Kent Conrad: “my amendment is designed to protect the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. It has been called the…”

“my amendment is designed to protect the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. It has been called the Medicare-Social Security lockbox. That is a good description. It is designed to try to prevent these trust funds from being used for other purposes, from being used as we saw in the past for spending on other programs. A quick description of what my amendment provides is the following: First, it protects Social Security surpluses in each and every year; Second, it takes the Medicare Part A trust fund off budget just as we have taken the Social Security trust fund off budget, again to try to protect it from being raided and used for other purposes; Third, it gives Medicare the same protections as Social Security; Fourth, it provides strong enforcement legislation and strong enforcement provisions to make certain that protections hold. The alternative--the legislation that will be offered by my colleague, the Senator from New Mexico, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee--does not take Medicare off budget. It contains huge trapdoors for anything labeled ``Social Security and Medicare reform.'' In other words, they have a lockbox that leaks. They have a lockbox where the door is wide open. The money can be used for other purposes as long as they call it Social Security or Medicare reform. There is absolutely no definition of what constitutes Social Security or Medicare reform.…”