James T. Callahan: “I love this House. Witness the ceremony yesterday afternoon where we honored former President Ford and Betty Ford and…”

“I love this House. Witness the ceremony yesterday afternoon where we honored former President Ford and Betty Ford and the comments that were made there about the respect this institution has had over past decades. But are we so naive or so stupid, Mr. Speaker, that we think the American people cannot see what we are doing here? Is there anybody in this body who thinks they are fooling the American people by saying we are going to destroy the Social Security Trust Fund? Of course we are not. The only thing we have to argue is history, and history says for 40 years until 1993 that the majority party during those years was spending much of the Social Security Trust Fund. And now we are here today with a balanced budget talking about whether we might dip into the Social Security Trust Fund by $10 or $15 billion, which we are not, but the American people are not that naive. The American people are truly appreciative of the fact that during the last 3 years we have balanced the budget.”