[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 27342-27347]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, tonight we are through with legislative 
business for the week. It has been a very energetic week for the House 
of Representatives. We have discussed and debated a lot of issues. As 
we see just a few minutes ago, the charade continues about the 
discussion and the debate about where this country is on Social 
Security. What I would like to do is for the next hour or so to take 
some time to explain to the American public what the truth is about 
Social Security, where we are, what this Congress is doing, because I 
believe that there is a more responsible answer that we should give to 
the American public. We should not scare the American public, but most 
of all that the truth should not be held hostage. We should not have to 
hear politician after politician come and to spout out what I think are 
their wishes for doom and gloom of this Social Security system when in 
fact a lot of focus has been placed upon it and the American public 
have written their Congressmen and Members of Congress have gotten 
engaged in this issue.
  And so I would like to use this remaining time of this hour to talk 
directly with the American public, to provide them information not only 
about how Social Security is doing but the difference between the gross 
and the net, the gross being the top side that they hear about and the 
net being the bottom. I am joined, Mr. Speaker, tonight by several of 
my Republican colleagues who are going to engage in this debate with 
me. It has been a marvelous week here in Washington. We believe we are 
at the point now where we can look the American public right in the eye 
and tell them the truth about where we are in Washington, whether we 
are going to spend Social Security, that we are going to balance the 
budget and that we can make a deal because responsible people in 
Washington, D.C. can make responsible decisions.
  Tonight, I would first like to call on the gentleman from New 
Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a member of the Budget, Transportation and 
Intelligence committees. I would like to have the gentleman from New 
Hampshire join in with me in this debate.
  Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my friend 
and colleague. I, too, join him in expressing the fact that I am proud 
of this Congress for what we have done today and what we have done for 
the last 10 months of this year.
  As a member of the Committee on the Budget, we began the year 
seriously wondering whether or not we were going to have the integrity 
and the fiscal discipline to put aside the money that we need to put 
aside to save Social Security. I recall early on in the year going 
through hearings which within the Committee on the Budget we debated 
how we would go about doing it, understanding that in the previous year 
we had committed 90 percent of our surplus to saving Social Security 
and the President had called for putting aside 100 percent of the 
surplus for Social Security. Then in his State of the Union address, he 
had said, well, let us put 60 percent of the surplus aside for Social 
Security and to this day he says that we should try to put as much as 
we can aside for Social Security. Make no mistake about it. The 
Committee on the Budget made a commitment along with the leadership to 
put 100 percent of the receipts from the Social Security taxes plus all 
the interest which is accruing to the Social Security system aside, and 
that is a number that is in excess of $120 billion. Indeed, that goes 
to paying down the debt.
  Now, my good friend from California who spoke a minute or two ago 
paid tribute to the President's plan to devote, quote, the entire 
interest savings to Social Security and thereby extend its life. Let us 
just examine exactly what that means. The fact of the matter is that 
what the President has proposed is to set as much, maybe 60 percent, 
maybe 90 percent, whatever he does not spent on new spending programs 
aside for Social Security which will indeed pay down the public debt. 
But then what he proposes to do is to take the interest that would have 
been paid had you not paid down the debt, call it imputed interest, and 
create a whole new series of IOUs to the Social Security system, 
thereby making it look like it will last 15 more years. But the reality 
of it is, it is a shell game, a first-class shell game.
  What the Republicans are proposing to do is to exercise fiscal 
discipline and at the same time to set aside in a lockbox the Social 
Security surplus. Indeed, doing this will not prolong the life of 
Social Security one more day, that is true. There are other issues that 
we need to deal with with Social Security. But the one thing we have to 
understand in the beginning is that we are not going to take the hard-
earned money that is paid in payroll taxes by working Americans and use 
that money for other spending programs.
  Now, we passed I think a really momentous appropriations bill today. 
It was a combination of the Labor, Education, Health and Human Services 
bill, the D.C. appropriations bill and a 1 percent across-the-board 
reduction in discretionary spending accounts. In my 5 years in 
Congress, this is the first time I have seen this occur. It is not an 
easy vote but let us examine the 1 percent cut for a second. One 
percent, one penny on every dollar. We hear the President talking about 
how he cannot cut this program and he cannot cut this program, there is 
not another dime. I understand the Interior Secretary the other day 
said, and I cannot quote because I do not have the quote

[[Page 27343]]

in front of me, that there was not one single dime of waste in the 
Interior Department. I think other speakers after me will perhaps give 
him some suggestions about where money might be saved.
  But what we are doing is what the American people asked us to do when 
they elected us, which is to trim government, to save Social Security, 
to cut taxes for working Americans, and to balance the budget. Before I 
entered Congress, the idea of balancing the budget was fodder for 
laughs at cocktail parties. In fact, the theory was being developed 
that deficit budgets were good for the United States economy. Of course 
those lines have now been long forgotten. Now that we face the first 
real honest cash surplus since I got my driver's license at the age of 
16 in 1968, we have a President who wants to put a little bit away but 
he has a whole lot of new ideas for spending money and we have a 
Congress that is committed first to setting aside the money for Social 
Security, secondly paying down the debt, thirdly providing tax relief 
for working Americans, the people who are pulling the wagon in this 
country year after year. It is not going to be that difficult to do.
  I urge the President and the minority to work for working Americans 
in this country and move this appropriation forward so that we can 
finish the business of appropriations, avoid a government shutdown and 
move on to next year.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for bringing up this very 
important subject tonight, because I really believe that it is critical 
that Americans understand exactly what our priorities are.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire. I am also 
joined tonight, Mr. Speaker, by one of the brightest members of the 
House of Representatives. He is a young man who is in my class, he is 
from South Dakota, his name is John Thune.
  The gentleman from South Dakota and I recognize that what we are 
talking about is saving one penny, one penny, and it is very important. 
I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes with us and talk 
to us.
  Mr. THUNE. That is exactly right. I thank the gentleman from Texas 
for yielding and also for the leadership that he has taken on this 
issue in helping us communicate with the American people with our 
colleagues here exactly what it is that we are trying to accomplish.
  As I was listening to the debate today on the floor, I could not help 
but be struck with the thought that the other side must have a severe 
case of schizophrenia, because our friends on the other side of the 
aisle were saying on one hand that we are spending Social Security, 
which we are not, and at the same time they were saying that we were 
not spending enough. And so you had two different messages coming out 
in the course of the debate that we had today. The reason that we are 
not spending Social Security is because we made a conscious decision, a 
deliberate decision as a matter of principle that the people who work 
hard in this country and pay the FICA tax, the payroll tax, ought to 
have some assurance that those dollars are going to go into their 
retirement security. And so we made that conscious decision a very long 
time ago. And in order to be able to do that, to ensure that we were 
not raising Social Security as we have been doing, as the Congress has 
been doing for a good number of years, we had to come up with a way in 
which to make sure that all the important priorities of this Federal 
Government get funded. And so we decided that the best way to do that 
would be to accomplish the savings through a 1 percent across-the-board 
reduction, or a 1 percent across-the-board savings, if you will, by 
giving the agencies of the Federal Government a mandate and a mission 
to find 1 percent, 1 percent in waste, fraud and abuse within their 
respective agencies in order that we could keep our commitment to the 
seniors of this country, to the young people of this country who day in 
and day out roll up their sleeves, go to work, work very, very hard to 
pay the taxes, knowing that someday, hoping that they will be able then 
to collect that and to provide a secure retirement for themselves and 
for their family.

                              {time}  1845

  I think that in listening again to the debate today, I think the 
other side is profoundly confused about what it is they want to do 
because again they were attacking us for saying, again which we are 
not, that we were going to dip into Social Security and yet at the same 
time lambasting a 1 percent across-the-board savings in all the Federal 
budget as gutting all these programs; that somehow this is going to 
take away from the families of this country, and the only conclusion I 
could draw from listening to that was that either they think we are 
spending too much or they think we are not spending enough. And I am 
not sure which it is, but I think their side was very confused in this 
debate today, and I think for our side, Mr. Speaker, the issue is very, 
very simple.
  It is really a matter of whether or not we are going to ensure and 
insist upon the commitment that we made that Social Security taxes go 
into the Social Security Trust Fund and are used, are reserved, there 
for the retirement security of the American working public; and until 
that time happens, we continue to pay down the Federal debt, which is 
another priority that we have made for a long time.
  Now just out of there is a chart here, and I am not a big one for 
using charts, but in the event that anyone out there is confused by 
what has been happening here in Washington the last few years, this 
illustrates very clearly the raid, if you will, on the Social Security 
Trust Fund, the amount of money that has been spent out of that fund 
over the course of the last 15 years or so. It totals almost $638 
billion as a whole lot of money that has come out of the Social 
Security Trust Fund and has been used by the Federal Government to pay 
for the costs of other Federal programs.
  We said categorically that has to stop. As a matter of principle, it 
is wrong for this country, this government, to collect money from 
people which they expect to go into a retirement fund that will be 
there when they retire and then have those dollars used to fund other 
areas of the Federal budget.
  And I guess my big problem with the whole notion of the way that the 
Federal Government operates is there is a good amount of call it waste, 
fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government, and I certainly believe, 
and I think the American people believe, I think anybody in my State of 
South Dakota would certainly concur, that anyone looking at the Federal 
budget closely could say, I think we can find 1 percent. I think on a 
dollar of Federal spending we can find one penny in savings. One penny 
is all we are saying to the Federal Government.
  It is, tighten up a little bit. Let us just see if we can find one 
penny in savings out of the entire Federal budget, the discretionary 
side of it. If all we do, if we can just save one penny, it will allow 
us to honor our commitment to the seniors of this country and to again 
the people who work hard every day to pay the payroll tax, and we do 
not have to do this any more.
  I think the best part and what I like about this graph the most is 
what happens in 1999 when it goes down to zero, and that is what we 
were able to do today with the votes that we took. We made a 
commitment. We have passed 13 separate appropriations bills. We have 
passed them in a way that does not violate our commitment to the 
American people, that enables us to honor that commitment to protect 
Social Security and still keeps the government running.
  Now all you heard today from the other side again was it is going to 
cut this or this or this and the usual suspects that are always 
mentioned. But the reality is whether it is defense, whether it is 
education, whether it is law enforcement, we spend in this budget, what 
we passed today and what we have already sent down to the President, 
more on those priorities than what the President had proposed in the 
first place even after we trim one cent out of every dollar.

[[Page 27344]]

  Now we all talked about this the other day. There certainly are ways 
that we can find a penny in savings, whether it is in the area of 
foreign travel that has been mentioned, some of the trips.
  I mean, the President may have to reduce the number of people who 
travel with him, 1,700 to Africa, 800 on another trip; and it is only, 
as my colleagues know, a small percentage of savings really that we are 
talking about. And you look at some of the things that the Federal 
dollars have been spent for, the 26,000 people who are deceased who 
received $8.5 million in food stamps, according to the Committee on the 
Budget. Those who have collected SSI payments illegally, and there is a 
convicted murderer who received more than $75,000 in SSI disability 
payments during his 14 years on death row; and of course the one I like 
the best, Mr. Speaker, is the million dollars that we had to spend for 
the outhouse at Glacier National Park. The people who have to walk 6\1/
2\ miles, up 7,000 feet to use an outhouse that was bought and paid for 
by the Federal Government.
  Surely when it comes down to our sense of priorities, we ought to say 
to the American people that a million dollars for an outhouse versus a 
million dollars into a Social Security Trust Fund that will protect and 
safeguard the retirement security of Americans, it ought to be an easy 
choice for us.
  And I think what happened today, unfortunately for those on the other 
side, is we took away in many respects their ability to spend, and we 
have said as a matter of principle Social Security should be protected, 
it should be safeguarded; and that hurts deeply, Mr. Speaker, for those 
who over the past 15 years have found it to be the Social Security 
Trust Fund and the Social Security surplus to be their sort of spending 
balloon.
  Well, today we popped that balloon, and the American people are going 
to be better served as a result of that, and we have gone a long ways 
toward protecting and safeguarding the Social Security retirement 
dollars that the people in this country worked very, very hard for, 
worked very, very hard to pay; and I am very happy to report to the 
people in my State of South Dakota and to all the American public, all 
the taxpayers out there, that this was an important historic day here 
in Washington because we popped the spending balloon, the Social 
Security Trust Fund that has been raided for the last 15 years and said 
categorically it has got to stop here.
  That is a principle with which I think the American people will 
agree, and I am proud that we were able to come up with the votes today 
in order to do that, and I would say to my friend from Texas and my 
friend from New Hampshire who have been leaders in this effort in the 
effort to bring Federal spending under control, to eliminate wasteful 
spending, to make sure that the American taxpayers are getting the very 
best return on their investment, that I appreciate the leadership that 
you all have taken for the opportunity to participate with you this 
evening in this discussion and again to reiterate to the American 
people that we want to make absolutely certain that the dollars that 
you pay from Mr. FICA actually are going into the Social Security Trust 
Fund.
  This was indeed a historic day here in Washington and a day which I 
think again that the American people will be very much benefited from.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back to my friend from Texas 
(Mr. Sessions) and indicate to him again that I appreciate his strong 
leadership on this subject.


                Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Members are reminded that they 
are to direct their remarks to the Chair and not to those who may be 
viewing the proceedings of the House.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the speaker for the comments from the gentleman 
from South Dakota, his enunciation of what a great day and a great week 
this has been in Washington, D.C., a day when we can look the American 
public right in the eye and we can say that not only do we have a 
balanced budget, but the straight face comes when we say: and we did 
not spend your Social Security, your retirement future, in order to 
take claim for this balanced budget.
  And it is a proud day for me. I came to Congress in 1996. I ran on a 
pledge that I felt like we not only should, could, but must, balance 
the budget, and that if we did not balance the budget that I promised 
that I would not accept a paycheck if we did not balance the budget.
  So we balanced the budget, we stick to what we said we would do, but 
now with a straight face we can say:
  And, America, we are no longer taking from your retirement future.
  What is interesting, as we approach this time, is that we have heard 
the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) talk about ideas which we 
have as Republicans about how the President, and this administration 
and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can view this as an 
opportunity and a challenge, a challenge not only for America, but we 
have taken on the challenge ourselves as Members of Congress.
  We have stated that we will as management of the country, we will 
accept a 1 percent reduction this next year in our paychecks. We had a 
vote on it this evening. Most Members voted for it. Of course it 
passed. But this 1 percent reduction in our paychecks, that would go to 
something as important as not only securing America's future with 
saving Social Security, but by making sure we do it immediately and 
keep the trend that we just started for the first time of not spending 
Social Security dollars in 39 years.
  So, it is a historic day, it is an opportunity; but I know that you 
have many things on your plate that you would like to talk about that 
are great opportunities, good ideas for this administration and the 
American public to hear from us about great ideas to find this 1 
percent in savings that we are going to challenge the government to do.
  Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, 
and he certainly is right. The concept that you cannot find one penny 
in every dollar in a fiscal year is ludicrous. I would suggest that 
every State in the Nation on occasion is forced to find far more than 1 
cent on every dollar because, unlike the Federal Government, they have 
to balance their budgets every single year.
  I would also point out that you will hear discussion amongst the 
minority and the majority about whether or not we, as Republicans with 
our plan, are using Social Security surpluses or not. You realize that 
this argument has gotten down now to the point where we are having a 
fight between OMB and CBO, whether their predictions are right, whether 
we use OMB numbers or CBO numbers.
  Well, when you are talking about the difference between the 
President's proposal to put 60 percent of the surplus aside versus the 
Republican's successful effort at putting 100 percent of the Social 
Security surplus aside, I really do not think that the key issue is 
whether or not the numbers come from CBO or OMB, and I am not even 
going to tell you what they stand for, Mr. Speaker, because I do not 
really think it makes a big difference.
  Let me also point out for those who say that a 1 percent cut will 
result in unacceptable reductions in spending in critical programs, let 
me point out that even after the 1 percent cut, across-the-board cut, 
the Republican plan spends $265.1 billion on defense versus the 
President's proposal for $263 billion. $265, $263; we spent more. On 
education we spend $34.8 billion versus the President's proposed $34.7. 
On education, Mr. Speaker, on education. After the 1 percent cut, the 
Republican appropriations spends $34.8 billion, the President's $34.7 
on education. And on crime fighting the GOP spends $3.25 billion versus 
the President's $2.8 billion.
  Now what about this 1 percent across-the-board cut that we cannot 
find a single dollar? Well, I have here a document put out by Citizens 
Against Government Waste entitled ``Prime Cuts 1999,'' and I would 
suggest that every Cabinet member and everybody

[[Page 27345]]

in the administration take an opportunity to read this book because 
there are plenty of suggestions which total well in excess, well in 
excess, of 1 percent.
  Some of the more interesting proposals that I have seen come across 
my desk in the last couple of days are, and let me give you a couple of 
examples. Perhaps we could eliminate a subsidy of $850,000 to a well-
known ice cream company in a State adjacent to mine which they received 
from the Federal Government to distribute their product in Russia, as 
if it is not cold enough in Russia for them to produce their own ice 
cream or that this particular company cannot find the resources to 
develop its own advertising campaign.
  Or how about delays, administrative delays, in the disposing of more 
than 41,000 HUD properties that are costing taxpayers in this country a 
million dollars a day? Or how about a government audit that recently 
found that Federal agencies were simply unable to account for $800 
billion, $800 billion in government assets? And I can go on and on, 
page after page, and I think that the American people find it pretty 
ludicrous to believe, Mr. Speaker, that no Federal agency can cut 1 
percent from their budget.
  So again, I think this is a reasonable proposal, and I am proud that 
this body has taken it upon itself to pass it and send it down to the 
White House.
  Mr. SESSIONS. This one percent that the gentleman is talking about 
equals about $3.5 billion, and what we are talking about is $3.5 
billion that it will take to where we ask the Government if they will 
find the 1 percent savings; once again, 1 cent out of a dollar. It 
would be in what we call discretionary funds. It would not come from 
Social Security, would not come from Medicare, would not come from 
Medicaid, but directly from the things that we know of, Mr. Speaker, 
government programs.

                              {time}  1900

  This 1 percent that we are after, one penny, has a very auspicious 
background and history, because what we are talking about in Washington 
now is not hundreds of billions, which is our past history from when 
Republicans took control of this Congress, but rather now down to $3.5 
billion.
  What I would like to do is go through what is 30 years of 
Congressional overspending, 30 years worth of Democrat control, going 
back to when we first put a man on the Moon back in 1969. That is when 
it started.
  This chart here represents deficits that the government has 
overspent. In other words, the money that was coming in was overspent. 
We spent more money than what the Treasury brought in. Back in 1994, 
when Ross Perot and other people who stood up and talked about it, 
whether they be Independents in this country or whether they be 
Republicans, they talked about that at some point this was going to 
become so large that we could never turn it around; that the critical 
mass would be so large, and we needed to place an emphasis on doing 
something about this, that is when I signed the Contract with America.
  The Contract with America directly addressed what we were talking 
about. It said if Republicans were given an opportunity, we would quit 
what was ahead in our future of having $300 billion deficits, of 
spending 100 percent of every Social Security dollar, that we would 
stop that and within 7 years balance the budget, and the American 
public heard us and they believed us.
  So we got elected, and we came into control of the House and the 
Senate at that time. And what has happened? Our track record is nothing 
less than marvelous. We have gone from $300 billion a year deficits, to 
now we have celebrated, as you see here on this chart, we have gone to 
surpluses. We went to surpluses because we cut taxes and we were able 
to say no to spending. We were able to have some fiscal responsibility, 
some restraint, the opportunity to make wise and prudent decisions on 
behalf of ourself and the American public.
  Mr. BASS. If the gentleman will yield, would you be willing to point 
to the place at which on that chart the control of Congress changed 
from the minority to the majority, the Republicans? Where is it on that 
chart?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to show the gentleman. As a matter 
of fact, that is the deciding point that you will see that is right 
here. That is where the lowest point, the highest deficits took place, 
right here. Since that time the Congress, year after year after year, 
has had a debate, a discussion, that has been very lively, and I will 
tell you it has gotten hot and very heated here on this floor. And 
repeatedly people stood up and said we are trying to do things that we 
are being asked by people at home to do. We are trying to do things 
that pass the smell test, to where we can look at the American public 
and say we have something in mind. And what in mind we had was that we 
should not put further debt upon ourself or our children and their 
future generations.
  This proves then we now have a surplus. What we had to do is get to 
the point where we could wean ourself away from Social Security. We 
have discussed it, the American people have discussed it, the President 
has discussed it.
  What happened that we received information on about 2 weeks ago was 
that for the first time in 39 years we have found out that not one 
penny of Social Security went to fund the government. For the first 
time in 39 years.
  So I would like to go from this chart of spending to this chart of 
the history of the Social Security raid. As you see here, back in 1983 
it really began. We began on a yearly basis of taking 80, 90 billion 
dollars, and taking what was the surplus in Social Security, what was 
given because people had to give the government their money, with the 
understanding that government had some fiduciary responsibility to take 
care of this. In fact, what has happened is all this money has gone 
into what was called a Social Security trust fund.
  Well, I would submit to you that this trust fund is smoke and 
mirrors, because in fact all of the money has been spent, it is all 
gone, and the American public knows this, $638 billion. So the 27 years 
worth of Social Security that I have paid in and the 27 years worth of 
Social Security that my wife has paid in, and gosh knows how many years 
that my parents worked, probably 50 years, they are now counting on a 
system that essentially is counting on us today to pay for their 
retirement, rather than putting the money in where it is supposed to 
be, allowing it to grow with interest, not spending it today, but doing 
what is prudent and wise, and that is waiting for a rainy day.
  This is what we have ended. Now, after 39 years, Republicans have had 
the guts to stand up and say we are not only going to balance the 
budget, we are going to make sure that your future retirement is not 
spent in the process. That is exactly what we have done this week 
again.
  Mr. BASS. If the gentleman will yield for a second, when I entered 
Congress in 1995 the administration submitted its first budget for the 
104th Congress, and that budget had projected deficits for the 5-year 
period in excess, in excess, of $150 to $225 billion per year, not 
including, not including, the Social Security surplus.
  So if you recall the table on the history of the Social Security fund 
and you notice how the purple goes up and up and up and suddenly drops 
down, had we not been able to cut a minimum of $300 billion out of 
projected spending over the last 4 years, that purple, that line would 
have skyrocketed, because, remember, the total amount of money since 
1983 that has been spent on other programs and not gone into Social 
Security is about $638 billion.
  Well, the surplus this year alone is in excess of $120 billion. So 
what we were really dealing with here was a problem where we were on 
the brink of a calamity in Social Security. It has stopped. It is not 
going to be easy to fight this battle, but we are ahead at the present 
time because I think most Americans agree with the fact that we have 
made this commitment not to let this money get spent on other Federal 
programs.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman. I have a new board up here which 
really says exactly the good news that we have just received two weeks 
ago. What that says is that the

[[Page 27346]]

Congressional Budget Office certifies that the Republican budget 
stopped the 39-year raid on Social Security and that the projected on 
budget surplus under Congressional scoring is $1 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do is say that everybody gets 
credit for this. We want the American public not to have their Social 
Security spent. And what has been the response back has been, oh, my 
gosh, it has almost been an accusation. ``The Republicans' key goal is 
not to spend the Social Security surplus. Those mean Republicans, they 
do not want to spend the Social Security surplus.''
  Thank you, Mr. Podesta. You are right. You have got it. Give us 
credit. Give us credit for that which we are doing. And you have done 
that.
  But, Mr. Speaker, there is more. And the more to that is this: It is 
what we must do now is to make wise and prudent decisions about how we 
are going to repeat this task that we have started. We want to repeat 
it so that we make sure that on a going-forward basis, that we 
understand on an up-front basis that we are not ever, ever, never, 
going to spend the Social Security surplus to fund this government. It 
is the retirement of millions of Americans who gave that money, gave 
the money to the government with the understanding that they would have 
a secure Social Security retirement system in place and available to 
them.
  So here is what we are doing in Washington right now. We are trying 
to devise a budget and finalize that budget and have the President sign 
that budget with some very important components.
  First of all, it will be a balanced budget. Second of all, it will 
mean that we want to lock away, not use, Social Security. After passing 
13 bills, which we have done today, we recognize that we are now down 
to about $3.5 billion over what we would have wanted. But after these 
months of work it is hard to add up where it will all be. Now that we 
see what the final answer is, we realize we are $3.5 billion over. But 
a bill to spend Social Security we were advised two weeks ago by 
Majority Leader Dick Armey would not be allowed to be on the floor of 
the House of Representatives. So recognizing that, it was important for 
Republicans to put forth a plan that we made sure would deal correctly 
and fairly and honestly with the American public, and that is where we 
came up with what is known as the 1 percent savings solution.
  What we are trying to do is we are trying to say that in the future, 
next year, we are going to ask out of every dollar that is given to 
this administration for discretionary funds, that out of every dollar 
that would be given to the administration, that we would like them to 
find a savings of one penny. This is exactly what Americans do at home. 
This is exactly what Americans do when they sit around their table and 
they talk about their budget every month.
  To assume that government would be immune from the same type of 
problem that Americans run into, because it is all Americans together 
that could have this problem, to assume that we could not forthrightly 
come up with an answer, that we could not honestly look government 
right in the eye and say, ``What will you do to participate?'' I 
consider it a challenge.
  If I worked in the administration, I would say, ``I think this is a 
great opportunity for us to look inward.'' If I were a government 
employee working for this administration, or a career employee, I 
wonder how many of them, how many times these employees have come up 
with great ideas about how to make their government programs or their 
job to work more effectively or more efficiently, and I wonder how many 
times they floated ideas up the chain of command that would say how can 
we save money? Where is a good idea? What can we do to help out?
  Well, today this Republican Congress is challenging those millions of 
government workers, we are challenging the administrators, we are 
challenging the cabinet officers, and, yes, we are challenging this 
administration and our President. For, you see, we believe that saving 
Social Security and not spending one penny is the most important thing 
that we can do for our people this year.
  So, we are challenging government. We are challenging its employees. 
We are challenging this administration. Please go look inwardly. Look 
at your own budgets. Look at what you are going to do starting with 
this new budget that starts in about 3 or 4 days. Go find those things 
where you can save one penny out of a dollar. Put those things in 
place, implement them, and then we will make sure that we are not 
stealing from the retirement for our future.
  This is what this gets down to. This is what it is all about. And the 
gentleman from New Hampshire I am sure has lots of more ideas about how 
we can challenge this government to provide them information.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding to me.
  I will conclude my observations about where we stand today by making 
an observation about the debate that occurred recently in my home State 
of New Hampshire between the two candidates running for the nomination 
for president on the Democratic side. They were both trying to 
outliberal each other.
  It was interesting to me to see how, when Mr. Gore accused Mr. 
Bradley of having a health care plan that would use up the entire 
surplus, the entire surplus, he was also talking about it using up the 
entire social security surplus, too.
  Vice President Gore expressed sadness that Mr. Bradley, Senator 
Bradley's health care proposal would not leave money for him to propose 
other new spending initiatives.
  So Mr. Speaker, I think this debate that we are having this year is a 
healthy debate. The differences between the Republicans and the 
Democrats are clear, concise, and understandable.
  I know that they are committed to their ideals, but when we came to 
power in Congress in 1995, we set, as our goals, goals that would not 
necessarily be satisfying every interest group at home, goals that 
would not be spending more money without any accountability. The goals 
that we established were the goals that may not get newspaper 
headlines, but what they were were the goals of achieving a balanced 
budget, which we have done; the goals of attempting to take the trust 
funds off-budget, which we have done with the Highway Trust Fund and we 
have done with social security, we hope, and at least from my 
perspective to do with the aviation trust fund; and we paid down in 
excess of $50 billion in debt in the last fiscal year.
  I know that with the $120 billion plus that we are taking off-budget, 
we also will pay down that amount in public debt. We will, as 
Republicans, put this Federal Government on an even fiscal keel as we 
move into the 21st century. Although they are not traditionally the 
platforms that garner tremendous public support, we have the interests 
of this Nation in the 21st century at heart. I know and believe that 
the American people support what we have tried to do over the last 4 
years, and will support us in years to come.
  I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas, for having taken 
this time to discuss this issue which is so important not only to 
working families and to seniors, but for those that believe that this 
country should be as strong in the 21st century for my children and my 
children's children as it has been for my father and my mother and my 
grandparents.
  I thank the gentleman for giving me the opportunity to participate in 
this dialogue.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire, 
who is a very proud part of the things that we are doing in Washington.
  As I go to close here tonight, I want to summarize that this has been 
an invigorating week, 2 weeks that we have had in Washington, where we 
have learned officially that for the first time in 39 years, the budget 
of the United States did not use social security by which to fund 
government operations, and that in fact it has been a

[[Page 27347]]

good thing not only for taxpayers and people on social security, but it 
has reinvigorated us here in Washington to recognize that this should 
not be a battle between Republicans and Democrats, but what it has done 
is opened up a new door, a new opportunity, a new challenge for Members 
of Congress to recognize that if we work together, that not only can we 
continue to ensure that we do not spend social security, but that we do 
those things that are good for the fiscal soundness of our country.
  I would like to end today with a challenge, not only to my Republican 
colleagues but also to my friends on the other side, to come join me in 
what we call the Results Caucus. It is a bipartisan group of Members 
who work together to make sure that we can find and weed out those 
areas of government spending, those areas of government spending that 
fall under waste, fraud, and abuse.
  I would like to read to not only my colleagues on the Democrat side 
but also have the opportunity for those who are listening tonight to 
hear what the Results Caucus is. Here is my basic philosophy:
  The Federal Government has many good intentions. Intent is not the 
issue, effectiveness is the issue. Washington spends billions of 
dollars every day trying to help in people's lives, but no one knows 
whether or not these programs actually work.
  Americans work hard for their income. They pay a lot, in fact, too 
much, in taxes. I say it is immoral for the national government to 
spend one dollar, one tax dollar, on a program that does not work and 
does not help achieve its stated objective. If a program is not 
working, then it should be reformed or cut, with the savings returned 
directly to the taxpayer.
  That is what the Results Caucus is all about. We are trying to work 
to find these savings. I think that this opportunity that we have had 
to speak tonight is not only invigorating to Republicans, but it is an 
opportunity, a fair way to give this administration and all Federal 
workers an understanding and a challenge that we need them to work 
carefully as a challenge to reduce, for every dollar that they will be 
given to spend, to reduce by 1 cent.
  The Results Caucus has a wonderful saying. It is this, that every 
single dollar that this government needs it should get, but not a penny 
more.
  I thank the Speaker for staying late this evening. I want to thank 
the Speaker and my colleagues who have been part of what we have done 
tonight.

                          ____________________