Kent Conrad: “My own belief is that would have been a much better strategy for the country than to run up the credit card. Obviously…”

“My own belief is that would have been a much better strategy for the country than to run up the credit card. Obviously, once this hole has been dug so deep, any budget one writes for a time will use Social Security money. There is no other way to write one anymore. This hole has been dug so deep, the Senator is correct when he says budgets I offered last year would have used Social Security funds for a time. Absolutely. There is no way to write a budget anymore that does not. The trick is to get on a glidepath to stop it. We did that successfully in the late 1990s. I was very proud to have been part of the 1993 effort and the 1997 effort. Those two budget plans put us on a course to stop using Social Security money for other purposes, and for 2 years we stopped what I considered to be a raid on Social Security. We stopped it. The President pledged to continue that policy, not to use Social Security revenues for other purposes. Why did he make that pledge if he didn't think it was important? Why did he make that pledge if he didn't think it was important? He thought it was important. I think the vast majority of Members in this body pledged to protect Social Security funds. But it is not being done.”