Kent Conrad: “I want to respond briefly to my colleague from Iowa who said a series of things that are just not so. He said this…”

“I want to respond briefly to my colleague from Iowa who said a series of things that are just not so. He said this amendment is bad medicine for seniors. Come on. This amendment protects the Social Security trust fund, and it protects the Medicare trust fund. It prevents them from being looted and raided for other purposes. That helps seniors. He says it suggests there is a trust fund surplus in Medicare. It doesn't just suggest it; there is one. This is from the Congressional Budget Office. It says very clearly there is $400 billion in surpluses. The President's budget says $500 billion in the Medicare trust fund. The Senator from Iowa says you can't have a tax cut with this amendment. Nonsense. You can have a tax cut with this amendment. This only says don't raid Social Security, don't raid Medicare. The only way it endangers a tax cut is if their intention is to raid Social Security and Medicare to pay for one. Now, finally, Senator Grassley has the plan I have talked about being all mixed up. He has taken the $2.9 trillion dedicated for reduction of the publicly held debt and he added that to the $900 billion that is reserved for strengthening Social Security for the long term and says all of that money is designed to deal with short-term debt. Wrong. That is just wrong. The $2.9 trillion is to eliminate our short-term debt. The $900 billion is to deal with long-term debt. Unfortunately, they have not set aside any money to deal with long-term debt.…”