March 11, 2001

Washington, D.C.-America's senior citizens should have a few things they can count on in their retirement years - they should be able count on their children and grandchildren to visit often, they should be able to count on spending more time relaxing and doing what pleases them, and they should count on a Social Security system they have spent a lifetime paying into to be there for them in its entirety.

One would assume that the promise made to the American people, to provide regular payments during retirement years to help retiring seniors offset the lack of a regular paycheck, would naturally be kept. But that won't be the case unless we make sure Washington keeps it's greedy hands out of the Social Security receipts.

That's why I voted to lock away both the Social Security and Medicare surpluses with the "Social Security and Medicare Lockbox Act of 2001." This bill will prevent the surpluses of the Social Security and Medicare Part A trust funds from being used for any purpose other than providing retirement and health security. It will lock away every penny of the $2.6 trillion Social Security surplus for Social Security alone.

You might think that it's just common sense that when the government takes money out of your paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, commonly called FICA taxes, that it would set aside any leftover money to pay for increasing Social Security and Medicare costs in future years. That would make sense - but what makes sense and what government does are oftentimes two different things. Until we put a stop to the practice, these surpluses were spent on government programs that had nothing to do with retirement security. We have put a stop to that. And passing this lockbox legislation will ensure that future surpluses aren't spent on unrelated government programs. For those who would use these surpluses for non-retirement security purposes, the lockbox says: hands off the Social Security and Medicare surpluses.

With the current budget surplus, we will be able to meet our obligations to fund our priorities, provide a tax cut for working Americans, and pay down the debt without touching any of the Social Security or Medicare portions of the budget surplus. And as the baby boom generation gets older, the stresses on the government retirement system will only increase. We must take the responsibility now to ensure the integrity of Social Security and Medicare to those Americans at or near retirement age, who have spent a lifetime preparing for their sunset years in the hopes those funds would be there for them.