[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2965-2966]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    SOCIAL SECURITY, THE BUDGET RESOLUTION, AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we on this side of the aisle look forward to 
working on eliminating the Social Security earnings limitation. I just 
returned from Nevada. It was amazing the number of people who came up 
to me and said, Are you going to do finally something about eliminating 
the earnings test on Social Security? As the leader has said, we have 
talked about this a long time but done nothing. It is time now that we 
join together, as we are going to do Wednesday, to pass this important 
bill.
  This legislation will pass overwhelmingly with both Democrats and 
Republicans voting for it. Why? Because the America of today is much 
different from the America of 1935 when Social Security came into 
being. People are living much longer lives, healthier lives, more 
productive lives, and there is no reason in the world why we do not 
have people working as long as they want and as hard as they want. We 
need to remove this limitation. We have a problem in America today in 
its lack of productivity. This legislation will help a great deal 
because some of the most productive people in the world are people who 
are over age 65. So I look forward to joining Senators on both sides of 
the aisle to make sure we pass this bill as quickly as possible. As the 
leader said, we should do it Wednesday afternoon.

[[Page 2966]]

  In looking forward to next week, to the budget resolution, this is a 
time where we have an opportunity to look at what the Nation is going 
to do financially for the coming year. I think it is important we all 
prepare for this debate. There is a limited amount of time we can 
debate this issue. There is no limitation on the number of amendments 
that can be offered. We certainly hope there is not an unlimited number 
of amendments, but that people will give thought and consideration to 
the ones that are most important.
  The Democrats today are going to take some time to talk about a 
number of issues, and leading the debate will be the chairman of the 
Democratic Policy Committee, Senator Byron Dorgan. When he is called 
upon, he is going to talk about a number of issues.
  The Senator from North Dakota has certainly been a leader on the 
issue of the Federal Reserve System, and there is no one who has been 
more articulate when talking about the need to do something about the 
Federal Reserve System and its secretive nature, and the fact that, as 
an example, they have a $3.5 billion slush fund that is there to be 
used for many other programs in the Federal Government.
  There is no need to have the Federal Reserve with this amount of 
money, this pot of money, this $3.5 billion that they simply have never 
used since its inception. This money can be used for education. It can 
be used for many of the other programs for which we are searching for 
money. I hope during today we will have a good discussion on issues 
that are affecting this country and that tomorrow we move forward on 
the social security earnings legislation.

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