[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 28507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       HONESTY IN BUDGET NUMBERS

  (Mr. SANDLIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, it is time for responsible budgeting in 
this country. It is time to pay the country's debt. It is time to take 
Social Security completely off budget. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot 
of bragging from the other side of the aisle about stopping the raid on 
Social Security. The only problem is that the facts just do not back up 
the bragging.
  The Republicans would like us to believe that the Congressional 
Budget Office has said that their budget would protect the Social 
Security surplus. What they forget to mention is it is only true when 
the Republican leadership tells CBO to change their numbers. How 
convenient.
  When the Republicans wave around the CBO certification that they are 
protecting Social Security, they conveniently forget to mention the 
footnote that says that the estimate includes, ``reductions applied to 
CBO's estimates for congressional scorekeeping purposes.'' In other 
words, the Republican leadership had to tell CBO
to change their estimates to reduce the estimates of spending to make 
their numbers work. They use these estimates when they are convenient; 
but when they do not like it, they use other estimates. It is time for 
responsible budgeting.

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