This bill cuts taxes by nearly $1 trillion, period. It does not do anything to protect Social Security. And it does not do anything for debt reduction. All it is is a $1 trillion tax cut over 10 years. 

Let us look at those numbers that they use to assume how they are going to cover all of these promises that they have made. We hear of a $3 trillion surplus over 10 years. Right off the top, $2 trillion of that is in the Social Security surplus. Then we hear that the folks on the majority side are kindly setting aside this $2 trillion for Social Security. They do not have to. It is already there. It is in the Social Security trust fund. Furthermore, that $2 trillion regrettably does not do anything to help us with the coming shortfalls in Social Security. That is the current system. That is not doing anything for Social Security. That is just covering the existing debts. It does not do anything to help with the coming problem. 

So to say that you are setting that $2 trillion aside for Social Security is meaningless. Yet that is what we continue to hear. So we are left with $1 trillion. Well, that is all gone in tax cuts. Where is the debt reduction? 

We hear from them that they have all this debt reduction, which is not in the bill and the numbers are clear: $3 trillion over 10 years, $2 trillion is gone for Social Security, $1 trillion is left and it is done in tax cuts. Yet we hear this constant rhetoric, we are doing all of these things, debt reduction, Social Security, occasionally they throw in Medicare. It does not add up. It is overpromising. It is based on projections, furthermore. And those projections include two key projections: One, it already locks in 20 percent cuts in existing spending over those 10 years to get to that number. We have not even begun to do those cuts. In fact we just declared the census an emergency yesterday to get around them this year, much less 10 years from now. Furthermore, these projections count on continued growth, no recession. So if any of this does not come to pass, we do not even have that $1 trillion that is already to be done in tax cuts. 

Lastly, we hear that this is all about giving money back to the people and letting them make their decisions. Medicare and Social Security are two things the government does. Should we get rid of those programs to give the money back? Some programs need to be funded. The government does need to do some things.