Joe Biden: “Mr. President, is it not true--and I am not being solicitous. No one knows more about the budget process on this floor…”

“Mr. President, is it not true--and I am not being solicitous. No one knows more about the budget process on this floor than the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, and no one has more credentials for making the tough decisions about what we should do to cut the budget than the Senator from South Carolina. He has always put his vote where his mouth is on this issue which, I might say, very few Members of either party have done in the past. The Senator just pointed out that we are talking about the difference between, for this next year, $600-some billion--not this year--$600-some billion, between now and the time it comes time to balance the budget, additional, we have to find, if the Reid amendment passes. Is it not true that in addition to that, what is likely to happen is that our friends, who are going to find increasing pressure to balance the budget and who have never been great friends of the trust fund to begin with, are going to, in the next year or 2 or 3, as we move toward the year 2003, since most young people the age of your children and mine believe they are not going to get Social Security, anyway, is it not likely that we will see a movement that we will cut Social Security benefits; that we will either raise the retirement age or cut benefits, further increasing the surplus that Social Security will generate between now and the year 2014, and further making the deficit look smaller, so that it is easier to meet the balanced budg…”