Orrin Hatch: “I will end with this. The 1990 Budget Act basically stated in one section to take Social Security out of budget. It said…”

“I will end with this. The 1990 Budget Act basically stated in one section to take Social Security out of budget. It said in another section to leave it in. This is confusing. But both Congress and the President have construed the Budget Act of 1990 to allow Social Security to be included within the unitary budget. Second, Social Security is not a pay-go system under the 1990 act. I want to add that once you make that decision to take the largest item out of the budget, you have provided a loophole where people can impinge on Social Security and hurt senior citizens. Anybody who does not believe in those loopholes better look at these stacks. They are filled with loopholes like that. We are trying to stop those loopholes. I might also mention this, because I think it is pretty important. All constitutional scholars who testified before our committee, those for the balanced budget amendment and those against the balanced budget amendment, testified that exempting Social Security in the Constitution was constitutionally risky. It is a risky gimmick to do that. No one knows how that will hurt the seniors, but we know it will. It would subject Social Security and the Constitution to a gaming approach. They could game the process. They could game Social Security. They could game the Constitution. That would be a disaster for our country.”