Mike Levin: “I favored those provisions, but within a circle of fiscal responsibility, and the gentleman is being fiscally…”

“I favored those provisions, but within a circle of fiscal responsibility, and the gentleman is being fiscally irresponsible. The figures the gentleman read are figures that show how much the surplus is outside of Social Security taxes. Read that to the public for year 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. When we exclude Social Security, we are in deficit every year with a projected surplus of $4.2 billion only in year 11, and those figures are always off. My colleagues are playing loosely with Social Security monies. So whatever the merits of a bill might be, do not just throw Social Security to the winds like my colleagues are doing it. Why are they doing it now in terms of 2011? My colleagues think it is good politics. It is lousy policy and poor politics. It is more of the budget follies. Now my colleagues come out here and they say, oh, but they are now telling us at CBO that it is really going to be good in the future. That is what my colleagues said last year. Last year they said, $5.6 trillion in the bank. We can count on it. And they spent it all. And they are now in the hole. I do not know, it is as though they have an addiction. They cannot stop spending. Yet if they are going to spend, why do they not spend to fix up the schools of this country?”