Richard Gephardt: “this resolution is the equivalent of saying that we are going to quit smoking while we are lighting a cigarette, or…”

“this resolution is the equivalent of saying that we are going to quit smoking while we are lighting a cigarette, or saying we are going to quit drinking alcoholic beverages while we pour out a beer, or any other equivalent that you want to talk about. We do not need a nonbinding resolution to tell us that we do not want to spend Social Security money. We just need to do it. It is like the Nike ad, ``just do it.'' We do not need to say what we are going to do; we need to do the right thing, not say the right thing. As the ranking member on the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has pointed out, we already this year, unfortunately, are spending Social Security money. There is only one way not to spend it, and that is to have a budget that does not invade the Social Security money and uses that money to pay back down debt so we are prepared for the baby boom when they come, which is what the President has been repeatedly asking us to do. We do not have a budget on this floor today, and we are going to later today take up a continuing resolution because the majority in the House does not confront reality. The reality is, the budget that we are operating under spends Social Security money and does things that many in the majority and many on our side say we do not want to do.”