After talking about how his younger constituents do not mind paying for their grandparents retirement, Dick Armey (R-Texas), then House Majority Leader said: "Now, imagine the hurt and the disappointment they feel as they have exhibited that faith and that love, for them to now realize that for years, for years much of that payroll tax that they have paid so painfully has not been used for grandma and grandpa's retirement security, has not even been set aside for future needs, but has been spent on other social spending programs."

Sue Wilkins Myrick (R-North Carolina): "Congress has continued just over all the years to raid social security to pay for pork barrel projects and even transportation projects, just spending. It has been an easy pot of money to go to whenever we needed a little extra. We have not been truthful. We are not being truthful if we say we are balancing the Federal budget, and it is not balanced because we continue to borrow from Social Security."

Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) Commerce Committee: "The key thing we need to be able to do right now is make a commitment to stop spending the Social Security funds that come to the Federal Government. That is pretty easy for us to say, but it is awfully hard for us to do."

Sander M. Levin (D-Michigan) Budget Ways & Means Committee: "The gentleman before me talked about, we must not spend Social Security surplus monies. What did my colleagues do within the last few weeks? The majority party here loaded onto an emergency bill provisions unrelated to emergencies. Where did the money come from? From Social Security surplus funds, that's where."

Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) Committee on Governmental Reform: "Money coming from FICA taxes is supposed to go to Social Security. The problem is, we spend it on all of these other government programs."

Ken Lucas (D-Kentucky) House Budget Committee: "We must save Social Security and Medicare first, before squandering any of the Social Security surplus, the Medicare surplus, and any other government surplus."

Gary Miller (R-California) Committee on Budget: "Obviously, some people would prefer to continue using illusion. It is time to stop the campaign rhetoric. We need to make sure no one, I repeat, no one, not the President, not the Congress, not anyone steals the Social Security money in the future."

Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) House Budget Committee: "And let us face it, Congress has been engaged in misleading and deceptive budgeting for decades. The American people are told their payroll tax goes to Social Security. In fact, it goes to many other places as well."

Gerald D. Kleczka (D-Wisconsin) Budget Ways & Means Committee: "Last week it was okay to spend $9 billion for an emergency supplemental bill out of the Social Security trust fund. But now we have got religion today and, my Lord, what we did last week, it was wrong. We should never have done it."

Senator John Ashcroft (R-Missouri): "Social Security must be secure for all Americans. In order to make it more secure we need to have a Trust Fund that we can trust. The one million Missourians who receive its benefits, and the three million Missourians who pay taxes to the system, are entitled to a system that keeps its promises. This means, first, that Congress and the President must quit raiding the surplus for purposes that threaten retirement security for the American people....The Social Security Trust Fund should not be used as a personal piggy bank for Washington politicians to finance their pet programs."

Bud Shuster (R-Pennsylvania) Transportation Committee Chairman: "Trust Fund surpluses are being used to mask the true size of the deficit instead of being used for the expansion and repair of the nation's highways and airports."

Bob Filner (D-California): "Americans who fly are not being told that their taxes are used by bureaucrats in a classic Washington shell game of hide-the-budget-deficit."

Ron Packard (R-California): "The way I see it, we have to get Washington's hands out of Social Security once and for all. We need legislation that will permanently prevent Washington from raiding the Social Security surpluses for wasteful spending programs."

Cliff Stearns (R-Florida): Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will consider legislation to ensure that we will no longer use the Social Security Trust Fund for any other purpose than for what it was intended for....Now, my collegues might ask, 'Why is this necessary?' The answer is quite simple. Despite repeated efforts over the years, we have not been able to stop perpetual raids on the Social Security Trust Fund. We have attempted to stop this violation of the trust fund going as far back as 1990."

David D. Phelps (D-Illinois): "H.R. 1259 offers largely symbolic protection of our Social Security surpluses by blocking the consideration of any Budget Resolution of legislation that dips into these funds."

David Drier (R-California) Chairman of the Rules Committee: "There has consistently been a high level of frustration over the fact that the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds have been raided for years for a wide range of well-intended programs, but unfortunately it has jeopardized the solvency of those programs, the Social Security and Medicare programs. So we today are making an attempt to put into place a procedure that will help us keep from moving into those funds at all; and I think it is the right thing to do."

Porter Goss (R-Florida): "The not-so-secret secret about the Federal budget is that when there is overspending in the nonsocial security part of the budget, then the Social Security part of the budget is automatically, automatically tapped to cover the shortfall. That is how it is. That is how it is not going to be anymore, because we are going to fix that."

Jim Ryun (R-Kansas): "As I travel through the Second District of Kansas, there is a lot of skepticism that we in Washington will not be able to actually keep our fingers out of the Social Security cookie jar. They are asking for proof, not just political rhetoric. That is why I support this bill. It requires us to talk about budget numbers and surpluses in budgeting. The bill puts enforcement mechanisms into place to prevent future Congresses from raiding Social Security without any accountability."

John Linder (R-Georgia): "Mr. Speaker, it is dishonest to talk openly about a budget surplus when our operating budget is still in deficit. The government continues to borrow money from Social Security, a fact that does not show up on the government's balance sheet but that has dire consequences for the future."

Jerry Weller (R-Illinois): "I have a check here written on the Social Security Trust Fund. It is a blank check. Washington for the last 30 years has used the Social Security Trust Fund as a slush fund and as a blank check to pay for other programs."

Brian Bilbray (R-California): "I guess in Washington it seems very technical on this issue, but I guess I will try to explain it as simply as possible. Social Security is called a trust fund, not a slush fund. It is not a pool of money to be used in any manner that somebody wants to if they can get enough votes....But this proposal, Mr. Speaker, is the first step. It is the first step in reforming Social Security. If we are not willing to at least vote for a bill that says we are going to start treating it as a trust fund and not a slush fund, if we are not willing to vote for this proposal, for God's sake, how are we going to find the intestinal fortitude to be able to vote for the other ones we all know are coming down the pike?"

Dennis Moore (D-Kansas): "This legislation would tell the American people that in 1998, instead of a $70 billion surplus we actually had a $29 billion deficit. This legislation would send a signal to this body that we must continue to exercise fiscal discipline; that we cannot afford a 10 percent across-the-board tax cut or new spending programs....This legislation would prevent, for example, the $13 billion appropriation Congress made from the Social Security surplus just last week to pay for a measure that totaled $15 billion in so-called spending, when we were forced to make a choice between funding our troops and saving the Social Security surplus."

Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio): "For more than 30 years big spenders in Washington have been raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for unrelated programs and pet projects. Even after the Congress claimed that it had put a wall between Social Security and general spending by taking the trust fund off-budget, the big spenders continued to dip into our seniors' retirement savings."

Mark Sanford (R-SC): "Social Security is a big part of government. It represents 22 cents of every dollar that Washington spends. Unfortunately, it also represents a lot of what politicians borrow. Taxes that are collected for Social Security are supposed to be used only to pay benefits that American workers have earned over their lifetime. But the government is very bad at keeping its hands off other people's money. Just last year, Uncle Sam borrowed $103 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for other government spending. If that money had been deposited in personal retirement accounts across the nation, there would have been no way for politicians to 'borrow' it -- few people would send the government a check from their own retirement nest egg to cover bureaucrats' spending."

John Kasich (R-Ohio) Chairman of the House Budget Committee: "Let's face it, here in Washington the temptation is strong to raid these historic budget surpluses to fund other government programs. The President, for example, proposed to spend $52 billion of the Social Security surplus just next year. Lock this money away so that neither the Congress nor the White House can fritter it away on their pet spending projects."

Steve Chabot (R-Ohio): "Mr. Speaker, this is one Member who is more than willing to stay here until Christmas if that's what it takes to stave off another tax grab by the Clinton Administration or a raid on the Social Security trust fund. American families are taxed more than enough. Leave them alone, Mr. President. And keep your hands off their Social Security."

Van Hilleary (R-Tennessee) House Budget Committee member: "There was strong support among Town Hall meeting attendees that the money Washington takes for the Social Security program should only be used for Social Security. In the past, Washington raided the Social Security Trust Fund and used the money on all sorts of pet programs."

Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "We are locking away more than the President for Social Security and Medicare. By taking Social Security 'off-budget,' this Republican plan protects Social Security money from being spent on other government programs. It signals an end to the days of raiding our seniors' retirement money to fund other spending whims. It ensures our seniors' retirement incomes will be there when they need it.

Wally Herger (R-CA) "Mr. Speaker, for over 30 years, surplus dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund were raided and spent on unrelated programs. Last year, this Congress took the first step towards stopping the raid on Social Security bypassing legislation I introduced, the Social Security lock box, by an overwhelming 416 to 12 vote. Our efforts paid off, and last year, not one penny of the $124 billion Social Security surplus was spent. But Social Security is not the only trust fund to be raided over the years. Over the next 5 years, taxpayers will pay an estimated $126 billion more into the Medicare trust fund part A which pays for in-patient hospital care than will be taken out for Medicare expenses. Without a Medicare lock box, those surpluses will be spent.

John R. Thune (R-SD): "Last year, the Republican Congress did the right thing. We said that we are going to rope off social security and make sure it does not get spent for other purposes, because for far too long in this Congress social security and Medicare surpluses and trust funds have been Washington's cookie jar to fund all these other programs in government

Anne M. Northup (R-KY): "I am proud to be part of a Congress that is trying to change that culture that has been with us for 40 years, that one could spend every dollar one could take, and that one could spend it when it is meant for future obligations in what feels good today or programs that we have today or new ideas that people have, that there is no limit."

Gene Taylor (D-Mississippi) during arguments on the 2002 budget (April, 2000): "How does a nation that owes the Social Security Trust Fund 1 trillion, 103 billion dollars of unfunded liability, money that's been taken from people's paychecks and squandered on other things, how can we say we have a surplus? How can a nation that's taken 235 billion, 500 million of people's tax dollars, promised to spend it towards Medicare, and spend it on other things, and tell people that we've got a surplus? How can a nation that's taken 160 billion, 500 million dollars out of the military budget over the past 15 years, set it aside with the promise that we're going to spend it on our military retirees, but spend every penny of it on other things, how do you have a surplus? And finally, for our federal employees, how do you take 497 billion, 600 million out of their paychecks, promise to set it aside for their retirement, spend it on other things, then look them in the eye and tell them we've got a surplus?"

Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland): "He's (the President) pushing his plan on how to privatize Social Security. No idea, and no plan in his budget on how to pay for it, unless that is, of course, we continue to raid the Social Security surplus."

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SENATORS CONFESS - excerpts from the Senate

PRESIDENT CONFESSES