Bill Archer: “Mr. Speaker, I must say that as I stand here in the well of this House of the people that I sense a string of large red…”

“Mr. Speaker, I must say that as I stand here in the well of this House of the people that I sense a string of large red herrings being drawn across the well. There is no connection between what we are doing here and Social Security or Medicare. Any reasonable person knows that the surpluses ahead are more than enough to take care of Social Security and Medicare and leave an awful lot left over. The only thing that I can think is that the Democrats who want to draw this connection really want to spend the money. They are following the leadership of their President when he said last year, we have a surplus; what should we do with it? We could give some of it back to you, the taxpayers who sent it here; but who would know if you would spend it right? They genuinely believe they know how to spend money better than the taxpayers do by keeping more of their money and spending it on their own problems. Only that could generate a concern as to whether this might impact on Social Security or on Medicare. So let us dismiss that. That is one of the large red herrings.”