[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13244-13245]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        SOCIAL SECURITY LOCKBOX

  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am encouraged by what my friends on the other side 
have said. On an issue they wouldn't let us talk about yesterday--that 
is called Social Security--they talk about wanting to get things to the 
floor and get it done--yesterday every one of them voted against moving 
forward with the lockbox to do something with Social Security. It is a 
little bit incongruous with what they are saying today. That is one of 
the real major issues we need to talk about.
  I might add, over the last couple of years there has been a Patients' 
Bill of Rights on the floor. It has been offered. The reason it hasn't 
gone anywhere is because the other side has to have amendments that 
have no relevance to the bill, and go on and on. If they would like to 
pass something, I suggest to them we put something out there, stick to 
the issue and do it. I see they have disappeared.
  Let me talk about Social Security. It seems to me it is one of the 
things we are focused on; it is one of the things that is on our 
Republican list to complete this year. We are probably not going to 
reform Social Security in this session, so we do need to make a move, 
and the move is the lockbox--to take the surplus that is now all Social 
Security that comes in this year and seek to ensure that it is used for 
that purpose. For a very long time, this has not been the case. The 
money that has come in for Social Security, of course, has been put 
into Government securities, and has been spent for other things. For 
the first time in 25 years, we have a surplus, even though it is Social 
Security. So it is time, I believe, to do something to put that money 
aside for the purpose for which it is extracted from you and me as 
taxpayers.
  Is the lockbox the ultimate solution? Of course not. But it is a way 
for us to control what that money is used for, to stop the idea, which 
the President supports, of $158 billion in expenditures on other issues 
using Social Security money.
  Everyone knows that we have to do something if we intend to have 
Social Security in the future for the young people who are now starting 
to pay, as well as paying the beneficiaries that we now have. It wasn't 
many years ago that Social Security was thought to be the third-rail 
politics and nobody could touch it, otherwise they would be dead. Now 
we come to the realization that if we want to continue this program 
over the years--particularly so young people beginning to pay and who 
have

[[Page 13245]]

many years to look forward to will get some benefit--we have to do 
something. The sooner we do it, the less drastic the change will have 
to be. I think most everyone would agree that is a fact.
  In the year 2014, Social Security will begin to run a deficit. So we 
need to look forward to that time. The options are fairly easy to 
understand. One, of course, is that you could raise taxes. I don't know 
of many people, given the 12 percent of our payroll that we now pay, 
would want to increase that. For many folks in this country, Social 
Security withholding is the highest tax they pay, and it is a 
substantial one. The other, of course, is to change the benefits, 
change the age, and do those kinds of things. There may be some 
tinkering with that, but basically the benefits will not be changed.
  It leaves a third option, which I think is a good one, and that is to 
take the money that we have paid in--each of us--a certain percentage 
of that becomes an amount of money that is in our account, and it can 
be invested in equities, which returns a higher yield. That is really 
the third option that we need to look at. The opportunity to do that is 
probably somewhere ahead of us. So the lockbox, then, becomes the 
important thing now--to put that money aside so that we don't spend it.
  There are, in my opinion, other reasons for doing that as well. This 
is one of the big debates here, as you can tell by listening just a few 
moments ago. There are those who want more and more Government 
spending, and others would like to restrict the size of the Federal 
Government, to move more of the decisions back to counties and States 
and individuals. That is the debate--a legitimate debate between those 
who want more taxes and more spending and those who would like to have 
a smaller Government, to bring it down to only those essential things. 
When you have a surplus, that is very difficult to do.
  So if we are talking about maintaining a budget, which we are very 
proud of, having spending caps, in which the budget ceiling has been 
the largest contributor to having a balanced budget, if we are 
interested in doing those things, those are all part of setting aside 
this Social Security money. Over time, hopefully, in the future, as 
this surplus extends not only to Social Security, but to the regular 
operational budget, we will have an opportunity to have some tax reform 
and to return some of this money to people so they can spend it for 
their families, so they can spend it to do some of the things our 
friends were just talking about a few moments ago.
  I think it is very important that we take it up. We have voted three 
times now to move forward with the lockbox. We asked to be able to go 
forward with this. Each time our friends on the other side of the aisle 
have said no. Everyone on that side of the aisle voted no yesterday. 
They said, no, we don't want to set the money aside, but they are up 
today saying here is where we want to make new expenditures of billions 
of dollars. There is something incongruous about that. We need to make 
some decisions about where we are.
  I think Republicans have four pretty well-defined goals we are 
working toward. One is Social Security--not just to say save Social 
Security, as the President has said, and not do anything, but to 
actually do something.
  Two is to do something about education. We have moved forward to do 
that. We have the Ed-Flex Program, for one, that has moved decisions 
back to the schools boards and the States and counties where they ought 
to be for educational decisions.
  We are talking about tax reform. We need to have tax reform. I 
noticed last night somebody did a study of the whole world, and we are 
the second highest in the world on estate taxes, topped only by Japan. 
It is time that we did some tax reform and some of those things. Then 
security, of course, for the benefit our country, we have done a great 
deal on that, in strengthening the military.
  I hope we will stop just talking about these things and actually do 
something. I'm talking about going forward with issues. We had a chance 
yesterday to go forward with an issue, and we had 45 votes against it. 
I hope we can move forward. One of the most important items in this 
country is Social Security, and the first step would be lockbox.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.

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