Mark Neumann: “the facts for this year are that we may in fact have the $98 billion. It is close. It is some place between on the…”

“the facts for this year are that we may in fact have the $98 billion. It is close. It is some place between on the bottom end probably 79 or 80, and on the top end about 103 or 104 billion. The surplus is right in-between there. Right now we may in fact have all of the Social Security surplus. But the important thing to note is that if we have another year, not as good as this year, but nearly as good as this year, that we are not in a major recession, we are going to have surpluses in both of these accounts. I keep going back to that. For my Republican colleagues who are so anxious to cut taxes, we are so close to doing this thing the right way where we can actually put the Social Security money aside and have surpluses in the general fund. That is literally where we are right now today, if we have one more year that is just not as good as the last year, but close to as good. When that happens, we are now able to put this money away in Social Security like we should. When we look at the surpluses up here in the general fund, we can make that mortgage payment and start paying off the debt so our kids can inherent a debt-free Nation, and we can lower taxes. We can do both of these things simultaneously. One more thing. As we start making that payment on the Federal debt, part of the Federal debt is the money that has been taken out of Social Security over all of these years.”