Kendrick Meek: “this tax cut sounds so very attractive, but it is really not as attractive as it seems in that what it is doing is…”

“this tax cut sounds so very attractive, but it is really not as attractive as it seems in that what it is doing is taking from Peter to pay Paul. And what I am concerned about, Paul is made up of seniors and people who will be seniors, those people who are young now will soon be old. They have been paying into this system. It is unfair to take some of their money and leave the rest of it for a tax break. Despite the fact that what you want to do is good, but you just do not have the way to do it, so you are taking it out of Social Security trust fund. Now, this bill sets aside 90 percent of the total Federal budget surplus for Social Security and permits the remaining 10 percent to be used for a tax cut. But I want to look at how this formula would work if it were the law today. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the total Federal budget surplus is $43 billion. Under the Republican formula, only 90 percent or 39 billion would be saved for Social Security and the remaining 4 billion would pay for a tax cut. But this year Social Security is running a surplus of 167 billion. And the rest of the Federal Government is running on a deficit of 124 billion. So under this bill, I want Members to listen to me, we would be taking 4 billion of this year's Social Security surplus and using it for a tax cut. Just take that as an example to show my colleagues that we are using the wrong pot of money.”