[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 23106]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 23106]]

 THE TRUTH IS REPUBLICANS PLAN NOT TO SPEND THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST 
                                  FUND

  (Mr. EHLERS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I saw a Democratic member of 
this Congress on television stating that the Republicans were going to 
spend Social Security money to finally get the appropriations bills 
passed. I was astounded, absolutely astounded. First of all, he is 
wrong. We are not planning to do that. What is even worse, although I 
have been here only 5 years, I did serve under a Democratic 
administration of this House that first year I was here. Not only did 
we take Social Security money and spend it, we took every cent of 
Social Security money and spent it. Not only did we take all of the 
Social Security money and spend it, but we spent a couple of hundred 
billion dollars beyond that and added that to the national debt. That 
is what we had 5 years ago here in this House under Democratic control. 
Today the Republicans are controlling it. We are not adding to the 
national debt. We are trying not to spend a cent of Social Security to 
get our budget out. What a dramatic change, and to have someone from 
the other side say we are breaking the rules is just utter nonsense. 
Listen to the truth and the truth is things are much better today.

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