The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H11129-H11134 on Oct. 28, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, tonight we are through with legislative business for the week. It has been a very energetic week for the House of Representatives. We have discussed and debated a lot of issues. As we see just a few minutes ago, the charade continues about the discussion and the debate about where this country is on Social Security. What I would like to do is for the next hour or so to take some time to explain to the American public what the truth is about Social Security, where we are, what this Congress is doing, because I believe that there is a more responsible answer that we should give to the American public. We should not scare the American public, but most of all that the truth should not be held hostage. We should not have to hear politician after politician come and to spout out what I think are their wishes for doom and gloom of this Social Security system when in fact a lot of focus has been placed upon it and the American public have written their Congressmen and Members of Congress have gotten engaged in this issue.
And so I would like to use this remaining time of this hour to talk directly with the American public, to provide them information not only about how Social Security is doing but the difference between the gross and the net, the gross being the top side that they hear about and the net being the bottom. I am joined, Mr. Speaker, tonight by several of my Republican colleagues who are going to engage in this debate with me. It has been a marvelous week here in Washington. We believe we are at the point now where we can look the American public right in the eye and tell them the truth about where we are in Washington, whether we are going to spend Social Security, that we are going to balance the budget and that we can make a deal because responsible people in Washington, D.C. can make responsible decisions.
Tonight, I would first like to call on the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a member of the Budget, Transportation and Intelligence committees. I would like to have the gentleman from New Hampshire join in with me in this debate.
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my friend and colleague. I, too, join him in expressing the fact that I am proud of this Congress for what we have done today and what we have done for the last 10 months of this year.
As a member of the Committee on the Budget, we began the year seriously wondering whether or not we were going to have the integrity and the fiscal discipline to put aside the money that we need to put aside to save Social Security. I recall early on in the year going through hearings which within the Committee on the Budget we debated how we would go about doing it, understanding that in the previous year we had committed 90 percent of our surplus to saving Social Security and the President had called for putting aside 100 percent of the surplus for Social Security. Then in his State of the Union address, he had said, well, let us put 60 percent of the surplus aside for Social Security and to this day he says that we should try to put as much as we can aside for Social Security. Make no mistake about it. The Committee on the Budget made a commitment along with the leadership to put 100 percent of the receipts from the Social Security taxes plus all the interest which is accruing to the Social Security system aside, and that is a number that is in excess of $120 billion. Indeed, that goes to paying down the debt.
Now, my good friend from California who spoke a minute or two ago paid tribute to the President's plan to devote, quote, the entire interest savings to Social Security and thereby extend its life. Let us just examine exactly what that means. The fact of the matter is that what the President has proposed is to set as much, maybe 60 percent, maybe 90 percent, whatever he does not spent on new spending programs aside for Social Security which will indeed pay down the public debt.
But then what he proposes to do is to take the interest that would have been paid had you not paid down the debt, call it imputed interest, and create a whole new series of IOUs to the Social Security system, thereby making it look like it will last 15 more years. But the reality of it is, it is a shell game, a first-class shell game.
What the Republicans are proposing to do is to exercise fiscal discipline and at the same time to set aside in a lockbox the Social Security surplus. Indeed, doing this will not prolong the life of Social Security one more day, that is true. There are other issues that we need to deal with with Social Security. But the one thing we have to understand in the beginning is that we are not going to take the hard-
earned money that is paid in payroll taxes by working Americans and use that money for other spending programs.
Now, we passed I think a really momentous appropriations bill today. It was a combination of the Labor, Education, Health and Human Services bill, the D.C. appropriations bill and a 1 percent across-the-board reduction in discretionary spending accounts. In my 5 years in Congress, this is the first time I have seen this occur. It is not an easy vote but let us examine the 1 percent cut for a second. One percent, one penny on every dollar. We hear the President talking about how he cannot cut this program and he cannot cut this program, there is not another dime. I understand the Interior Secretary the other day said, and I cannot quote because I do not have the quote in front of me, that there was not one single dime of waste in the Interior Department. I think other speakers after me will perhaps give him some suggestions about where money might be saved.
But what we are doing is what the American people asked us to do when they elected us, which is to trim government, to save Social Security, to cut taxes for working Americans, and to balance the budget. Before I entered Congress, the idea of balancing the budget was fodder for laughs at cocktail parties. In fact, the theory was being developed that deficit budgets were good for the United States economy. Of course those lines have now been long forgotten. Now that we face the first real honest cash surplus since I got my driver's license at the age of 16 in 1968, we have a President who wants to put a little bit away but he has a whole lot of new ideas for spending money and we have a Congress that is committed first to setting aside the money for Social Security, secondly paying down the debt, thirdly providing tax relief for working Americans, the people who are pulling the wagon in this country year after year. It is not going to be that difficult to do.
I urge the President and the minority to work for working Americans in this country and move this appropriation forward so that we can finish the business of appropriations, avoid a government shutdown and move on to next year.
I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for bringing up this very important subject tonight, because I really believe that it is critical that Americans understand exactly what our priorities are.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire. I am also joined tonight, Mr. Speaker, by one of the brightest members of the House of Representatives. He is a young man who is in my class, he is from South Dakota, his name is John Thune.
The gentleman from South Dakota and I recognize that what we are talking about is saving one penny, one penny, and it is very important. I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes with us and talk to us.
Mr. THUNE. That is exactly right. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding and also for the leadership that he has taken on this issue in helping us communicate with the American people with our colleagues here exactly what it is that we are trying to accomplish.
As I was listening to the debate today on the floor, I could not help but be struck with the thought that the other side must have a severe case of schizophrenia, because our friends on the other side of the aisle were saying on one hand that we are spending Social Security, which we are not, and at the same time they were saying that we were not spending enough. And so you had two different messages coming out in the course of the debate that we had today. The reason that we are not spending Social Security is because we made a conscious decision, a deliberate decision as a matter of principle that the people who work hard in this country and pay the FICA tax, the payroll tax, ought to have some assurance that those dollars are going to go into their retirement security. And so we made that conscious decision a very long time ago. And in order to be able to do that, to ensure that we were not raising Social Security as we have been doing, as the Congress has been doing for a good number of years, we had to come up with a way in which to make sure that all the important priorities of this Federal Government get funded. And so we decided that the best way to do that would be to accomplish the savings through a 1 percent across-the-board reduction, or a 1 percent across-the-board savings, if you will, by giving the agencies of the Federal Government a mandate and a mission to find 1 percent, 1 percent in waste, fraud and abuse within their respective agencies in order that we could keep our commitment to the seniors of this country, to the young people of this country who day in and day out roll up their sleeves, go to work, work very, very hard to pay the taxes, knowing that someday, hoping that they will be able then to collect that and to provide a secure retirement for themselves and for their family.
{time} 1845
I think that in listening again to the debate today, I think the other side is profoundly confused about what it is they want to do because again they were attacking us for saying, again which we are not, that we were going to dip into Social Security and yet at the same time lambasting a 1 percent across-the-board savings in all the Federal budget as gutting all these programs; that somehow this is going to take away from the families of this country, and the only conclusion I could draw from listening to that was that either they think we are spending too much or they think we are not spending enough. And I am not sure which it is, but I think their side was very confused in this debate today, and I think for our side, Mr. Speaker, the issue is very, very simple.
It is really a matter of whether or not we are going to ensure and insist upon the commitment that we made that Social Security taxes go into the Social Security Trust Fund and are used, are reserved, there for the retirement security of the American working public; and until that time happens, we continue to pay down the Federal debt, which is another priority that we have made for a long time.
Now just out of there is a chart here, and I am not a big one for using charts, but in the event that anyone out there is confused by what has been happening here in Washington the last few years, this illustrates very clearly the raid, if you will, on the Social Security Trust Fund, the amount of money that has been spent out of that fund over the course of the last 15 years or so. It totals almost $638 billion as a whole lot of money that has come out of the Social Security Trust Fund and has been used by the Federal Government to pay for the costs of other Federal programs.
We said categorically that has to stop. As a matter of principle, it is wrong for this country, this government, to collect money from people which they expect to go into a retirement fund that will be there when they retire and then have those dollars used to fund other areas of the Federal budget.
And I guess my big problem with the whole notion of the way that the Federal Government operates is there is a good amount of call it waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government, and I certainly believe, and I think the American people believe, I think anybody in my State of South Dakota would certainly concur, that anyone looking at the Federal budget closely could say, I think we can find 1 percent. I think on a dollar of Federal spending we can find one penny in savings. One penny is all we are saying to the Federal Government.
It is, tighten up a little bit. Let us just see if we can find one penny in savings out of the entire Federal budget, the discretionary side of it. If all we do, if we can just save one penny, it will allow us to honor our commitment to the seniors of this country and to again the people who work hard every day to pay the payroll tax, and we do not have to do this any more.
I think the best part and what I like about this graph the most is what happens in 1999 when it goes down to zero, and that is what we were able to do today with the votes that we took. We made a commitment. We have passed 13 separate appropriations bills. We have passed them in a way that does not violate our commitment to the American people, that enables us to honor that commitment to protect Social Security and still keeps the government running.
Now all you heard today from the other side again was it is going to cut this or this or this and the usual suspects that are always mentioned. But the reality is whether it is defense, whether it is education, whether it is law enforcement, we spend in this budget, what we passed today and what we have already sent down to the President, more on those priorities than what the President had proposed in the first place even after we trim one cent out of every dollar.
Now we all talked about this the other day. There certainly are ways that we can find a penny in savings, whether it is in the area of foreign travel that has been mentioned, some of the trips.
I mean, the President may have to reduce the number of people who travel with him, 1,700 to Africa, 800 on another trip; and it is only, as my colleagues know, a small percentage of savings really that we are talking about. And you look at some of the things that the Federal dollars have been spent for, the 26,000 people who are deceased who received $8.5 million in food stamps, according to the Committee on the Budget. Those who have collected SSI payments illegally, and there is a convicted murderer who received more than $75,000 in SSI disability payments during his 14 years on death row; and of course the one I like the best, Mr. Speaker, is the million dollars that we had to spend for the outhouse at Glacier National Park. The people who have to walk 6\1/
2\ miles, up 7,000 feet to use an outhouse that was bought and paid for by the Federal Government.
Surely when it comes down to our sense of priorities, we ought to say to the American people that a million dollars for an outhouse versus a million dollars into a Social Security Trust Fund that will protect and safeguard the retirement security of Americans, it ought to be an easy choice for us.
And I think what happened today, unfortunately for those on the other side, is we took away in many respects their ability to spend, and we have said as a matter of principle Social Security should be protected, it should be safeguarded; and that hurts deeply, Mr. Speaker, for those who over the past 15 years have found it to be the Social Security Trust Fund and the Social Security surplus to be their sort of spending balloon.
Well, today we popped that balloon, and the American people are going to be better served as a result of that, and we have gone a long ways toward protecting and safeguarding the Social Security retirement dollars that the people in this country worked very, very hard for, worked very, very hard to pay; and I am very happy to report to the people in my State of South Dakota and to all the American public, all the taxpayers out there, that this was an important historic day here in Washington because we popped the spending balloon, the Social Security Trust Fund that has been raided for the last 15 years and said categorically it has got to stop here.
That is a principle with which I think the American people will agree, and I am proud that we were able to come up with the votes today in order to do that, and I would say to my friend from Texas and my friend from New Hampshire who have been leaders in this effort in the effort to bring Federal spending under control, to eliminate wasteful spending, to make sure that the American taxpayers are getting the very best return on their investment, that I appreciate the leadership that you all have taken for the opportunity to participate with you this evening in this discussion and again to reiterate to the American people that we want to make absolutely certain that the dollars that you pay from Mr. FICA actually are going into the Social Security Trust Fund.
This was indeed a historic day here in Washington and a day which I think again that the American people will be very much benefited from.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back to my friend from Texas
(Mr. Sessions) and indicate to him again that I appreciate his strong leadership on this subject.
Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Members are reminded that they are to direct their remarks to the Chair and not to those who may be viewing the proceedings of the House.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the speaker for the comments from the gentleman from South Dakota, his enunciation of what a great day and a great week this has been in Washington, D.C., a day when we can look the American public right in the eye and we can say that not only do we have a balanced budget, but the straight face comes when we say: and we did not spend your Social Security, your retirement future, in order to take claim for this balanced budget.
And it is a proud day for me. I came to Congress in 1996. I ran on a pledge that I felt like we not only should, could, but must, balance the budget, and that if we did not balance the budget that I promised that I would not accept a paycheck if we did not balance the budget.
So we balanced the budget, we stick to what we said we would do, but now with a straight face we can say:
And, America, we are no longer taking from your retirement future.
What is interesting, as we approach this time, is that we have heard the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) talk about ideas which we have as Republicans about how the President, and this administration and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can view this as an opportunity and a challenge, a challenge not only for America, but we have taken on the challenge ourselves as Members of Congress.
We have stated that we will as management of the country, we will accept a 1 percent reduction this next year in our paychecks. We had a vote on it this evening. Most Members voted for it. Of course it passed. But this 1 percent reduction in our paychecks, that would go to something as important as not only securing America's future with saving Social Security, but by making sure we do it immediately and keep the trend that we just started for the first time of not spending Social Security dollars in 39 years.
So, it is a historic day, it is an opportunity; but I know that you have many things on your plate that you would like to talk about that are great opportunities, good ideas for this administration and the American public to hear from us about great ideas to find this 1 percent in savings that we are going to challenge the government to do.
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and he certainly is right. The concept that you cannot find one penny in every dollar in a fiscal year is ludicrous. I would suggest that every State in the Nation on occasion is forced to find far more than 1 cent on every dollar because, unlike the Federal Government, they have to balance their budgets every single year.
I would also point out that you will hear discussion amongst the minority and the majority about whether or not we, as Republicans with our plan, are using Social Security surpluses or not. You realize that this argument has gotten down now to the point where we are having a fight between OMB and CBO, whether their predictions are right, whether we use OMB numbers or CBO numbers.
Well, when you are talking about the difference between the President's proposal to put 60 percent of the surplus aside versus the Republican's successful effort at putting 100 percent of the Social Security surplus aside, I really do not think that the key issue is whether or not the numbers come from CBO or OMB, and I am not even going to tell you what they stand for, Mr. Speaker, because I do not really think it makes a big difference.
Let me also point out for those who say that a 1 percent cut will result in unacceptable reductions in spending in critical programs, let me point out that even after the 1 percent cut, across-the-board cut, the Republican plan spends $265.1 billion on defense versus the President's proposal for $263 billion. $265, $263; we spent more. On education we spend $34.8 billion versus the President's proposed $34.7. On education, Mr. Speaker, on education. After the 1 percent cut, the Republican appropriations spends $34.8 billion, the President's $34.7 on education. And on crime fighting the GOP spends $3.25 billion versus the President's $2.8 billion.
Now what about this 1 percent across-the-board cut that we cannot find a single dollar? Well, I have here a document put out by Citizens Against Government Waste entitled ``Prime Cuts 1999,'' and I would suggest that every Cabinet member and everybody in the administration take an opportunity to read this book because there are plenty of suggestions which total well in excess, well in excess, of 1 percent.
Some of the more interesting proposals that I have seen come across my desk in the last couple of days are, and let me give you a couple of examples. Perhaps we could eliminate a subsidy of $850,000 to a well-
known ice cream company in a State adjacent to mine which they received from the Federal Government to distribute their product in Russia, as if it is not cold enough in Russia for them to produce their own ice cream or that this particular company cannot find the resources to develop its own advertising campaign.
Or how about delays, administrative delays, in the disposing of more than 41,000 HUD properties that are costing taxpayers in this country a million dollars a day? Or how about a government audit that recently found that Federal agencies were simply unable to account for $800 billion, $800 billion in government assets? And I can go on and on, page after page, and I think that the American people find it pretty ludicrous to believe, Mr. Speaker, that no Federal agency can cut 1 percent from their budget.
So again, I think this is a reasonable proposal, and I am proud that this body has taken it upon itself to pass it and send it down to the White House.
Mr. SESSIONS. This one percent that the gentleman is talking about equals about $3.5 billion, and what we are talking about is $3.5 billion that it will take to where we ask the Government if they will find the 1 percent savings; once again, 1 cent out of a dollar. It would be in what we call discretionary funds. It would not come from Social Security, would not come from Medicare, would not come from Medicaid, but directly from the things that we know of, Mr. Speaker, government programs.
{time} 1900
This 1 percent that we are after, one penny, has a very auspicious background and history, because what we are talking about in Washington now is not hundreds of billions, which is our past history from when Republicans took control of this Congress, but rather now down to $3.5 billion.
What I would like to do is go through what is 30 years of Congressional overspending, 30 years worth of Democrat control, going back to when we first put a man on the Moon back in 1969. That is when it started.
This chart here represents deficits that the government has overspent. In other words, the money that was coming in was overspent. We spent more money than what the Treasury brought in. Back in 1994, when Ross Perot and other people who stood up and talked about it, whether they be Independents in this country or whether they be Republicans, they talked about that at some point this was going to become so large that we could never turn it around; that the critical mass would be so large, and we needed to place an emphasis on doing something about this, that is when I signed the Contract with America.
The Contract with America directly addressed what we were talking about. It said if Republicans were given an opportunity, we would quit what was ahead in our future of having $300 billion deficits, of spending 100 percent of every Social Security dollar, that we would stop that and within 7 years balance the budget, and the American public heard us and they believed us.
So we got elected, and we came into control of the House and the Senate at that time. And what has happened? Our track record is nothing less than marvelous. We have gone from $300 billion a year deficits, to now we have celebrated, as you see here on this chart, we have gone to surpluses. We went to surpluses because we cut taxes and we were able to say no to spending. We were able to have some fiscal responsibility, some restraint, the opportunity to make wise and prudent decisions on behalf of ourself and the American public.
Mr. BASS. If the gentleman will yield, would you be willing to point to the place at which on that chart the control of Congress changed from the minority to the majority, the Republicans? Where is it on that chart?
Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to show the gentleman. As a matter of fact, that is the deciding point that you will see that is right here. That is where the lowest point, the highest deficits took place, right here. Since that time the Congress, year after year after year, has had a debate, a discussion, that has been very lively, and I will tell you it has gotten hot and very heated here on this floor. And repeatedly people stood up and said we are trying to do things that we are being asked by people at home to do. We are trying to do things that pass the smell test, to where we can look at the American public and say we have something in mind. And what in mind we had was that we should not put further debt upon ourself or our children and their future generations.
This proves then we now have a surplus. What we had to do is get to the point where we could wean ourself away from Social Security. We have discussed it, the American people have discussed it, the President has discussed it.
What happened that we received information on about 2 weeks ago was that for the first time in 39 years we have found out that not one penny of Social Security went to fund the government. For the first time in 39 years.
So I would like to go from this chart of spending to this chart of the history of the Social Security raid. As you see here, back in 1983 it really began. We began on a yearly basis of taking 80, 90 billion dollars, and taking what was the surplus in Social Security, what was given because people had to give the government their money, with the understanding that government had some fiduciary responsibility to take care of this. In fact, what has happened is all this money has gone into what was called a Social Security trust fund.
Well, I would submit to you that this trust fund is smoke and mirrors, because in fact all of the money has been spent, it is all gone, and the American public knows this, $638 billion. So the 27 years worth of Social Security that I have paid in and the 27 years worth of Social Security that my wife has paid in, and gosh knows how many years that my parents worked, probably 50 years, they are now counting on a system that essentially is counting on us today to pay for their retirement, rather than putting the money in where it is supposed to be, allowing it to grow with interest, not spending it today, but doing what is prudent and wise, and that is waiting for a rainy day.
This is what we have ended. Now, after 39 years, Republicans have had the guts to stand up and say we are not only going to balance the budget, we are going to make sure that your future retirement is not spent in the process. That is exactly what we have done this week again.
Mr. BASS. If the gentleman will yield for a second, when I entered Congress in 1995 the administration submitted its first budget for the 104th Congress, and that budget had projected deficits for the 5-year period in excess, in excess, of $150 to $225 billion per year, not including, not including, the Social Security surplus.
So if you recall the table on the history of the Social Security fund and you notice how the purple goes up and up and up and suddenly drops down, had we not been able to cut a minimum of $300 billion out of projected spending over the last 4 years, that purple, that line would have skyrocketed, because, remember, the total amount of money since 1983 that has been spent on other programs and not gone into Social Security is about $638 billion.
Well, the surplus this year alone is in excess of $120 billion. So what we were really dealing with here was a problem where we were on the brink of a calamity in Social Security. It has stopped.
It is not going to be easy to fight this battle, but we are ahead at the present time because I think most Americans agree with the fact that we have made this commitment not to let this money get spent on other Federal programs.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman. I have a new board up here which really says exactly the good news that we have just received two weeks ago. What that says is that the Congressional Budget Office certifies that the Republican budget stopped the 39-year raid on Social Security and that the projected on budget surplus under Congressional scoring is
$1 billion.
Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do is say that everybody gets credit for this. We want the American public not to have their Social Security spent. And what has been the response back has been, oh, my gosh, it has almost been an accusation. ``The Republicans' key goal is not to spend the Social Security surplus. Those mean Republicans, they do not want to spend the Social Security surplus.''
Thank you, Mr. Podesta. You are right. You have got it. Give us credit. Give us credit for that which we are doing. And you have done that.
But, Mr. Speaker, there is more. And the more to that is this: It is what we must do now is to make wise and prudent decisions about how we are going to repeat this task that we have started. We want to repeat it so that we make sure that on a going-forward basis, that we understand on an up-front basis that we are not ever, ever, never, going to spend the Social Security surplus to fund this government. It is the retirement of millions of Americans who gave that money, gave the money to the government with the understanding that they would have a secure Social Security retirement system in place and available to them.
So here is what we are doing in Washington right now. We are trying to devise a budget and finalize that budget and have the President sign that budget with some very important components.
First of all, it will be a balanced budget. Second of all, it will mean that we want to lock away, not use, Social Security. After passing 13 bills, which we have done today, we recognize that we are now down to about $3.5 billion over what we would have wanted. But after these months of work it is hard to add up where it will all be. Now that we see what the final answer is, we realize we are $3.5 billion over. But a bill to spend Social Security we were advised two weeks ago by Majority Leader Dick Armey would not be allowed to be on the floor of the House of Representatives. So recognizing that, it was important for Republicans to put forth a plan that we made sure would deal correctly and fairly and honestly with the American public, and that is where we came up with what is known as the 1 percent savings solution.
What we are trying to do is we are trying to say that in the future, next year, we are going to ask out of every dollar that is given to this administration for discretionary funds, that out of every dollar that would be given to the administration, that we would like them to find a savings of one penny. This is exactly what Americans do at home. This is exactly what Americans do when they sit around their table and they talk about their budget every month.
To assume that government would be immune from the same type of problem that Americans run into, because it is all Americans together that could have this problem, to assume that we could not forthrightly come up with an answer, that we could not honestly look government right in the eye and say, ``What will you do to participate?'' I consider it a challenge.
If I worked in the administration, I would say, ``I think this is a great opportunity for us to look inward.'' If I were a government employee working for this administration, or a career employee, I wonder how many of them, how many times these employees have come up with great ideas about how to make their government programs or their job to work more effectively or more efficiently, and I wonder how many times they floated ideas up the chain of command that would say how can we save money? Where is a good idea? What can we do to help out?
Well, today this Republican Congress is challenging those millions of government workers, we are challenging the administrators, we are challenging the cabinet officers, and, yes, we are challenging this administration and our President. For, you see, we believe that saving Social Security and not spending one penny is the most important thing that we can do for our people this year.
So, we are challenging government. We are challenging its employees. We are challenging this administration. Please go look inwardly. Look at your own budgets. Look at what you are going to do starting with this new budget that starts in about 3 or 4 days. Go find those things where you can save one penny out of a dollar. Put those things in place, implement them, and then we will make sure that we are not stealing from the retirement for our future.
This is what this gets down to. This is what it is all about. And the gentleman from New Hampshire I am sure has lots of more ideas about how we can challenge this government to provide them information.
{time} 1915
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Texas for yielding to me.
I will conclude my observations about where we stand today by making an observation about the debate that occurred recently in my home State of New Hampshire between the two candidates running for the nomination for president on the Democratic side. They were both trying to outliberal each other.
It was interesting to me to see how, when Mr. Gore accused Mr. Bradley of having a health care plan that would use up the entire surplus, the entire surplus, he was also talking about it using up the entire social security surplus, too.
Vice President Gore expressed sadness that Mr. Bradley, Senator Bradley's health care proposal would not leave money for him to propose other new spending initiatives.
So Mr. Speaker, I think this debate that we are having this year is a healthy debate. The differences between the Republicans and the Democrats are clear, concise, and understandable.
I know that they are committed to their ideals, but when we came to power in Congress in 1995, we set, as our goals, goals that would not necessarily be satisfying every interest group at home, goals that would not be spending more money without any accountability. The goals that we established were the goals that may not get newspaper headlines, but what they were were the goals of achieving a balanced budget, which we have done; the goals of attempting to take the trust funds off-budget, which we have done with the Highway Trust Fund and we have done with social security, we hope, and at least from my perspective to do with the aviation trust fund; and we paid down in excess of $50 billion in debt in the last fiscal year.
I know that with the $120 billion plus that we are taking off-budget, we also will pay down that amount in public debt. We will, as Republicans, put this Federal Government on an even fiscal keel as we move into the 21st century. Although they are not traditionally the platforms that garner tremendous public support, we have the interests of this Nation in the 21st century at heart. I know and believe that the American people support what we have tried to do over the last 4 years, and will support us in years to come.
I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas, for having taken this time to discuss this issue which is so important not only to working families and to seniors, but for those that believe that this country should be as strong in the 21st century for my children and my children's children as it has been for my father and my mother and my grandparents.
I thank the gentleman for giving me the opportunity to participate in this dialogue.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire, who is a very proud part of the things that we are doing in Washington.
As I go to close here tonight, I want to summarize that this has been an invigorating week, 2 weeks that we have had in Washington, where we have learned officially that for the first time in 39 years, the budget of the
United States did not use social security by which to fund government operations, and that in fact it has been a good thing not only for taxpayers and people on social security, but it has reinvigorated us here in Washington to recognize that this should not be a battle between Republicans and Democrats, but what it has done is opened up a new door, a new opportunity, a new challenge for Members of Congress to recognize that if we work together, that not only can we continue to ensure that we do not spend social security, but that we do those things that are good for the fiscal soundness of our country.
I would like to end today with a challenge, not only to my Republican colleagues but also to my friends on the other side, to come join me in what we call the Results Caucus. It is a bipartisan group of Members who work together to make sure that we can find and weed out those areas of government spending, those areas of government spending that fall under waste, fraud, and abuse.
I would like to read to not only my colleagues on the Democrat side but also have the opportunity for those who are listening tonight to hear what the Results Caucus is. Here is my basic philosophy:
The Federal Government has many good intentions. Intent is not the issue, effectiveness is the issue. Washington spends billions of dollars every day trying to help in people's lives, but no one knows whether or not these programs actually work.
Americans work hard for their income. They pay a lot, in fact, too much, in taxes. I say it is immoral for the national government to spend one dollar, one tax dollar, on a program that does not work and does not help achieve its stated objective. If a program is not working, then it should be reformed or cut, with the savings returned directly to the taxpayer.
That is what the Results Caucus is all about. We are trying to work to find these savings. I think that this opportunity that we have had to speak tonight is not only invigorating to Republicans, but it is an opportunity, a fair way to give this administration and all Federal workers an understanding and a challenge that we need them to work carefully as a challenge to reduce, for every dollar that they will be given to spend, to reduce by 1 cent.
The Results Caucus has a wonderful saying. It is this, that every single dollar that this government needs it should get, but not a penny more.
I thank the Speaker for staying late this evening. I want to thank the Speaker and my colleagues who have been part of what we have done tonight.
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