[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 22997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    STOP THE RAID ON SOCIAL SECURITY

  (Mr. SCHAFFER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, people I talk to are often surprised to 
learn that the Republicans forced the President and the Democrats in 
Congress to accept our Social Security lockbox legislation. They are 
even more surprised to learn why a Social Security lockbox law needed 
to be passed in the first place.
  For 32 years Congress had raided the Social Security trust fund to 
pay for Washington programs that had nothing to do with Social 
Security. Of course, in the private sector a CEO who ran his personal 
business like that, using the retirement money as a personal slush 
fund, would be put in jail. But Washington plays by some strange rules.
  I think it is time to put an end to this practice that Lyndon Johnson 
began in 1967 at the height of the Great Society Program. The Social 
Security trust fund is supposed to be a trust fund, not a slush fund.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to draw a line in the 
sand. Take the pledge not to pass any of the President's efforts to 
raid the Social Security trust fund. Stop the raid on Social Security.

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