Todd Tiahrt: “Mr. Chairman, we heard some more about spending all the Social Security surplus. I think it is probably prudent that we…”

“Mr. Chairman, we heard some more about spending all the Social Security surplus. I think it is probably prudent that we find out exactly why we are in the situation we are today. We have a problem with the Democrat leadership in that there has been no budget offered, only criticism. Now there is a body that presides on the north side of the Capitol and one on the south side of the Capitol. The body on the north side of the Capitol is also what some people would call AWOL, absent without leadership. This rule that we have here is a situation where we have added to the bill section 1403 that provides statutory assurance that the United States Government will take all steps necessary to guarantee the full faith and credit of the Federal Government. This has been interpreted by the Members on the other side of the aisle that we are going to borrow $750 billion from the Social Security trust fund. Now, there is nothing in the legislation that says $750 billion. It is an assumption made from a statement, just like a rumor on a rumor on a rumor. What the rule does do is it creates a mechanism to allow the conference committee to act on the statutory debt. We have been repaying the publicly held debt over the last 4 years. In fact, we have paid off nearly $.5 trillion of the nearly $4 trillion of this debt we have inherited from the Democrats who controlled Congress for the previous 40 years prior to 1995.”