Doris Matsui: “Mr. Speaker, this month we are going to have Girl Scout cookie week because you may have read in The Washington Post…”

“Mr. Speaker, this month we are going to have Girl Scout cookie week because you may have read in The Washington Post that Girl Scouts will be selling cookies all over the United States, particularly in Washington. For some reason Washingtonians like cookies. This proposal, the lockbox proposal, has about as much weight to save Social Security as if we would have declared this month the month in which we would honor Girl Scouts for selling cookies. It has no relevance at all. If you want to reduce the debt, just do not spend the money. In fact, even if you try to spend the money, one way to overcome it is if in fact you just waive points of order. The real issue, and an issue that my Republican colleagues unfortunately refuse to face is the $1.6 trillion tax cut that will probably be coming up in the next month or so. That is the real rub. That is what will endanger Social Security and Medicare in the long run. The fact of the matter is the President is now talking about retroactively applying it. That will make the $1.6 trillion debt $2 trillion. Plus the loss of interest, we are probably talking about $2.5 trillion that will be reducing taxes over the next decade. The surplus will not sustain that.”