on the table and show me what your 
budget is. And then, at that point, we can negotiate and figure out 
what is really going on here.''
  What has been going on so far over the last few months is a continued 
effort to spend more, to use budgetary gimmicks, and to dip into Social 
Security Trust Fund.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey for engaging in this effort tonight. I think what we want to do 
is to kind of just bring some clarity to the debate. Republicans this 
summer, they spent this summer pushing a tax cut for the wealthiest 
people in this country and for corporate special interests. They went 
out on the road, and they talked about how they were going to, in fact, 
engage the public on a debate on their tax cut. It was nearly $46,000 
for the wealthiest Americans and, in fact, about $160 for working 
families in this country. Two-thirds of the GOP tax cuts went to the 
top 10 of taxpayers.
  They went around the country, and lo and behold, the good folks, the 
good people, the working families of the United States said, we do not 
buy it. We do not buy it. We do not like it. We do not want it.
  Now, these are the same people, this Republican leadership, who told 
us that they could spend all this money, cut taxes by $792 billion, 
never touch the Social Security surplus. These are folks who cannot be 
trusted on this issue. The Republican budget plan hinges on gimmickry. 
There is $46 billion of gimmicks at last count. What they have done 
with that is so that they can disguise what it is that they are doing 
in already spending the Social Security surplus. The hypocrisy is mind 
boggling. The plan is phony, and it is a sham to its core.
  As the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) pointed out, it calls 
the census an emergency. They cook the books with directed score 
keeping and by moving tens of billions of dollars for this fiscal year 
into 2001.
  The Republican Congressional Budget Office, we make this point over 
and over again, it cannot be made often enough, that is, the Republican 
Congressional Budget Office made it crystal clear that the Republicans 
have already spent $13 billion of the Social Security surplus. They are 
on their way to spending a whopping $24 billion chunk of it. That is a 
fact. That is not my commentary, the commentary of the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the commentary of the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. DeFazio) or the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). This is 
the Republican Congressional Budget Office.
  To add to this effort, I think we need to get into another level of 
this debate; and that is, it is outrageous for the Republican 
leadership to pose as defenders of Social Security.
  I want to deal with several quotes here. I think it serves us well to 
remember who some of these folks are. In fact, they are the enemies of 
Social Security. They want to eliminate it. They do not like it. They 
have wanted to privatize it.
  The Majority Leader of the House, I want to talk about several of his 
quotes. This bears repeating over and over and over again. He ran for 
Congress proposing to abolish Social Security.
  This is United Press International, 1984: ``Ultra-conservative 
economics professor Dick Armey who has based his campaign on his 
support for the abolition of Social Security, the Federal minimum wage 
law, the corporate income tax, and Federal aid to education.'' These 
are not my words. These are not my words. Here it is in blue and yellow 
in this poster here.

  Second, Majority Leader Dick Armey believes that Social Security 
should be phased out over time. ``In 1984, Armey said that Social 
Security was, `a bad retirement' and `a rotten trick' on the American 
people.'' He continued, ``I think we are going to have to bite the 
bullet on Social Security and phase it out over a period of time.''
  This is someone who is a defender of Social Security? Wants to save 
the Social Security surplus? Give me a break.
  If my colleagues want to fast forward now to 1994, Majority Leader 
Dick Armey on cutting Social Security. This is CNN's Crossfire, 
September 27,

[[Page H10598]]

1994. ``Are you going to take the pledge? Are you going to promise not 
to cut people's Social Security to meet these promises?"
  Dick Armey: ``No, I am not going to make such a promise.''
  In 1994, September 28, Dick Armey, Majority Leader of the House of 
Representatives, ``I would never have created Social Security.''
  I think above all, that says who is willing to do Social Security in 
and who is willing to expend an effort on protecting and strengthening 
Social Security for the future of retirees in this country. Their words 
are hollow. They have raided Social Security. They are doing it 
continuously. They do not like the program. If they have had their 
druthers it would be gone.
  I think we need to keep on and let the public know exactly what the 
score is on this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, when I was here earlier and the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) made a statement, and again the gentleman 
is a friend of mine, but he made a statement about how the President of 
the United States was the one who wanted to spend the Social Security 
surplus. I grimace when I hear it because, from the very beginning of 
this year, President Clinton said very emphatically that whatever 
general revenue surplus is generated over the next 5 or 10 years as a 
result of the Balanced Budget Act, and we are not talking about the 
Social Security surplus now, we are talking about the general revenue 
surplus that is basically generated because of the Balanced Budget Act 
that he spearheaded and that is going to be available in the next 5 or 
10 years, he said he wanted to take that general revenue surplus and 
use it to shore up Social Security long-term.
  So we have the Republican leadership like Armey who wants to abolish 
Social Security. We have the President of the United States, President 
Clinton, who says that whatever general revenue surplus is generated 
over the next 5 or 10 years, he wants to take that money and put it 
into Social Security to guarantee the long-term viability of Social 
Security for future generations.
  Okay. The President was not just talking about not spending the 
Social Security surplus. He was going way beyond that in saying that 
the surplus that generated through general revenue was going to be used 
to shore up Social Security for the future.
  Also, if my colleagues notice, his budget had all the offsets, what 
additional spending was there was going to be offset with cuts. Also, 
he had even proposed the tobacco tax increase to pay for some of the 
additional spending. He was very clear that we were not going to spend 
the Social Security surplus. The general revenue surplus was going to 
be used to add to the Social Security surplus, and just the opposite of 
what the Republicans are saying.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, just one quick point because colleagues 
need to get into this discussion, the fact the President said let us 
wait to see what we need to ensure the long-term security of Social 
Security to protect it and to strengthen it before we start dipping 
into the surplus. The fact of the matter is is that Democrats have 
talked about extending the life of Social Security. The Republican 
leadership has offered zero, nothing, not one dime to extend the future 
of Social Security.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, they want to privatize.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, again, we can go to any chart, anybody's 
analysis of this issue, they have not one dime in their budget for 
extending the life of Social Security. But they have a $792 billion tax 
cut for the wealthiest people in this country.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very 
much for yielding to me. I think this is a worthy discussion. I would 
like to pick up from where the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro) just left off.
  We apparently have heard from our constituents, she in Connecticut, I 
in Texas. Why do we not begin with the history of why we are where we 
are today; and that is because our Republican friends spent a good part 
of the summer and the spring debating the $792 billion tax cut.
  What befuddles me is, at the time that they were debating the $792 
billion tax cut, Democrats were arguing that that clearly had to bust 
open Social Security. We could not imagine where those funds were 
coming from.
  In addition, it is very clear that the President does not want to 
raid Social Security, but he was out front and center on the issue of 
vetoing the tax offering that our friends had.
  It is disappointing to think that we wasted the spring and the 
summer, and now it is October 20. We are some eight appropriations 
bills behind, which responds to the point of the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) that we have a puzzle with missing parts.
  That is what the President is asking. He wants to help those in North 
Carolina. I know I do. He wants to ensure the farmers who have suffered 
disasters this year be helped. He wants to make sure that we have our 
community health clinics open and the WIC program survives and various 
training programs survive. But we must be insistent on the truth, and 
we must work with the facts.
  Let me cite for my colleagues a book that many of us were assigned to 
read in our years of learning. Unfortunately, I think it captures where 
I believe we are today, the 1984 novel that Orwell wrote that a 
government that declared war is peace; obviously the opposite. Freedom 
is slavery; obviously the opposite. Ignorance is strength; obviously 
the opposite.
  Here we have our Republican majority declaring we do not raid Social 
Security; obviously the opposite. I think they do. The reason is, of 
course, if my colleagues would just look at, and I think in order to 
avoid any glazing of the eyes as we debate this, I think that when the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) mentioned gimmicks, though I do 
not want to reflect negatively on emergency spending, but what 
emergency spending does is it takes it outside the caps, and it allows 
my colleagues to bypass the stop light. We need to use that in this 
government to help the least of those when there are crises in our 
Nation, when there is no other way of dealing with it.
  But look where we are with the Republicans in fiscal year 2000. They 
have gone through the roof on emergency spending. They have declared 
everything emergency spending. They are 17 percent over the 1999 
omnibus bill which says to me that we are dangerously near raiding 
Social Security.
  Important issues, yes. Important needs, yes, some of them. Some would 
argue about our defense spending here. But they have been declared 
emergency.
  What that means to the American public is they are spending their 
money, and they are calling it an emergency, and that is how they are 
able to argue that we are not raiding Social Security. In fact, that is 
how they are, I believe, in Orwellian mindset, to say one thing and it 
is the complete opposite.

                              {time}  2015

  So I would simply say that we face an opportunity to be the truth 
squad. I would frankly like to join my colleagues in being the right 
squad. And when I say that, I mean to do the right thing, and that is 
that we put on the table what is the budget plan of the majority and 
then let us argue over that budget plan. Show us that it is not doing 
damage to the way we spend our money here in the Federal Government. 
Let us seriously look at the appropriations bills from the perspective 
of trying to serve the most American people.
  And, for goodness sake, the other two things I want to say, let us 
not have the sneak attack of the lingering tax cuts that we hear about. 
And as well let us ensure that we do not have the gimmickry of the 
earned income tax credit being held hostage, which is something that 
helps working men and women, in order to supplement this emergency 
spending, and which thereby gets them in the hole further, and as well 
puts them in the position of having to invade Social Security. So let 
us not use the earned income tax credit, utilized by hard-working 
families who need those monies, and legitimately it has been budgeted, 
to be utilized to violate the rules of invading Social Security.
  I would simply thank the gentleman for allowing us the time to engage 
in

[[Page H10599]]

this. I hope we can do more of this truth squad, and maybe someone will 
listen to what the American people are saying and get on with the 
business of real budgeting and stop raiding Social Security.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentlewoman has said. 
And this whole idea of a truth squad is what is so crucial here. The 
gentlewoman is pointing out that what the Republicans are doing, and 
this is the strategy of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay), and he 
said it back in August, his strategy is spend, spend, spend, call 
everything an emergency, spend all the money, and then force the 
President to sign some omnibus bill at the end.
  I just find it so ironic that my colleagues earlier on the Republican 
side came to the floor and criticized the President for vetoing a 
spending bill. What the President has said is that he wants to see what 
they are up to. He wants to see where all this spending is, all these 
emergencies, all these bills that are out there. And he is very much 
afraid that when it all adds up, it is going to add up to a lot of 
money that is dipping into the Social Security surplus. And he is 
basically saying, I am going to put a stop to it. We are going to see 
what they are up to. We are not going to just let them spend, spend, 
spend as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) said.
  It is really ironic that they are the ones that are suggesting that 
somehow we are spending the money. They are in charge. The Congress 
appropriates the money. The Congress does the spending, not the 
President. They are passing the bills that spend the money.
  I want to thank the gentlewoman.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. And if I could, just one last sentence. I 
do not know how in good conscience we could have spent 6 months on 
planning, on debating, on strategizing for a $792 billion tax cut, and 
we come now in October and there is representation that, oh, we are 
saving Social Security, when in fact there is a whole history that they 
were going in completely the opposite direction.
  I hope we have awakened both my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle. I know we have awakened the American people.
  Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate that. Not one of those bills that they sent 
to the President for his signature would ever have passed here without 
the Republican majority's support. They are the ones spending the 
money.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for 
yielding.
  I think the American people are often puzzled in listening to our 
debates, and let us just try to distill this down a bit. What do most 
families consider to be an emergency? Now, in my case, I have a little 
bit of money set aside, like other people do, for emergencies. Now, my 
property tax bill, which I know is going to come on November 15 of 
every year, is not an emergency. My bills for my insurance, my 
homeowners insurance, my mortgage, which comes on a monthly basis, 
these obviously are not emergencies. I think all Americans would agree 
we would not consider these sorts of anticipated expenditures, whether 
they are annual, monthly or biannual, in the case of my insurance, as 
emergencies.
  But somehow, strangely enough, the Republican majority has decided 
that things that are eminently predictable, such as the census of the 
United States, something required since the founding of our Nation in 
the Constitution to be conducted once every 10 years, next year is the 
year 2000, everybody has known since they wrote the Constitution that 
if the Republic stood, we would conduct a census in the year 2000; but 
they have declared those funds to be an emergency.
  Now, that is probably puzzling to a majority of the American people. 
Why would they do that? Why would they declare something like the 
census or expenditures in the Department of Defense as emergencies, 
when their annual operating costs, in the case of the Department of 
Defense, are a required expenditure once every 10 years by the Federal 
Government? Because they do not count. It is money that because of the 
Budget Act does not count.
  Well, it has to come from somewhere. These emergency funds have to 
come from somewhere. Guess what? They come out of American taxpayers' 
wallets that are paid in taxes and go to the Federal Treasury. Now, in 
this case, the money is, in fact, going to come out of, since they have 
already spent the general fund surplus, the Social Security surplus. It 
is just a fact.
  They have already, in their wild spending spree here, like the 
aircraft carrier that the majority leader of the Senate wants and that 
the Pentagon does not want, they have already exceeded the budget. They 
have exceeded it. They have spent all the available money and the 
projected general fund surplus. So where is this emergency money coming 
from? The emergency money can only come from one place, either thin 
air, I suppose they could call downtown to Alan Greenspan and ask him 
to print up some million dollar bills, or it comes from Social 
Security. The Social Security surplus.
  They have already spent it. They have spent it in spades. And they 
are spending again and again. As these bills come to the floor, more 
and more things are declared emergencies.
  Let us talk about one other way they are spending it. There is this 
other kind of funny money out there. What is two plus two? Well, 
everybody knows. The gentleman can answer.
  Mr. PALLONE. Four.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Four. No, no, no, the gentleman is wrong. In the world 
of the Republican budget, two plus two can be any number that they 
direct it to be. It is called directed scorekeeping. So if they get a 
result they do not like from their own Congressional Budget Office, 
which they have appointed, they direct that in fact two plus two is 
one, or zero, or maybe minus eight, or whatever they need to do to add 
up to budget.
  But the hard fact is that the money they are spending, which is 
actually going to be spent by these appropriations bills passed by the 
majority, originating in this chamber by the Republican majority, that 
money has to come from somewhere; and that money is coming from the 
Social Security surplus.
  Every time they do one of these funny tricks, yes, it makes it look 
okay in terms of the Budget Act, emergency spending, directed 
scorekeeping; but it is coming out of Social Security. So let us drop 
the charade and develop an honest budget and admit we are probably 
going to run a real deficit this year. That is where we are headed. 
Because they have loaded up these bills so much, if we go to the real 
priorities of the American people and keep all the junk they have 
loaded into the bills, we are going to be running a deficit. Unless 
they want to pull out some of those things, the aircraft carriers the 
Pentagon did not ask for and some of those other things, they are up 
the creek without a paddle, or a boat or a life jacket.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman. He has said it all.
  I would like to yield at this time to my colleague from the district 
next door to mine, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and 
I would just like to follow on the comments of my friend from Oregon.
  These budget gimmicks that the gentleman has been talking about can 
be used to explain that, well, maybe we are adhering to the caps that 
were part of the Balanced Budget Agreement, maybe we have not dipped 
into Social Security, but in point of fact, let me give my colleagues a 
very simple explanation of why we are now doing what the majority party 
claims we are not doing.
  We are spending Social Security because we are operating now under a 
continuing resolution, are we not?
  Mr. PALLONE. We are.
  Mr. HOLT. And in this current fiscal year, which began in the 
beginning of this month, we were supposed to be spending a lower amount 
of money, but we are spending at last year's rates. That is what the 
continuing resolution means. If we are spending at last year's rate, we 
are spending Social Security money now.
  And we can use any gimmicks we want to talk about it, but the point 
of fact is we set a goal for ourselves, Republicans and Democrats. We 
said it would be advantageous for us to take this Social Security tax 
money that is

[[Page H10600]]

collected and use that to pay down the debt. If we did that, we would 
not only shore up Social Security, but it would result in lower 
interest rates, which of course would be more money in the pockets of 
every American, far more than would come from these crazy tax cuts, for 
most Americans, that is. Now, for some very wealthy Americans in some 
very special situations, maybe the tax cut would help them somewhat 
more; but for most Americans paying down the debt would help us. And so 
we set this goal of not using Social Security.
  But the majority party has been unable to get their appropriations 
bills done this year. They have strung them along and strung them 
along, and pretty soon the end of the fiscal year came and we had to go 
into a continuing resolution. The result is not only are we not laying 
out the full financial picture for the country so that the President 
can make his decisions of what bills to sign and which bills to veto, 
but the American public does not know where we stand. From their point 
of view it must look very much like a shell game. And that is the 
result of these budget gimmicks. And it just further erodes public 
trust in government, which is what many of us are fighting so hard to 
try to restore.
  It is a shame. It is a shame that we have come to this state. But I 
hope in the next week or two the other side will come to their senses 
and will try to bring us back on an even keel with straightforward 
accounting.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman for bringing up the paying 
down on the national debt, too, because, again, before I started the 
hour special order we had two of my Republican colleagues, and the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) specifically talked about he and 
the Republicans wanted to pay down the national debt. And I laughed 
because we know that if that tax cut that the Republicans put forward 
that the President vetoed had actually been signed into law and would 
be in place, the opposite would have happened. We would have been 
spending Social Security. We would not have had any money to pay down 
the national debt.
  And President Clinton, from the beginning of the year, said what he 
would like to do with any general revenue surplus that was to be 
generated over the next 5 or 10 years was that he wanted to take 60 
percent of it and use it to contribute to Social Security, to shore up 
Social Security for the future; and he wanted to take, I think 15 
percent for Medicare, and then he talked about also paying down some of 
the national debt. In fact, that was already done a few months ago. He 
actually did spend some of general revenue surplus to help pay down the 
national debt or to transfer the bonds in some ways so that the debt 
was being paid off.
  And I just listened to my Republican colleagues somehow turn that 
around and say, oh, no, the President wanted to spend the Social 
Security surplus. Just the opposite was the case. He was saying we, 
over the next 5 or 10 years, we are going to generate some general 
revenue surplus. Let us take that and use it for Social Security. Let 
us take that and use it to pay down the national debt. And the total 
effort to confuse the public in the debate by somehow suggesting that 
by using general revenue surplus to help Social Security that that was 
somehow using Social Security surplus, it is just the opposite.
  Mr. HOLT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, any magician knows 
that in playing a shell game or trying to use sleight of hand, the 
trick is to hide something in the most obvious place, and that is what 
is used for misdirection. Well, the other party is using that trick, 
trying to say that Social Security is what the Democrats are playing 
around with; that Social Security is what Democrats are undermining.
  But Social Security is the creation of the Democratic party. It was 
one of the great accomplishments of the New Deal. Of course, it is one 
of the great accomplishments of government in the 20th century.

                              {time}  2030

  I am sure the American public understands that we, as a party, hold 
Social Security in the highest regard and intend to do everything we 
can to preserve and shore up Social Security for the future 
generations, not just for this year's seniors, not just for next year's 
seniors, but for this year's young, working people, for this year's 
toddlers.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I think the point that has been made about 
the tax cut should not be lost in this debate. I think it is at the 
core of what we are talking about today, tonight, tomorrow, and as the 
days go on, because this $792 billion, of which $46,000 in a tax cut 
was going to the wealthiest people and it wound up to be about $160 for 
working families, but the point of being able to pay down the debt, 
again, this is not our manufacturing this notion.
  Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve, in commenting on the tax 
cut, economists from all over the country who said that this is not the 
direction that we ought to be going in and that in fact what you would 
do by not lowering the debt was to increase the interest rates. Very 
critical, very important to what people are paying for mortgages, for 
car payments, for student loans, et cetera.
  At the core of this debate is the desire of the Republican leadership 
to pass a $792 billion tax cut that throws everything else in the 
process that we are engaged in disarray.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield.
  Further on the tax cut. Now, just like the emergency spending, where 
would the money for the $792-billion tax cut come from? Now, if indeed 
we were running huge and growing general fund surpluses, it would come 
potentially out of that. But, in fact, because of the numbers that were 
used to project this not yet realized, contingent, possible, sometime 
future, maybe surplus, they wanted to lock in $792 billion of tax cuts 
today heavily weighted towards the largest corporations and the most 
wealthy Americans, those families earning over $300,000 a year; and if 
everything did not come out in the rosy scenario, record growth, record 
low inflation, we have already exceeded those estimates and growth is 
already dropping off the charts, in huge and growing surpluses, it 
would have come out of Social Security, out of the Social Security 
surplus.
  So lock in a tax cut today. The same party, of course, who has the 
majority leader who has said for 2 decades he does not believe in 
Social Security, and maybe they can kill Social Security tomorrow. 
Because, well, we do not have enough money to meet the obligations of 
Social Security because, well, gee, we gave it back to the most wealthy 
people in America and to the largest corporations.
  No. The bottom line is that was the most irresponsible proposal. $792 
billion of tax cuts, most probably coming out of the Social Security 
Trust Fund, and now that same party, the one that did not vote for the 
original Social Security Act, has proposed to privatize Social 
Security, has a majority leader who says he does not believe in it, did 
not vote for Medicare, and now wants the American people to believe 
that they have had sort of a death-bed conversion or whatever we would 
call it here, that now, suddenly after this history for 60 years and a 
proposal a month ago to cut a surplus that does not exist by $792 
billion jeopardizing Social Security, suddenly now they are the great 
defenders of Social Security.
  I do not think the American people are going to buy it. I hope they 
spend all of their campaign funds on those stupid ads. Because I do not 
think they have any credibility with the American people, that the 
people who have consistently attacked Social Security now are its 
greatest saviors. I beg them to run those same ads in my district. I 
ask them to run those ads in my district.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I agree with the 
gentleman. I want to say I was amazed when my two Republican colleagues 
earlier this evening criticized the President for using his veto pen on 
appropriations or a spending bill. Because I see veto, veto, veto. They 
keep sending over these bills that spend all this money, and the most 
responsible thing the President can do is to continue to veto those 
bills until we have some

[[Page H10601]]

idea of what this all adds up to. Because it is clear that when we add 
it all up, it is going to be a lot of money out of the Social Security 
surplus; and it is just the opposite, if you will, of what they are 
suggesting.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I think again another quote from the 
majority leader was just a few days ago where he was quoted as saying 
that if you are going to demagogue, do it shamelessly, the notion that 
the party who was opposed to Social Security that has continually 
talked about its abolition or its phasing out or its privatization, is 
exactly what is being done. It is shameful demagoguery.
  But I truly do believe, as my colleague from Oregon said, the 
American people gets it. They know it. They did not buy the tax cut 
plan this summer. They are not going to buy this notion that the 
Republican House leadership is the savior when it comes to Social 
Security and Medicare. It just defies imagination.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that perhaps today when the 
President vetoed, or whenever it was, yesterday he vetoed the foreign 
ops bill and said that he is going to continue to veto until he sees 
and the Republicans lay out their entire budget, maybe he should even 
go so far as to suggest that he will not sign anything until they 
actually address the long-term needs of Social Security and Medicare. 
Because so far they have completely refused to do that.
  I would not have a problem if he says, I am not going to sign any 
more of your bills unless you address Social Security and Medicare 
long-term and show how over the next 5 and 10 years you are going to 
use whatever general revenue surplus that might be generated to shore 
up those programs.
  I do not know if he mentioned that or not. But I do not have a 
problem if he goes that much further. Because I think what they are 
doing is setting the American people up for an incredible spending plan 
that is ultimately going to spend the Social Security surplus.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, of course, my colleagues will recall that the 
President did say in each of the last two State of the Union addresses 
when he said save Social Security first.
  We should have acted on that instead of cooking up seven or eight 
hundred billion dollar tax cut schemes, plans, follies. But Social 
Security should be shored up. We should restore the trust in Social 
Security to the American public before we go on to any new tax cuts, 
any new spending. This is one of the great accomplishments of the 20th 
century, and we really should get that in place.
  But that is a longer term issue. In the short term now, of course, 
the public can watch; and they will see that the strategy of the 
majority party here is to come out piece meal with appropriation bill 
after appropriation bill and not let anyone, the general public, the 
President, the rest of the Members of Congress, see what the bottom 
line is.
  We should demand, as we should join the President in his demand, that 
all this be laid out clearly for the public to see and not be hidden 
behind claims that are really, as my colleague has shown, false claims 
that it is the minority party that is somehow scheming to spend Social 
Security, as preposterous as that may sound.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I was looking at the original Democratic 
budget plan, the one that was presented at the beginning of the year 
that looked at Social Security and Medicare and the national debt long-
term; and basically, in setting aside the general revenue surplus, it 
would have extended the life of the Social Security Trust Fund beyond 
2050 and the life of the Medicare trust funds until 2027 and would also 
use the projected surpluses, and again, as the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. DeFazio) said, who knows if these surpluses would be there, but if 
they were, the Democratic plan would completely eliminate the national 
debt by the year 2015 by using a certain percentage of that general 
revenue surplus to pay down the national debt.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
better to prudently plan on funds that are funds that do not yet exist, 
and that is saying, okay, if they do show up, we will save them, then 
to say, no, let us commit to spend them today to help out the 
wealthiest and the most powerful, mainly their campaign contributors, 
and not leave any for contingencies or for Social Security should it 
ever crop up.
  I do not believe those numbers. I do not believe the White House or 
the Republican majority on those numbers. I do not believe we are going 
to run a trillion-dollar surplus. And it would be more prudent to wait 
until we have got a trillion dollars in the bank and then figure out 
how to spend it, whether we want to give it to the wealthy in tax cuts, 
if they get enough votes for that, then they win, or they want to 
invest it in our kids in an education and other needed programs, then 
we win.
  But the point is, until that money exists, do not spend it because 
there is only one place it can come from if it does not crop up 
fortuitously in the future and that is out of the Social Security Trust 
Fund. They were committing and spending those funds just as they have 
for emergencies, just as they have for directed spending, just as they 
have for an unneeded aircraft carrier and other boondoggles in this 
year's budget.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, it is just so amazing. I think we have a 
Republican majority that has found themselves at this juncture truly 
unable to get its work done. They cannot get their work done. They are 
in charge. They cannot get it done.
  So what do they do? They try to cover their tracks, look at budget 
gimmicks, directed spending, directed scoring, whatever they want to 
deal with, whatever they want to call it. And they think if they say 
something often enough and over and over again that a fallacious 
statement, even if they say it over and over again, does not make it 
true. And they want to hide the fact that in fact they have dipped into 
Social Security.
  We should not be cowed by their argument or their comments. We should 
just continue as point of fact to go after it every single day to talk 
about what it is that they are doing.
  It is a pattern. It is a pattern. The patients' bill of rights they 
do not want to pass. Campaign finance reform they do not want to pass. 
They do not want to extend and strengthen and protect the life of 
Social Security. What they do want to do is have a $792-billion tax 
cut. That is the heart and soul and the center of the agenda.
  And even though we have all these issues in this body, which, in 
fact, a number of rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans have 
supported, they will not let them see the light of day because that is 
not what the agenda is all about.
  I am proud to stand with an agenda that says let us strengthen and 
protect Social Security in the future, let us provide people with a 
patients' bill of rights so that they can get good quality health care 
in this country, let us do something about campaign finance reform so 
we do not have the special interest influence in this effort.
  In fact, I would say that some of my own party would not agree with 
it, but there are people on both sides of the aisle, let us see good, 
solid gun safety legislation in this country. These are issues the 
American public care about. And our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, really, that is not what they are about.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I watched the President over the last few 
weeks and he has repeatedly said, look, this process of sending me 
bills that the Republican leadership know do not make any sense has to 
stop. So sit down with me, meet with me. Let us see if we can iron out 
our difference and hopefully, that process will lead to that.
  But the bottom line is that they, as the Congress and as the 
appropriators and the ones who have to pass the spending bills, they 
cannot act as if that is not their responsibility and that they are not 
responsible for sending him these bills that do all this emergency 
spending and that take the money out of the Social Security surplus.
  I think we just have to keep their feet to the fire. We have to come 
here every day, every night if necessary,

[[Page H10602]]

 until the budget process is finally arrived at in some sort of 
consensus. But the bottom line is that they cannot continue to argue 
that somehow by passing these bills and sending them to the President 
that they are not spending more and more money. That is the reality. 
That is what they are up to.
  And I am going to say it again, I encourage him to veto the bills 
because we know that if we add them up, they are going to add up to a 
lot more spending and a lot more money coming out the Social Security 
surplus.

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