Trent Lott: “I look forward to the debate the Senator from Minnesota was discussing. I agree; just because we should and will have a…”

“I look forward to the debate the Senator from Minnesota was discussing. I agree; just because we should and will have a civil debate doesn't mean we should not have that debate and lay out our differences of opinion very aggressively and passionately. I look forward to doing that. The good news today, while there is a lot of gloom and doom in certain corners, is that tax relief is on the way for working Americans. They deserve it. We have a tax surplus, $5.6 trillion in overpayment by the American people. Now, we will argue over exactly how that $5.6 trillion tax surplus should be used. We agree that Social Security should be set aside, put in a lockbox. If you listened to the campaign debate last year, you would have thought Vice President Gore came up with that idea. He needs to check with Senator Domenici and others who actually came up with the idea of having a lockbox on Social Security. We should continue to pay down the debt in an orderly way, as was suggested by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, over a period of years, and we can eliminate it earlier than was indicated. We ought to do that on a steady basis. We can have additional investment in areas where we really need it--in education, in health care, even in defense.”