[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27066]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 27066]]

                     REPUBLICANS HAVE A BETTER IDEA

  (Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I guess it is true what they 
say about old dogs. No matter how hard we try sometimes, we just cannot 
teach them new tricks. So when we try to stop the people who have been 
raiding the Social Security Trust Fund from doing it any more, well, 
that is a lot easier said than done. See, they have been using this 
money to fund big government programs, and if we tell them they have 
got to find one penny out of every Federal dollar to preserve Social 
Security for America's retirees, that is a pretty tough trick for them.
  The comments of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) tell us 
just how hard a time the Democrats are having learning it when he says 
that we should spend as little of the Social Security surplus as 
possible. What he is really saying is let us spend as much of the 
Social Security surplus as we want on the Federal bureaucracy, and if 
there happens to be any money left, heck, we may as well give it back 
to the people it belongs to.
  Mr. Speaker, Republicans have a better idea: stop the raid first. 
Strengthening retirement security must be a top priority, not an 
afterthought.

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