Orrin Hatch: “as a longtime proponent of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, I rise to speak concerning S. 2578. While we…”

“as a longtime proponent of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, I rise to speak concerning S. 2578. While we are told that this bill will increase the Nation's debt limit, what we really voted on today was whether to keep the statutory commitment that Congress has made to the Social Security trust fund. Social Security's current surplus is the main reason we need to raise the debt limit. Every single dollar of that surplus goes into the Social Security trust fund, and by law, every single dollar of the trust fund counts as part of the total Federal debt. Social Security is expected to run a $160 billion surplus this year, with an even higher surplus next year. Ironically, in order to place that surplus in the Social Security trust fund, the law requires us to increase the debt limit. Only in Washington, DC, can running a surplus increase your level of debt. Of course, the debt that is included in the Social Security trust fund is just money that the Treasury owes to itself. What really matters for the Government's budget and for the U.S. economy as a whole is the amount of debt held by the general public. Over the last few years, as a Republican Congress put the brakes on spending, debt held by the public actually fell, lowering the amount of money our Government had to spend on interest payments.”