Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. But you would be able to use the funds held in trust, for example, T-bills, to balance the budget according to the budgetary professionals on your side.

Mr. FORD. How did the Senator take that?

Mr. FORD. Knowing the Senator from Wyoming, he will not have to take his money with him. He can write a check where he is going. I am very concerned that we talk about IOU's and they are really the bills. We talk about raiding and, no, we are not raiding. You cannot do that. But the Members of this body will implement an amendment to the Constitution. As the senior Senator from Oklahoma said yesterday, he objected to voting on the amendment to put up the firewall for Social Security because it was taxes collected and taxes expended. He wanted it in the balanced budget amendment. I thank the Chair and my friend from Wyoming. I am going to leave the Senator. I am hungry.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I asked a question, and I was chastised for not asking the question. What I want to know is, is there any way to prevent a majority vote from using the Social Security trust funds as a part of reducing the deficit for balancing the budget?

Mr. FORD. Is there anything to prevent a majority from voting to include Social Security trust funds in the operation of the budget of the United States?

Mr. FORD. Well, once an amendment to the Constitution has been ratified by the States, is it not the responsibility, then, of this body and the House to implement, by law, that amendment?

Mr. FORD. I believe the Senator would agree that once a constitutional amendment is passed--and it will not take years to pass the balanced budget amendment--once a balanced budget amendment is passed and it amends the Constitution, then it is this body's responsibility to draft the legislation implementing that amendment, is that not correct?

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a little colloquy?

Mr. FORD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, we will say that everything my friend has said is accurate. I do not question his sincerity or his statements. We will take it from that point on. Under statutory provisions, we cannot use Social Security funds as it relates to deficits, budgets--it is off budget. That is 13301. I am sure you are familiar with that. Now, in the balanced budget amendment, we are allowing, based on the statement of the senior Senator from Oklahoma yesterday, that this is a tax and an expenditure and, therefore, it ought to be part of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. What is the underlying fear, as I listen to the Senator from Wyoming, and the underlying fear, I say to my friend, of this Senator is that if we allow the money to be used to reduce the deficit, and when we have the leadership on your side--not necessarily the majority leader but other leaders in the budgetary category--tell us how much of the Social Security trust funds will be used if the amendment to the Constitution is passed to balance the budget, then we accelerate your fear here of the reduction of the surplus in the Social Security. If the Social Security continues on its merry way, as you have so aptly described, going downhill, will we not accelerate that if we use, as we were told in handwriting that we are going to use, $147 billion from the trust fund, at least the last 2 years, would that not make it depleted at a much earlier date?

Mr. FORD. This is not spirited.

Mr. FORD. I doubt it.

Mr. FORD. We do not.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, by ``IOU's'' you are talking about T-bills that are paid to constituents like you and me. We might be down to the E bonds or the smaller ones but the T-bills are the IOU's in there, and we have by law sold them or loaned that money to the Federal Government in return for T-bills plus interest to be paid at a definite period of time and the trustees are required to have that flow of money. Am I correct in that?

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. You have my record there. Tell the public.

Mr. FORD. I guess it is all right.

Mr. FORD. Just a little while ago, the junior Senator from Oklahoma quoted from a floor statement I made on March 1, 1994. He represented, by holding up two copies of the legislation--you do not understand that or see that in black and white, but you watch it on television--that I was speaking in favor of an identical version of the balanced budget amendment which was defeated yesterday. Mr. President, I want to give you and the Chamber a page number. I see the staff. They can go back and go through it. It was page S2058 of the March 1, 1994, Congressional Record. I wish the Senator from Oklahoma would have actually read my full statement. He would have found out that I was not speaking about the underlying constitutional amendment from which he quoted me, but rather about something called the Reid-Ford-Feinstein amendment. Guess what that amendment did? It created a firewall so that the Social Security trust fund could not be counted to balance the budget. That was my position. It was the Reid-Ford-Feinstein amendment. The junior Senator has misrepresented my record by quoting from that statement in support of an amendment in the form of a substitute and acting as if I was speaking about a constitutional amendment which does not protect Social Security. On March 7, 1994----

Mr. FORD. You certainly have, and I will explain it. Mr. President, I do not yield the floor.

Mr. FORD. Senator, I did not come over here and bother you. I will be glad----

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am glad the junior Senator from Oklahoma is on the floor. I regret, once again, the junior Senator from Oklahoma has resorted to a personal attack and distortion of my record on the balanced budget amendment.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, this is what has been going on in this Senate Chamber for some time now. You attempt to put in certain things to substantiate your position, but you do not tell it all. You put in a piece of legislation that was printed, but you never put in the piece of legislation as it was amended. When I was brought up, Dad told me that ``the devil was in the fine print.'' So let us get to the fine print. You just cannot continue to condemn people around here because they do not agree with you. I wish you would read Warren Rudman's book on why he left the U.S. Senate. He said he could sit down with Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden--and he named a list of Senators. He would say, ``Let us compromise and work this thing out.'' He said, ``I never did question their morality or their patriotism. But we could sit down and work things out.'' We no longer do that in the Senate, so Warren Rudman is no longer a major voice in the consideration of legislation in the Senate. So you have driven from this body one of the sharpest, one of the most dedicated individuals, I think, that has served here. Now, I will go back to where I was interrupted. On March 7, 1994, the distinguished majority whip made a similar mistake, quoting me out of context. I will say one thing for him. He later came to the floor and apologized. But here we go again, misquoting my record. Mr. President, we have made some tough votes around here, which actually were about deficit reduction, not just talk, not just an issue. We had a deficit reduction package in 1990. We had one in 1993. Yes, Senator, I voted for both of them, and you voted against both of them. They were not perfect packages, that is true. If they were perfect, we would not be here. Those of us who voted for them took a lot of political heat--a lot of political heat. But, guess what? The deficit is coming down for the fourth consecutive year. The deficit is being reduced. One pledge that was made in 1992 was that the deficit would be reduced by half. It is better than half. There was not a vote from the Republican side for that package. I note that the junior Senator from Oklahoma is as tough as his rhetoric is about balancing the budget. He voted against both deficit reduction packages. Let me talk about one other item included in the 1990 deficit reduction package. It is section 13301. I am sure the Senator is familiar with that, because Senator Hollings, if you have been listening to the debate on the floor, described it in such detail during our debate on the balanced budget amendment. It says, you cannot count Social Security trust funds when balancing the budget. You cannot do that. That is the reason you are $108 billion short. You have not presented a balanced budget. If you balance the budget, why is it $108 billion short? It is in the Record. CBO is what Speaker Gingrich said we had to go by, and the President agreed. CBO says you are $108 billion short. There is no balancing the budget. You can beat your chest all you want to, but there is no balancing the budget. It is more than $100 billion short in the year 2002. All you have to do is read the bill, because you cannot count Social Security under current law. But the balanced budget amendment--the senior Senator from Oklahoma, yesterday, objected to the Senator from Oregon asking unanimous consent to offer that amendment for the firewall on Social Security. The senior Senator from Oklahoma said it is taxes and expenditures, and it ought to be in the budget. Now, look that one up. So here we are offering to protect Social Security with a firewall, which is now law, and we get an objection from the senior Senator from Oklahoma, who said, ``It is a tax and expenditure, and it ought to be in the budget, so, therefore, I object.'' They would not let us bring that amendment up to even vote on it. They would not even let us bring it up to even vote on it. If you want to pass a balanced budget amendment, put a firewall in, protect Social Security, and get 70-some votes in this Chamber. But, no, you want to use it. We have it in handwriting. The leadership on the Republican side said how many hundreds of billions of dollars they will take from Social Security. Now they are talking about a little gimmick that after 2002 we will take 4 years and pay it back. If you want to balance the budget, let us balance the budget. So the Senator from Oregon was refused. You know, in this statement I made from which I was quoted yesterday, it starts out: ``Mr. President, I have but a few minutes to speak this morning on behalf of the Reid-Ford-Feinstein balanced budget amendment. So I will concentrate my remarks on the Social Security trust.'' That is where you quoted me. That is where, excuse me, where the Senator from Oklahoma--I want to be careful of my language here; we are not supposed to use ``you,'' but ``the Senator from Oklahoma''--that is where you quoted me from. It was a debate on the Ford-Reid-Feinstein balanced budget amendment to put firewall in for Social Security. So it is just be beyond me. I want to say that I hear so much about, ``If 40-some-odd Governors can operate a balanced budget, why can't the Federal Government?'' We do not have a capital account. Most Governors have capital accounts, if you understand how Governors operate. The Governors have an operating account. So it is all different. Governors do not print money like the Federal Government. So they have to balance the budget. But they find ways around it. ``I think the implementation of this amendment will work.'' That is a quote from me in that statement. ``I think we can make it work.'' That is a quote from me in that statement. It is on page 2058 of March 1, 1994. ``If we want an issue, fine.'' That is in that statement. ``Stay with Senator Simon and Senator Hatch. Stay with them, and then we will have an issue when we go home with no balanced budget amendment.'' I said that in that part of the statement from which I was quoted yesterday. Also, I might say in there I said, ``I am just as worried about my grandchildren as anyone, and I think I have a pretty good idea about grandchildren.'' That is in that statement. You did not read that. People did not read that out of my statement. You know, you could just lift these things out, hold up your hand, beat your chest, and wave the flag. But when you get down to it, what do you have? An issue and no amendment. Take the money out of Social Security. We have heard a lot about a contract around here in the last 18 months. There is a contract for the seniors of this country, and that is Social Security. And they paint a broad brush with Medicare. Medicare has two parts: part A and part B. Part B has a surplus. We have been trying to correct part A now for 2 years. But they will not listen; $124 billion was the first cut from the budget that was given to us. So now we hear the objection of the senior Senator from Oklahoma yesterday to the distinguished Senator from Oregon [Mr. Wyden] to offer a substitute amendment that would put a firewall in to protect Social Security. There are other different ideas about Social Security and about Medicare. But no country in the world, in my judgment, takes care of its citizens better. We are a capitalist country. What happens when the capitalists no longer need us? They fire us. And when they fire us, somebody has to try to pick up the pieces. Because we have been a strong democracy, government has picked up the pieces. We have retrained personnel. We have helped them with health care. We have tried to feed them and clothe them until they could get back on their feet. But that is the story of democracy and government, and government has a part. So, Mr. President, I hope that in the times ahead when we start quoting Senators that we quote them in context instead of out of context, and that we remember that there is a section 13301, the off- budget status of Social Security, the exclusion of Social Security from all budgets: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal old age and survivors insurance fund, and the federal disability insurance trust fund, shall not be counted-- shall not be counted--as new budget authority outlays, receipts, or deficits or surplus for the purpose of the budget of the U.S. Government as submitted by the President, the congressional budget, or the Balanced Budget Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. That is the law. If you put the amendment on and pass it, then the law falls, and the amendment to the Constitution includes Social Security. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from North Dakota briefly.

Mr. FORD. I am not going to yield for anything, Mr. President. I am not going to yield.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. How much time do I have?

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I yield myself 7 minutes.