[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16] [House] [Pages 23130-23131] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]WE SHOULD NOT SPEND SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS MONEY ON OTHER GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, we have significant challenges before this legislature, possibly more than any of the 7 years that I have served in Congress. That challenge is to hold the line on spending. The question before this body is should we spend the Social Security surplus money for other government programs. And, Mr. Speaker, everybody should understand that when Congress spends more money, most often they are more likely to be reelected. They take home pork barrel projects, they do more things for more people with taxpayers' money, and they end up on the front page of the paper or end up on television cutting the ribbons; and so part of the problem is that there is a lot of Members of Congress supported by a lot of bureaucrats that work within Federal Government, all of whom would very much like to spend more money and have a bigger government. The challenge facing us this year is a budget resolution decision not to spend the Social Security surplus funds coming in. We are now approaching the new fiscal year. Day after tomorrow the new fiscal year starts for the United States Government. In that budget we now anticipate $148 billion coming in surplus from the FICA tax, from the Social Security tax. We now estimate approximately $14 billion coming in surplus from the on-budget surplus or, if you will, from the income tax. In our budget resolution we said we were not going to spend the Social Security surplus. We passed what was called a lockbox bill on the floor that says that we are going to put all of the Social Security surplus into a lockbox and not use it for anything except Social Security. Now we have got a lot of individuals, including the President, suggesting that we should have more spending; but everybody needs to understand that more spending means that we use the Social Security surplus money. The President suggested that we take 66 percent of the Social Security surplus and set that aside and do not spend it, but that we go ahead and we spend one-third of the Social Security surplus. This side of the aisle, the Republicans, said, no, let us try to do a little better than that, let us put a hundred percent of the Social Security surplus, trust fund surplus, aside and make sure that we do not spend it for other government programs. I mean it is tough. We have not done this before. It would be history making if we are able to do this. Before the Republicans took the majority in 1995, for the 40 years before that the Democrats had the majority in this chamber for most every one of those years. Any time there was a surplus coming in from Social Security, it was spent for other government programs. I chair a bipartisan task force of the Committee on the Budget on Social Security. In those hearings we learned that the Social Security Administration may be very well underestimating life span, especially how long an individual is expected to live after they reach the age of 65. Futurist medical experts were guessing that within 25 years anybody that wanted to live to be a hundred years old could make that decision to do so, and they guess that maybe within 35 years anybody that wanted to live to be 120 years old, it was within a realistic realm of possibility that they could live that long, Mr. Speaker. See the huge consequences this will mean for any pension programs, for any government program, whether it is Social Security or Medicare or whether it is Medicaid with a huge cost, increasing cost, of nursing home care if [[Page 23131]] individuals are going to live that long, because what we are faced with is a declining number of workers paying their tax in that immediately is spent out in benefits. I mean Social Security has been a pay-as-you-go program ever since it started in 1935. In other words, current workers pay in their taxes to pay the benefits of current retirees. When we started in 1935 and up through the 1940s, we had about 41 people working, paying in their taxes, for every one retiree. Today there is three people working paying in their taxes for every one retiree. By 2030 we are expecting that there is only going to be two people working. That means that those two people have to earn enough to provide for their families plus one retiree. Huge challenges. Let us be careful. Let us rededicate ourselves not to spend the Social Security surplus. It is a good start. ____________________