Byron Dorgan: “In 1993, we had a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the Senate. I raised the same question there that I raised…”

“In 1993, we had a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the Senate. I raised the same question there that I raised 10 years previously, in 1983, in the Ways and Means Committee, about using the Social Security trust fund. If you will go back and read the dialog, you will read that the Senator from Illinois and others with whom we had a substantial discussion about this, said, ``No, no, we do not intend after we pass this amendment to use Social Security trust funds to show a balanced budget. In fact, we intend to do something statutorily to prevent that.'' Two years later, instead of a promise by the promoters of the constitutional amendment that they would not use the Social Security trust fund, there was a guarantee by a vote of the Senate that they would use the Social Security trust fund. So you ask, is it the same vote? No. One was a promise they would not use them, and the second was a guarantee by a vote of the Senate that they would. No, it is not the same vote, not the same circumstances. The difference might seem small to some, but when you come from a town of 300 people, $700 billion is a mountain of money.”