[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 434]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  MASKING THE TRUE SIZE OF THE DEFICIT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I take just a minute this morning to talk 
about something that I think is very important. We had a debate not 
long ago; there was a movement to have a constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget. I can remember when I raised the first objection to 
that during the time Senator Mitchell was majority leader, indicating 
in my amendment that if we were going to have a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget, then we should not count Social 
Security surpluses. We were able to prevail in defeating that 
mischievous amendment which would have locked into the Constitution 
this, in my opinion--it is my word--``phoney'' way to balance the 
budget, using these huge Social Security surpluses for people to say we 
had a balanced budget when we really did not.
  For many, many years the Social Security surpluses were used to mask 
the deficit. During the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, we 
decided to no longer do that, that we would have an honest budget 
process whereby you would not count the Social Security surpluses. We 
were able to have a balanced budget not using that method of 
accounting. In fact, we were able to pay down this huge debt that 
accumulated to some more than $5 trillion. So I have some 
disappointment that the budget sent to us by President Bush now goes 
back to using that same method of accounting, using the Social Security 
surpluses to mask the deficit.
  One of the reasons for the deficit is the war. I know that. But it is 
not the only reason. There are other reasons, and they are economic in 
nature, for why we have this unbalanced budget.
  There will be time spent this week on examining the President's 
budget just released today. I am very concerned, as I have mentioned, 
that we are now witnessing a counting of the Social Security trust fund 
to hide what we are doing here. But it does not really hide it. We all 
agreed the last few years that the surpluses which we had in the Social 
Security trust fund would not count against the yearly deficit. It is a 
surplus that is being run to provide for the retirement of the baby 
boomers. It was done on purpose. In 1982 there was agreement, and it 
was bipartisan in nature. President Reagan, Tip O'Neil, and the 
leadership of which the Presiding Officer was a part in the Senate got 
together and decided we needed to do something about Social Security, 
and one of the things we did by a bipartisan vote was to make sure that 
during the years we did not need that much money--we would have a 
surplus, we would have more money coming in than we would spend--we 
would use that for the baby boomers, and that was the way it should 
have been.
  The money from Social Security trust fund was not to be used for 
other programs. While it has been used in the past to mask the true 
size of the deficit, we ended that practice in the years of President 
Clinton. It is regrettable, Mr. President--and everyone should 
understand--that the Bush administration is now returning to the 
practice of hiding the true size of the deficit by counting Social 
Security as part of the inflated budget. I hope that we can all use 
caution before heading down the road toward raiding the Social Security 
trust fund to finance the rest of the government. If we are going to do 
so, let's do it honestly. Let's make sure we understand Social Security 
is masking the true deficit that we have every year.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, is 
recognized.

                          ____________________