Ed Whitfield: “If I may make an additional comment. You are exactly correct. We are being challenged, also, of trying to raid the…”

“If I may make an additional comment. You are exactly correct. We are being challenged, also, of trying to raid the Social Security trust fund to pay for this. I would point out that between 1936 when Social Security started and 1995, a period that was controlled by Democrats except for about 4 years, they spent over $800 billion from the Social Security trust fund; and no one raised questions about it, no one objected about it; and not until 1994 when the leadership of this House changed were we able to start reversing that. One other comment that I would make is that the U.S. Senate, I am sure of what they are going to do is they are going to put out a prescription drug plan that may be in the trillions of dollars, who knows what it will be, which is very easy for them because they did not pass a budget on their side of the aisle. And so they are not bound by any constraints whatsoever. So for them to criticize us about spending too much money and bankrupting Social Security, which is a false allegation, they do not even have a budget. And so they are going to send a plan over here that we know will be so expensive that we will not be able to adopt it. But this is a great starting point. You have provided great leadership on this issue since you have been in Congress. I want to commend you for that.”