[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2694]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




MIXING SOCIAL SECURITY WITH OPERATING EXPENSES, NO BUSINESS IN AMERICA 
                             COULD DO THAT

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, by Washington definition, we have a budget 
surplus, only by Washington definition. Because what we have done is 
mix Social Security, our retirement, in with operating expenses. No 
business in America could do that. The President, instead of wanting to 
put 100 percent of the surplus back where it belongs into the Social 
Security retirement account, he wants to spend 32 percent of it on 
other programs, new programs.
  One of them, for example, is to expand AmeriCorps. You may not be 
familiar with that. That is the one where they pay volunteers, 
teenagers, to do work that they were doing for free. The Clinton 
administration now pays them and calls it AmeriCorps.
  I think we should preserve Social Security. We should protect it. We 
should put 100 percent of the surplus back where it belongs, into 
Social Security, not into teenage volunteer payment programs. That is 
part of the whacky fringe left agenda and, Mr. President, my 
grandmother says no.

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