Zach Nunn: “I rise today to announce my support for the Reid amendment to the constitutional balanced budget amendment. This…”

“I rise today to announce my support for the Reid amendment to the constitutional balanced budget amendment. This amendment proposes to exempt explicitly Social Security from the constitutional balanced budget amendment. I support the Reid amendment for one fundamental reason. Its passage would promote truth in budgeting to the American people. For the past 10 years, the surplus from the Social Security trust fund has been used to mask the size of the annual Federal deficit. Instead of being saved or invested to pay for the retirement of the baby boom generation in the next century, the surplus is being borrowed and used to pay for general fund obligations. Its use in this fashion understates the annual deficit by $70 billion in fiscal year 1995, and this amount will keep increasing each year between now and 2002, at which point the general fund will have borrowed $1 trillion from the Social Security trust fund. Over the next 7 years, the general fund will borrow and spend over $630 billion from the Social Security trust fund. I oppose the use of these surpluses in this fashion. I believe we are setting a fiscal time bomb for the next generation.”