Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, the concern my friend from Massachusetts expresses, and what he has pointed out as something disturbing to him, certainly is not the intent of this author, especially with regard to motor voter. There may be some things that would have to be done here, because I believe in motor voter we had a criminal penalty when we passed that legislation. So I will just leave it in good faith, as we have done for 17 years, with the Senator from Massachusetts to work that out.

Mr. SIMPSON. And be certain the things that cause him concern are not anything that I am intending to do in this amendment. We can work that out.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this is in essence Simpson No. 1 which we discussed the other day when we began our debate on this issue. There is a minor change, of course, to accomplish one thing so that we can address it here since it is the original underlying anchor on the procedural aspects of where we are at this moment. So the purpose of the amendment--again, it is a bit repetitive from our discussion when we proceeded with this legislation originally--this is an issue brought to us by Senator Feinstein. I want to say at this moment that I have received a tremendous amount of support and assistance from Senator Feinstein. She, of course, represents a State that is most powerfully affected by everything that is happening today and everything that is happening tomorrow with regard to illegal immigration and legal immigration. So I say that I am deeply appreciative of her and her staff who have worked with my staff on many issues. These children who are involved here are described as parachute kids. And that is a concern. This amendment is intended to prevent foreign students coming to the United States to obtain a free taxpayer-financed education at a public elementary, secondary school. This is a growing problem of children who come to the United States, stay with friends or relatives, or even strangers, to whom they pay a fee, and attending public schools then as residents of the school district. This amendment prohibits consular officers from issuing visas for attendance at such public schools or the INS from approving such cases unless the foreign student can demonstrate that he or she would reimburse the public elementary or secondary school for the full unsubsidized per capita cost of providing such education or unless the school waives reimbursement. The amendment also provides for the exclusion and deportation of students who are admitted to attend private elementary or secondary schools but who do not remain enrolled then at the private school for the duration of their elementary or secondary study in the United States. The purpose here is designed to prevent students from obtaining admission to a private school, which they often do, and then switching to a taxpayer-funded public school soon after arrival in the United States. The amendment would not prevent these children who are validly in the United States as dependents of persons lawfully residing here from applying for admission to public schools nor would it prevent public schools hosting foreign exchange students. We do not want to intrude on that wonderful program, those who would continue to be admitted as exchange visitors on J visas. The amendment is, however, designed to deal specifically with the problem of the parachute kids which has received some attention and certainly in California and in other locations, those who come here to receive a U.S. education at taxpayer expense. That is the conclusion of my remarks with regard to the amendment. I look forward to further debate. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, this amendment, which was the original Simpson amendment No. 3, creates a new ground of exclusion and of deportation for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Mr. President, this amendment would add a new section to the bill. This is repetitive of remarks when we began the legislation, but this section would create a new ground of exclusion and of deportation for falsely representing oneself as a U.S. citizen. This amendment is a complement to another one I am proposing. The other amendment would modify the bill section providing for pilot projects on systems to verify work authorization and eligibility to apply for public assistance. One of the requirements of that other amendment is that the Attorney General conduct certain specific pilot projects including one in which employers would be required to verify the immigration status of aliens but not persons claiming to be citizens. Such persons would be required only to attest to being citizens. That came up in debate in the markup in the Judiciary Committee, that Americans, U.S. citizens, should not have to do some of the things that we require of others, and so there would be an attest provision. Obviously, the major weakness in any such system as that is the potential for false claims of citizenship. That is why I am offering the present amendment, which would create a major new disincentive for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Lawful, permanent resident aliens who falsely claim citizenship risk deportation and being permanently barred from entering the United States of America. Since they are authorized to work, they would have little reason to make a false claim of citizenship. Illegal aliens, on the other hand, would know that they could not be verified if they admitted to being aliens and the verification process was conducted; yet they would also know that if they falsely claimed to be citizens and were caught, they could be deported and permanently barred. Thus, the risk involved in making false claims would be high for them, too, under such a pilot project if the present amendment were enacted into law. Therefore, if this amendment were enacted, and the pilot project involving citizenship attestation were conducted, a significant number even of illegal aliens might well be deterred from seeking jobs in the United States. That is the purpose of the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I thank the Senator. It will not take 2 minutes. It does not take too many minutes to explain that there is no Social Security trust fund. To come to this floor time after time and listen to the stories about the Social Security trust fund is phantasmorgia and alchemy. There is no Social Security trust fund. The trustees know it, we know it, everyone in this Chamber knows it. What you have is a law that says if there are any reserves in the Social Security system, they will be invested in securities of the United States, based on the full faith and credit of the United States. Therefore, they are. They consist of the bills, savings bonds, and they are issued all over the United States. Some here own them, and banks own them. The interest on those is paid from the General Treasury, not some great kitty or some Social Security piggy bank. This is the greatest deception of all time. The sooner we wake up and realize that the trustees of the Social Security system, consisting of three Members of the President's Cabinet, consisting of Dona Shalala, Robert Rubin, and Robert Reisch, Commissioner Shirley Chater, one Republican and one Democrat, are telling us this system will be broke in the year 2029 and will begin to go broke in the year 2012--there is no way to avoid it unless you cut the benefit or raise the payroll tax. Guess which one we will do at the urging of the senior citizens? We will raise the payroll tax one more time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request, Mr. President. I have 10 unanimous-consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They all have the approval of the Democratic leader. I ask that these requests be agreed to, en bloc, and that each request be printed in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, let me assure colleagues, too, as Senator Kennedy has assured, that there will be no amendment with regard to minimum wage, there will be no amendment tonight of mine with regard to the issue of numbers and legal immigration as expressed by the majority commission. The issue will come up tomorrow. But if we can take amendments tonight while there are still some of us here, we are prepared to do that. I know the Senator from Massachusetts has another obligation. But perhaps Senator Kyl could deal with his amendment, I believe on immunization. Is this correct?

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it would be a wonderful opportunity to do something, but I will not. Senator Kennedy is absent from the Chamber. I understand that Senator Simon will be here to deal with the issues that might arise if we can do some further business. But I believe, if I heard what transpired, we might adopt the amendment, and we will then have a quorum call until a Member of the Democratic Party is here.

Mr. SIMPSON. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be deemed read the third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1298, a bill to authorize documentation of the vessel, Shooter, and that the measure then be indefinitely postponed.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I want to thank our friend and colleague, Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, for what he is doing and the way he is doing it. He does it out of the utmost sincerity, the utmost authenticity. I have known him a long time, since back in the days when he worked with our leader, Howard Baker, in a different role. He ran on this issue. A lot of people did. This was just one of many issues that he laid himself out to the voters on. He said, ``I believe in this.'' And they said, ``We believe in you.'' So that is why he is here. There are those in both parties who would hope to avoid this measure, obviously. I want to indicate my strongest support for this measure which is offered by our friend, to limit the terms of service in the U.S. Congress--contentious, a bitter pill for some, difficult to grasp for others, but seen pretty clearly by the people of the United States, especially in my own State, where 77 percent of the people voted for term limits. Of course, they did not do that when I was running for my third term. But I was always very, very much in favor of limitation of terms, as I say, until I got to my third one. Then I had a lapse, just a light lapse, and now I am restored. I am back. Of course, not running again, but I will get to that in proper context. Let me tell you why I am here to support Senator Thompson. I did not come quickly or early to this position. I came painfully to this position about term limits. I really thought they were a mistake at first. I say facetiously--obviously, when I ran for my third term, but I cannot help but notice now there is a certain strain in some editorial commentary about this measure, implying that it is some kind of ``feel-good'', toothless symbolic action, a way of diverting us from our real challenges. Saying if we would only do our work, ``if you would just do your work, you would not need all these remarkable dodges and sophistries.'' I cannot disagree with those charges any more strongly than I do right now. I will briefly describe for my colleagues the real-world road which I took to my current opinion--book, page, and hymn number, with no musical accompaniment. Here it is. My interest come only when I first served this party in this Senate as the Republican whip--I hope you hear this--when I became the whip, the second in my party serving under this remarkable man, Senator Bob Dole, who I have the richest admiration and regard for, in every respect. I served him loyally and will continue to do that in any capacity that he would request of me-- here or whatever the endeavors of his life take him. It was when I was the Republican whip that I began to appreciate the severe need for some kind of term limitation. Let me tell you how that work went on, even though many of my colleagues know exactly what that work is, the work of the whip. We would have a very tough vote ready on this floor. The troops would be out, the deputy whips, and the leader would say, ``This is a critical national issue,'' and I and my colleagues would go to each Senator and say, ``This is a tough bill, but this is a critical national issue. This is bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than any individual item. Are you with us?'' About once every 2 months, sometimes even once a month, one of my colleagues would say, ``You know, I would love to do that, but I can't, because if I do that, I'll be history. I'll be out of here. I've got a tough campaign and you are asking me to cast this vote--forget it. I'm gone if I vote that way. They will just use it against me, and I'm out of here. I'll be history.'' So we would go down the list. Both parties do this--do not miss this. I hope the American people do not miss it. OK, you go down the list and say, ``This Senator is up for reelection. So we cannot ask too much of him or her, that would be terrible. We cannot put the heat on them. But this other Senator was just reelected. We can get him or her to go with us,'' and so on, down the list. Everyone around here knows how very solicitous we become of our colleagues on our own side of the aisle when they have a tough reelection fight. That is the way this remarkable arena works. Help so-and-so, he is coming up, get the heat off of him, put it on this fellow who has 5 more years, and they will forget his vote by the time it is time for his reelection. On and on it goes. That is the way it is played. On every even-numbered year, one-third of the Senate and the entirety of the House is quaking in its political skin, afraid to cast any of the really, really tough votes, because they dare not do anything but cast the really political vote, the one, if it is called political, for which there is only one reason, and that is to get reelected. That is what I found. It was very clear to me what was happening. There is this large number, every even-numbered year, all of the House Members, a third of the Senate, a large number of legislators in Washington, thinking too much about politics and not sufficiently about principle and about the best interests of their Nation. It is no wonder that it is terribly hard around here to take action against the challenges that so vex this country. That is what I observed. What I felt then and now, if we do term limits, then after it kicks in--I shall tell you what you have after it kicks in. You will have one-third of the U.S. Senate voting right. That is what you will have. Then you go find 18 other people, and that will give you 51. You can always find those other 18 people because they are in that pool of about 40 Democrats and Republicans in this body who are ``always right there.'' They are always there. They are steady, thoughtful, they watch, they sometimes do their partisan strut--often, and we are all good at that--and they are always there. They are the ones from whom you would draw 18 and then with the 33 you have voting right with no pressure, you find the 18 out of the pool of 40 and move on with the Nation's business. The astonishing and truly regrettable aspect about all of this is, even when there is a broad consensus about the nature of the problem, pure politics will keep us from addressing it. If you want a few examples, well, I just happened to drag a few in. Case in point. This year, the Consumer Price Index--this is a pure ``no-brainer,'' and there was not a shred of substantive controversy here until the senior citizens groups got worked up. Every economist who testified before the Finance Committee said that it is overstated. Every single one of them. Every budget analyst agrees that so long as the Government indexes inflation at too high a rate, we will overspend on COLA's--and in everything from Social Security to Federal retirement, to military retirement. And we will also collect too little in tax revenues as a consequence of improper indexing. That, my friends, results in larger and larger deficits. This is no secret. We all know this is the case. There is not a thing that I will relate in these remaining minutes that is not consistent with the facts. We all know this is the case. The economists who have testified know it to be true. That CPI overstates inflation by 0.7 to 2.2 percent. CBO knows it is true. OMB knows it is true. And that is why neither of them is using CPI to index our discretionary appropriations caps. I hope you heard that. No, they both use a ``chain-weighted GDP index.'' I am going to try that one on the floor. I know that is a mouthful. But if it is good enough for OMB and CBO, surely it should be good enough for us, as we wander through the wilderness here. So we will try that chain-weighted GDP index, which will knock off about 0.4, and that will be a lot better progress than what we are getting right now. But the politics have been diagnosed as the problem. The President does not want to offend anyone who might be receiving a COLA. I understand that. Even if the COLA they are now getting is certifiably too large and even though it has nothing to do with your net worth or your income. Try that one. That is the way it works. It does not matter what your net worth or your income is. CPI, Consumer Price Index--oh, is that a COLA? They are not the same. Heed the words of our able friend from New York, Senator Pat Moynihan, about how the distortion has come about with the cost-of-living allowance and CPI. They do not fit. But they have been fitted. So even if the COLA is now certifiably too large, we do nothing. And so the President, being the very savvy political person he is, in a political year, intends to use this as a political weapon. A Republican-controlled Congress will refuse to jump off the cliff, then, because of that effect, not wanting to give him any political benefit. As a consequence--both parties playing what is called partisan politics--nothing gets done, even when we all agree that it is a must and could be done without really setting back this country in any sense. And a 1-percent reduction in the CPI--and nobody is suggesting that--in 10 years lops $680 billion off the pile. It is a lot smaller in 7 years, about $68 billion. So that shows you the exponential growth, if 1 percent of the CPI would save $68 or $70 billion in 7 years in 10 years it will save you $680 billion. You are saying that is impossible, but it is not. That is what is happening here, and that is what we should address--and we do nothing. When we did this and discussed it in the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, we actually, naively, thought that it would be like falling off a log, to simply do something with the CPI, which is so overstated at every turn. But, no, the AARP did not like that idea at all. No, indeed. And the Commission for the Preservation of Medicare and Medicaid thought that was an ugly trick. And so they will help us administer it on into bankruptcy. I am grateful to my colleagues for hearing me out, because I deal with these issues regularly, and I have been talking about these things all of my political life. This is not something new or some swan song caper in the middle of the night. I am grateful for those who come up and say, ``You are right, Al, we need to do something about CPI.'' I wish I could count all of my colleagues who have said that; yet, nothing gets done. How can that be? The answer lies wholly in the area of political fear. That is a word I want to use. The word is ``fear.'' Forget all the rest of it. ``Fear.'' So there is an example just right off the bat--and that is the meat part of the bat, not the end--how term limits might immediately save future taxpayers untold billions in deficit spending. One percent in 10 years would be $680 billion. And we are not even asking that. So, as I say, in 1994, I served on the President's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. And like that movie, ``The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' I almost wish I had not been appointed to do it. I have shown you a copy of our report. This is the interim report. This was approved by a vote of 30 to 1. Who was on this Commission? Who were these dastardly people that were pointing out these things with regard to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, bankruptcy in the system? I will tell you who they were. Let me read the names: Chairman Bob Kerrey and Vice Chairman John Danforth, two very fine men that I have come to enjoy. Who was on the Commission? I am not going to read the titles because the names will be so familiar: Bill Archer; Dale Bumpers; Mike Castle; Eva Clayton; Thad Cochran; Chris Cox; Kika de la Garza; Robert Denham; John Dingell; Pete Domenici; Tom Downey; Sandra Freedman; Porter Goss; William Gray, former Congressman; Robert Greenstein; Judd Gregg; Karen Horn; Tom Kean; Alex McMillan; Carol Moseley-Braun; Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Pete Peterson; Harry Reid; Roy Romer; Dan Rostenkowski; Martin Sabo; Jim Sasser; Myself; Richard Trumka, and Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming. Those are the Members who served on the Commission. Some did not attend any meetings. I think you might be able to pick out one or two. There we were. That is the work we did and we put out this statement. It was signed by all but one of these people. I have shown you the remarkable cross-pollinization of the issue with those people that I just described and some of them we enjoy and work with every day. Then why did we sign this--30 of 31 of us? It was because it is a report of a statement of fact. It is not about ideas, not about ideology, not about partisanship. These are facts. One fact is very evident--and remember we were appointed by our President--and that one fact is that we are on an unsustainable course. We have locked into the law a huge promise of benefits that far exceed our country's ability ever to pay. The unfunded mandates for these programs will simply wipe us away. We all know this to be the case. Largely due to the growth of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Federal retirement, this country stands, by the year 2012--now here is what the report disclosed: That with no increase in revenues--that means no more taxes, no more, never, never, ever no taxes--and having done a perfect health care bill, which we know would--as we see in our votes with regard to the Kassebaum-Kennedy proposal--be tough to do, and ours is presently an incremental approach and has to be--but if we were to do a ``perfect health care bill'' and no further taxes now, and of course that would please all of our constituents. Then hear this scenario; Were this the case then in the year 2012, there will then be only sufficient revenue--that is, money--to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Federal retirement, and interest on the national debt. There will be not one penny for transportation, education, defense, WIC, WIN, Head Start, NEA, NIH, the National Institutes of Health, or anything else in this Government. Remember too--I do so hope the people of America can remember that those of us in this body do not even vote on 67 percent of the national budget. Those of us in the Congress of the United States do not cast a single vote on 67 percent of the national budget. It goes right on out the window, period Automatic pilot. In 7 years we will not be even casting a vote on 73 percent of the national budget. It will just be going out, being paid out and it goes out regardless. It goes out without regard to means testing or ``affluence testing.'' It just gets paid out. It goes to people regardless of their net worth or their income. Every year that we are here--you have seen it, and I have seen it--we spend our time hacking around on the Appropriations Committee on the only things we can find that we can cut, which is defense, education, transportation, WIC, WIN, Head Start, and we don't lay a hand on all the things we call ``mandatory spending.'' So we are trapped. We are trapping ourselves daily ever more deeply. These things cannot be sustained. That is the situation which is impervious to ideology, or philosophy. It really does not matter whether your highest priority as an elected Senator is placed on a strong national defense, or on the children, or on vaccinating our kids, or the NIH, or the NEA, or roads, or whatever, or veterans, or seniors, or whatever it is we most want to do ourselves--or on keeping the size of the Federal Government within reasonable bounds. It is a reality that we cannot escape unless we radically reduce the growth of the largest entitlement programs. What has been our response? The first response was to leave Social Security ``off the table''. That is a remarkable thing to do--to leave off the table an item that is $360 billion a year, and it is now ``off the table.'' Both Republicans and Democrats did that. If one single Senator can demonstrate to me that this was the result of substantive critical analysis rather than political positioning, I would be most intrigued to hear the rationale. The truth is we all know better--as we admit in a jocular way to each other when the cameras are not rolling. Let me show you Social Security, the one we left off the table, which we are never supposed to talk about. I do like to talk about it. I take these charts to my town meetings to ward off the gray-haired cat in the back of the room. When I ask for a final question, I will often say, ``I will take a final question from the gray-haired gentleman in the back.'' Then the fellow will respond, ``I'd rather have my hair turn gray than turn loose,'' which is disturbing, when you look at my hairline, that I have to take that kind of terrible abuse. So then he will say, ``I put in it from the beginning. Simpson, I want it all out, every bit of it. That is the contract.'' I say, ``By George, you are right. I agree with you. You put in from the beginning, did you?'' ``Yes, I did.'' ``Great. Let us then review for everybody here in the town meeting how much you put in because, if you put it in it from the beginning''--and any 64-year-old, gray-haired cat like me cannot escape this because we all put in the same. ``So, if you put it in from the beginning, you never put in over 30 bucks a year for the first 8 years. And then you never put in over 174 bucks a year for the next 18 years, ladies and gentleman.'' Not one of them did. Then, finally you got stuck 300 bucks a year, 800 bucks a year, $1,000 a year, $1,500 a year, $2,000 a year, $3,000 a year, and in the 1980's, $4,000. Now I think I am putting in $5,000 a year, which is my Medicare and Social Security. So when I am all finished up with contributions of payroll tax'' if I retire next year at 65, I will have put into the Social Security system about $55,000 in an entire lifetime. I will get it all back in 6\1/2\ years. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. And if you retired in the 1980's, the early 1980's, you got everything back you put in, plus interest, in only 2\1/2\ years. And those are people who still show up at your town meeting. There is no means test of benefits, no affluence test of their COLA, and that is the way that is. But take a look at this. This is a chart about me, Alan K. Simpson. This is a blow-up of my Social Security earnings record for a lifetime. It started between 1937 and 1950. I went to work at the Cody Bakery at the age of 14; got the Social Security card that year. My particular role in that particular confectionery was to place the pink glob in the midst of that white, crusty sugary business on top of the mushy sweet roll. I have never touched one of those since; never will eat another one of those because that was my job--plop, plop, plop. I was paid $583, to which I coughed up a real chunk into Social Security--5 bucks that year. The next year he paid me less--for they found what I had been doing with the confectioneries. Then I went off to the University of Wyoming and paid nothing because I never earned over $3,600 in a summer. I worked every summer, but I never earned $3,600. Remember, ladies and gentleman, you could make a million bucks, but you never paid anything over this lid here. So, if you made 40,000 bucks this year, you never paid any Social Security over $4,800 in this year. Then they slowly raised that through the years. So, anyway, I finished the Army, finished college, went on to practice law, and in the first year of practice when my father took all the money and I did all the work, I put in 42 bucks--42 bucks. I made a little over $1,600. Then, in the most productive years of my life to that point, for 18 years of practicing law, I never put in over 816 bucks a year. Nobody else did either. Not one person in this country put in any more in those years as a self-employed person than 816 bucks a year. That is where we are. And you are telling us that this is sustainable? How absurd. But it is ``off the table.'' The biggest gorilla in the jungle is now off the table. So, then, finally I came here in 1979, and put 615 bucks into Social Security that first year. Then the next year, 951. Then, you know. There it is--in 1989. My total contribution was $2,980. So was it for everybody else in America; period. So, if you total it all up, over a lifetime it is about $55,000. Now here is the slot machine handle. Here is what I will get, and so will anybody else my age. This is my estimate of benefits. This is a photocopy of the document directly from the Social Security Administration. Thank Heaven they are sending this to people now. It is going out automatically to people. Millions of copies are going out thanks again to Senator Moynihan. We owe him a great deal. We owe him a great deal because, do not forget, he was very involved in the blue ribbon commission that met in the early 1980's and said to us all: We can save Social Security with a deft blend of payroll taxes and some other changes, and if we do--and we all voted on it--if we do, it will save the Social Security System until the year 2063. Do you remember that? I hope you all do. Because now we are told by the trustees of the system that Social Security can only now be saved until the year 2029. So from 1983 to 1996, we have compressed the drop dead date from 2063 to 2029, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. So if I were to retire at age 65, I will receive $1,170 a month. But if I wait until age 70, I will get $1,555 per month, with a life expectancy of--well, it is cheerful news. My father lived to be 95, my mother 94, my grandmother 100. I will be rolling and rolling over in it, and it will not matter what my net worth or income is. Then also add to it a COLA every year. Does anybody within the range of my voice believe this is a sustainable system? It is not. Senator Kerrey and I are trying to restore long-term solvency to this system, because it will be broke in the year 2029, and will begin to go broke in the year 2012 when we start cashing in the bonds and Treasury securities. Remember, ladies and gentlemen--and please do not lob anything--there is no Social Security trust fund. There is no such fund. You know it. I know it. All we have is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President and the Congress set for us, which is this: That if there is any surplus, any surplus at all in the Social Security funds, it must be invested in securities of the United States, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury. So when there are reserves, the Treasury purchases T bills, savings bonds, whatever. Some of those are purchased by those of us in this body. They are purchased by banks. By other Americans. The interest on those securities is not paid out of some kitty called the Social Security trust fund. It is paid out by the General Treasury, ladies and gentlemen. We all know that. Everybody knows that. We do not ``steal'' from the Social Security trust fund and in profligate ways just poof it on down the street. We do not do that. But we go back to the town meeting and they will say, ``Now, that's what you did. You stole from the Social Security trust fund and blew it. You never put it back.'' I said, ``My friend, there was nothing there to blow.'' It is a series of IOU's that would stack to the top of this Chamber. It is all good stuff. It is good financial paper, but it is not--it is not--some kind of separate fund. If it was a separate fund, it would be, right now, over $220 billion. Do you think we would leave that untouched if we could find our way into it? Of course not. The thing about it is that those reserves could reach $2 trillion before the year 2012, but then when we get to the year 2012, that is it. That is it, because there will not be enough revenue coming in to take care of the monthly payments going out--period, nothing. This is a pay-as-you-go system. It has nothing to do with a rolling trust fund or anything else. The people who are paying their Social Security payroll tax in today, that tax is going right out this month to senior citizens regardless of their net worth or their income. Now, that is the way it is, and the sooner we get to dealing quite honestly with what this system is, I think we might have some semblance of ability to get out of it. Then came the proposal to reduce the growth in Medicare below catastrophic rates--not ``cut'' it, but to slow the growth in the way that every objective analysis has shown that we must. The President was suggesting slowing the rate of growth when he dealt with his very controversial health care plan which was defeated. The President then later talked about letting Medicare go up 7.6 percent or 7.8. I admired that. I said that at the time. Republicans are trying to let it to go up 6.4. The President might be at 7 now. We are not that far apart. That gap could be closed very well. We could close that gap because both the President and the Congress know that we must slow the growth in Medicare. Because why? Who is telling us all this bizarre business? The people telling us this bizarre business are the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Programs. Slowing the growth in the way that every objective analysis has shown us that we must. Are we going to get a severe political lesson from that one, an example of what the Washington Post had called ``Medagoguing?'' President Clinton and too many others of us, Republicans and Democrats, have decided to run for office this November on the assertion that we are saving America from ``cuts'' in Medicare while at the same time ``behind the scenes'' every single one of us agrees somewhat on what kind of target needs to be hit to bring Medicare within reasonable bounds. We all know that. As a consequence, what have we accomplished? Not much on the Medicare front. That spending continues to spiral upwards unabated. Get this one. A few weeks ago what were we told? A little miscalculation there. Instead of a surplus of $4.2 billion that month in Medicare, we found a $37 million deficit. That is the trustees telling us this too. It was startling to them. So maybe Medicare will not go broke in 2002; it will only go broke in 2001. But do not forget this. If the Republicans get away with all these terrible tricks and do everything that we have proposed to do to balance the budget in 7 years, and do it, Medicare will not go broke in 2002; it will go broke in 2010. What a deal. What a deal that we have ``balanced the budget'' and Medicare will not go broke in 2002; it will go broke in 2010. Everybody knows that. Everybody. So as the spending continues to spiral upwards unabated, the only real accomplishment of the exercise possibly will be to elect some new legislators who have pledged on their highest honor to stop any cruel efforts to ever deal with that silly problem again. Oh no, we will not do that one again, because obviously too many people got beat when they tried to do that. Then I do have this other document here which is worth everyone's attention. It is a little yellow booklet entitled, ``Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs.'' It comes to us from the Board of Trustees of Social Security, and those persons are three of the President's Cabinet, Robert Rubin, Robert Reich, Donna Shalala; and Shirley Chater, Stanford Ross, and David Walker. Then let me read this from page 11 in the section entitled ``Need For Action.'' Remember, these are the trustees of the system, the stewards of the system telling us this: During the past 5 years, there has been a trend of deterioration in the long-range conditions of the Social Security and Medicare Programs and an acceleration in the projected dates of exhaustion in the related trust funds. I paraphrase what the words ``projected dates of exhaustion'' mean-- that is, going flat broke is what that means. And further then: To some extent, the increasingly adverse projections have come from unforeseen events and from the absence of prompt action in response to clear warnings that changes are necessary. These adverse trends can be expected to continue and indicate the possibility of a future retirement crisis. We urge that concerted action be taken promptly to address the critical public policy issues raised by the financing projection for these programs. To repeat the line I found most interesting: This situation arises ``from the absence of prompt action in response to clear warnings that changes are necessary.'' In other words, we know fully that we must act, and yet we refuse, out of political fear, to do so. That, to my mind, is well defined as irresponsibility, or as akin to chickens, as I have patterned upon my tie here. I wore this appropriately today. These are chickens that I try to show to people between 18 and 40, so that they know that they will be picking grit with the chickens when they are 65 and that they must get in this game and figure out what is going to happen to them. That is why I wear this beautifully patterned haberdashery. I could go on, but I can see my colleagues rising and heaving at their desks. My colleagues have heard me speak on this issue before. Perhaps somewhat tiring is the message. But remember this. It will not work to say Simpson is off the rail, or easy for him to say, he is not running, because I have said these things back in time immemorial, every time I ran. But I assure you I, too, am tiring of the inaction. If we want to be spared the alarm bells that will be coming in this area, all we need do is meet our responsibility to our citizenry and cast the tough votes to correct these problems. I have heard that one, too. Do not think I have not cast these politically correct votes, too, as a chicken. I have done that. But we will not get there by enacting tax cuts. That was something the President wanted, something we wanted. I was ready to go for capital gains. I will still go over the cliff, but we will not get there by doing that. We will not get there by increasing the minimum wage. We will not get there with line-item veto. We will not get there by getting rid of fraud and abuse. That will not get you there. More of it. The only way you get there is to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Federal retirement--period. All other is true fiction. And we will not get there by saying we are going to slavishly posture to protect Social Security from the balanced budget amendment and thus let it go bankrupt on its own. We will not get there by giving out more money to employed seniors with no affluence test, and I voted for that one, too. We will get there only by slowing the growth of spending to the point where revenues can keep the pace, and that is it, substantively. That is very difficult politically. That is, alone, why it does not happen. Finally, I just could not let this go by. I have a new missive from the remarkable group, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. These people are something, they really are, not quite as slick as the AARP, but nearly. Do not forget the AARP is simply a group of 33 million Americans bound tightly together by a common love of airline discounts and automobile discounts and pharmacy discounts, and they are really a rugged and remarkable group. They are. They live in poverty downtown here in a building they lease for $17 million a year--$17 million a year. They have about $345 million in T- bills in the bank and rake in about $106 million a year from Prudential Insurance Co., getting 3 percent of the premiums on the MediGap policies. And guess who helped kill off any reform and helped stall the Government? Do not miss this one. You remember why we shut down the Government? One of the reasons is because part B--a totally voluntary program--premiums in Medicare were going to go up $7 a month. Some said, ``We cannot have that.'' So the AARP rose in high indignation, then helped kill that off, and, at the same time, they watched the increase in the MediGap monthly insurance policies they placed with Prudential go up 31 bucks a month--all while they killed off the ability for us to say that those who have more should pay more for part B premiums--like $7 a month. You have a current situation in America about which every thoughtful American must scratch his or her head. Part B premiums are paid, 25 percent by the beneficiary and 75 percent by the people working here in the Senate kitchen. Those folks pay 75 percent of the premium for us, or for anyone else, regardless of their net worth or their income. And we cannot even change that. So here is AARP, through Prudential raising their own premiums $31 a month while they are killing off a program in America to raise it $7 a month on something which is totally voluntary. You do not want anything to do with a group like that. Yes, I know people stay in AARP because you can get a room at Westin Hotel for $80 instead of $140--I know those things--and the senior discounts here and there and at the movies. I know those things. I do not want to detract. I am a member. I am using some of those. But here is this new one, just this little one from this remarkable group, regarding the type of political pressure I am talking about. This is the most recent mailing from one of our most intriguing senior citizen organizations, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. It is labeled as ``The 1996 Benefit Cut Impact Survey.'' Very interesting stuff. Question 1: ``After promising never to touch Social Security, many political leaders in Washington are discussing proposals that will result in smaller Social Security COLA's, making it impossible for your benefits to keep pace with the real inflation you experience.'' This is best described--in the West, we would have a different term, a different, perhaps, appellation for it--it is a lie right off the bat. Because no one is talking about taking COLA's below the true size of inflation--nobody, not a soul. Next question, ``Should your congressional representatives pose any measure that would result in lower Social Security COLA's?'' Oh, that one should not be too difficult to answer for the citizen that receives it. It is a rather brazen appeal to the recipient's financial self-interest without any accompanying discussion about the country as a whole and it skillfully say the seeds for wrath to be expressed subsequently at the ballot box. That is very important, that you do that when these mailings go out. Question 2: ``If such COLA legislation goes through, would you support your national committee in an all-out campaign to repeal it?'' That is pretty easy to understand, I think, pretty easy. Another way of saying it is: ``Will this committee be able to bilk you out of more contributed bucks to our organization as compensation for raining political threats down upon the bald or hirsute domes of those in Washington and environs?'' Question 4: ``If a balanced budget amendment, one that did not protect the Social Security trust funds, came to a vote in Congress this session, would you urge your elected representatives in Congress to oppose it?'' How nice. We have seen that campaign brought to the floor of the Senate several times, the use of the Social Security ``hot button'' as a means of derailing the balanced budget amendment. And it worked. It was also marvelously done when we repealed catastrophic health care. If we had done that 1 year ago, we would not be in this box today. And the AARP, although they say they never did have any official fingerprints on that, I mean, it looked like the Abominable Snowman footprint when you got right down underneath it all--much more than a fingerprint, a giant track, a gaping hole, a crevasse in the ice. And there they were, then, and it worked, and it continues to be a source of political agitation to this day and on into the future. So this--and I conclude my remarks--this mailing is but one example of the cottage industries which have sprung up all over this country which aim to drain the Treasury of everything they can get by whipping credulous Americans and senior citizen into a frenzy and scaring elected representatives half to death. It matters not that these mailings are filled with sophistry and distortion and emotion and obfuscation. What matters is that they have a political impact and raise big bucks, and too many here are afraid to buck the tide which they produce. By the way, I should note that the final request on page 6 of this missive is for additional bucks, for the poor, ragged committee, a curious way to protect the meager finances of the poor senior citizens, is it not? Asking them to give up $10 of their hard-earned Social Security money for this committee's sake? And one effect of term limits, in its most succinct form, is the one effect it would hopefully have on organizations like this, who are dedicated, apparently, to the bankruptcy of our country, is that it is very likely such groups would vanish without a trace. And no one would miss them. Then lacking any substantive basis for their position and lacking any further clout stemming from political fear, what reason would still persist for their existence? I can bet you that the national committee here is not too excited about term limits legislation. They would find it far more effective to frighten legislators, simply continue to do it, to do their bidding. What a bunch. Martha and Max should be ashamed, but I can tell you they are not. So, I am very pleased to support my colleague, Senator Thompson, with his initiative. I, of course, have been forcing my own brand of term limitations this year by retiring from Washington and going on to other work. But it is extremely refreshing and like a splash of mountain spring water not to have concerns about November mixed in with one's vote recommendations. I can say to you, it is a rare tonic which I recommend in large doses to the entirety of the House and the Senate, and I believe if we enact this measure, we will have taken one significant step toward resolving some of the largest, greatest and most serious challenges facing this country. We all know it, we like these jobs; we want to continue. None of these critical things I describe will be done without a term limit. None. After it kicks in, I can only say one-third of the U.S. Senate will be voting right every time, and the Democrats or Republicans who are leading this body at that time will be able to find those other 18 to get the 51 votes to do the Nation's business. I think that is a very important thing to do, is to be about the Nation's business and not just continue to be assailed and hammered flat by the groups who are so skilled at peddling fear, but ever more skilled at raising bucks, as they terrify the American senior citizens. I thank the Chair. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, not only the fiction of it, but since 1938, by law, the trust fund buys T bills which are IOU's that the Government must pay back. FDR did that, and that is what it is. There is no mystery to it. It is a series of IOU's, and when those are outstanding and then the revenue from Social Security will not cover-- it is a pay-as-you-go, do not forget, Social Security is pay-as-you-go, and if it does not cover, you have to cash in the IOU's and you have to get more money through the payroll tax, or reducing benefits or issuing some new kinds of securities.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I say to my friend from North Dakota that the travesty is that it is not being used. It is a series of IOU's. There is no Social Security trust fund. And the money is being invested. You can say we will cut it back. You cannot. It is in T-bills. Some people here own T-bills. Banks own T-bills. There is no Social Security trust fund. I have never gone to my people and said we are stealing from the Social Security trust fund because I just stepped up to the plate and said there is none. So, when you bring that up, you are bringing up a fiction.

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield for a question.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I do not think anybody would try to obscure anything--at least this Senator is not. The obfuscation and the obscuring is to tell the American people that there is a trust fund that we are using moneys from. There is not any trust fund there to be using. It is not there. It is a series of IOU's. So, when we say, ``Oh, you are doing a terrible thing. You are hiding something or you are using the money that should have been there for us,'' that is simply not the case. Let me just review just for the body in 4 more minutes eight rather recent votes on this issue. I can only find eight in the last 30 minutes, since I knew that this would come up on the floor. The amendments are not always offered up by the same Senator. They are offered by different people each time. It is kind of like we do with a ``rolling hold.'' You kind of fire the one barrel and then you fire another barrel. So here it all is, of recent vintage. On January 26, 1995, Senator Harkin offered an amendment. Senator Kempthorne made a second-degree amendment on it. The Kempthorne amendment said that implementing legislation should not cut Social Security. We all agree with that. You cannot miss on that one. If you simply, each time, want to talk about the balanced budget and add to it that we will never ``cut'' Social Security, that is a snapper in here-- except for a few of us who will cast that opposite vote and know very well that it just does not fit. Then Senator Reid tried to table that. That failed. Senator Kempthorne's amendment then passed. Then Senator Harkin tried a perfecting amendment to add his language back, saying that the balanced budget itself should exempt Social Security. That was tabled. On February 10, 1995, Senator Dole offered the amendment to ask the Budget Committee to report instructions not affecting Social Security. That passed 87 to 10, like we all knew it would. Then it was done. Then Senator Reid presented an amendment, February 14 of 1995, saying Social Security is now counted in the balanced budget amendment. And Senator Dole tabled that, 57 to 41. On February 28, 1995 Senator Feinstein offered a substitute for the balanced budget amendment with the exclusion of Social Security. That was tabled 56 to 39. On February 28, 1995, Senator Graham put forward an amendment to eliminate ``held by the public'' from the debt limit, so as to get the balanced budget to exclude Social Security. That was tabled 59 to 40. Another Graham amendment was tabled 57 to 43. This issue has been voted on time and time and time again. I think it is time that it not be voted on again, especially for this issue, on either illegal immigration or health care. Find a new line of work. Several Senators addressed the chair.