Kent Conrad: “the argument of my colleague from New Mexico that somehow we are going to be paying big premiums to foreign debtholders…”

“the argument of my colleague from New Mexico that somehow we are going to be paying big premiums to foreign debtholders has nothing to do with my provision here. My provision protects the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare against raids for other purposes. If you save the Social Security and Medicare trust funds in that way, there is no cash buildup problem until the year 2010--2010. If the issues the Senator from New Mexico addresses become a problem, we have a lot of time to deal with it. You can save every penny of these trust funds and not have any of the problems he talked about, at least until the year 2010. Many of us believe we will never have them. Mr. President, what is this amendment about? It is very simple: It says we are going to provide the same protection to the Medicare trust fund that we provide the Social Security trust fund. It says we are going to provide additional protection to the Social Security trust fund so that this Congress can't go back to the bad old days of raiding every trust fund in sight to pay for other purposes. That is what we used to do. We have stopped that practice. Let's make certain it doesn't start again. Let's protect the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare. It is the fiscally responsible thing to do. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable sections of the act and ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?…”