Ben Cardin: “the bill before us has one effect and one effect only, and that is to allow us to vote on the tax cut bill tomorrow. It…”

“the bill before us has one effect and one effect only, and that is to allow us to vote on the tax cut bill tomorrow. It does not protect Social Security, it sets up an accounting gimmick. We should be honest with the American people as to the purpose of this bill. There are no guaranteed projected surpluses, yet the tax bill we are going to be asked to vote on provides for permanent changes in our tax laws. There is no assurance that only 10 percent of the projected surplus will be used for a tax cut; it could be 20 percent, it could be 30 percent, it could be 100 percent. The projected Social Security surplus today, that is, payroll taxes and interest, is about $1.5 trillion. But if you ask our actuaries how much money we should have in it to provide for a 75 year solvency of the Social Security system, they will tell you that we need $3.3 trillion, or twice what we have today. So the assumption that we are flush with money just is not true. We do not have enough money to deal with Social Security in the long term, and yet we are asked to vote on a tax bill. We are going to have the first balanced budget in 30 years, and yet, as the President said, before we even have an opportunity to transfer from red ink to black ink on our accounting, there are those who want to start giving money away. Let us be fiscally responsible. The tax cut that we voted last year was fully paid for under the budget rules. We did not have to waive the budget rules.”