John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman). (Mr. ROTHMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley). (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I inquire as to the balance of the time remaining on this side.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, to my friend from South Carolina: What the President has proposed and what we are proposing even more emphatically is that the Social Security surpluses, in our case a hundred percent of those surpluses, first be taken and used solely to buy down public debt. In return for the receipt of those excess payroll taxes the Treasury will issue, as is customary, a bond backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government to the Social Security trustees. Then, dollar for dollar of debt reduction, the Treasury will issue another bond partly to Social Security, partly to Medicare. Over a period of 15 years, Mr. Chairman, it will double the amount of the trust fund. So, the key factor is that, as we build up the assets of the Social Security Retirement Trust Fund and the Medicare Trust Fund in this manner, we are also paying down the debt of the United States so that when those trust funds come due in 2032, the Social Security Administration will be able to go to the Treasury window, the Treasury will be in better shape than ever financially to pay those funds.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, in response to the last comments, the difference between now and implementation of the President's proposal and the proposal that we have put in the Democratic budget resolution is simply this: We are going to add an additional $1.8 trillion of bonds to the Social Security trust fund over the next 15 years. That means in 2032, when the administrator of the Social Security trust funds would run out of bonds, instead, under our plan, he will still have enough bonds to cash in at the treasury that will take him to 2050. I have here a letter from Harry C. Ballantyne, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, which says that this will extend the life of the trust fund, the solvency of the trust fund until 2050.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks). (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement), and I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control that time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me once again say that our budget resolution, the House Democratic resolution, provides that same $6 billion a year but it has a special difference. Because this is a 10-year budget and we are running out the allocations for 10 years, we don't quit in 2004, 2005. Their budget stops the funding of the crop insurance program just as it is getting established. It, in effect, says to the agricultural committees, go find the necessary mandatory spending offsets in order to pay for it. We provide $9 billion in the second 5-year period on top of $6 billion in the first to see that this is a 10-year commitment. The same with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump). The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the excellent chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, sent to our committee a request for $1.9 billion a year, I believe. That is what we put in our budget. The Democratic budget provides what the Republican chairman of the committee requested; $1.9 billion a year for veterans. Their budget gives a plus-up of $900 million, a billion dollars the first year in fiscal year 2000. But in 2001, 2002, 2003, it disappears. It is nonrecurring. It does not carryover. So it is plussed up a billion and then dropped back down again; dropped so much that over 5 years, their budget is $500 million for veterans below a 1999 freeze level. That is the way the numbers are being distorted out here. Let me go back to education. In education, the budget of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), which they have touted as being a big plus-up in education, is $2 billion below the President next year; $3.9 billion below the President in 2001; $3.5 billion below the President in 2002; $2.1 billion in 2003. What they say with ESEA and IDEA is we want to give a bigger allocation but it has to come out of the hide of other higher education programs; the whole function for education and job training. It is very improbable that they are going to be able to shove those other programs aside to make the kind of increases they are not providing because the function that they are providing for education as a whole does not increase over this period of time. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield just to make clear who ``their budget'' is, because our budget has $1.9 billion?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, before yielding to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say our colleagues are attacking the President's budget; it is not even on the floor. Our resolution is on the floor. It commits a hundred percent, puts $1.8 trillion into the trust funds over the next 10 years as well. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. SPRATT. Because I do not think the facts will bear him out.

Mr. SPRATT. In a little while we will answer what he just said about education.

Mr. SPRATT. No, I cannot yield because I do not have the time to yield.

Mr. SPRATT. That is 62 percent of the unified surplus which he quotes, $1.8 trillion. One hundred percent of the Social Security surplus, which is part of it, equals $1.8 trillion. They are the same thing over a different period. Over 15 years it works out to the same thing.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Could I have the benefit of the chart of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the chart he just used that showed the President commits 62 percent of the surplus and you commit 100 percent of the surplus?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers) and ask unanimous consent that she control the time for yielding to other Members.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. When I came here, we were paying interest on the national debt equal to about $52 billion. In the years I have been here that bill has gone up to $252 billion. Dead weight. Produces no goods and services for anybody. We have got a proposal in our budget resolution that will drive that debt down $3 trillion. It is good for Social Security, it is good for the economy, it is good for the Federal budget, and it is good for our children and grandchildren.