Congressional Corner from Representative Gene Taylor: Help Me Fight the Trust Fund Raids

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Congressional Corner from Representative Gene Taylor: Help Me Fight the Trust Fund Raids

By Representative Gene Taylor (D-MS)

Your help is needed to stop the U.S. Government from using surplus Social Security, Medicare, and military retirement funds to disguise the size of the budget deficit. I’m asking you to support me in this fight.

If the American people were given the real picture on the deficit of the United States for fiscal year 2003, the deficit would have been shown to be $584 billion, rather than the misleading $374 billion figure that was relayed to the American people. This is because the Social Security surplus, as well as other trust fund surpluses, is used to mask the size of the deficit.

Contrary to popular belief, Social Security and other trust fund monies are not kept separate from other government funds. The government uses those monies when it needs to, and simply writes an IOU to the trust fund. At the end of the 2003 fiscal year, the U.S. government owed the Social Security trust funds some $1.48 trillion. That’s your retirement money, my friend—it’s an IOU. If you’re retired military, you might want to note that the U.S. government owes the military retirement fund $172 billion.

I brought up this issue when I met with my former colleague and now TSCL legislative consultant David Funderburk and TSCL Legislative Director Patty Gaul late last year. I first introduced a resolution in the 107th Congress that calls for a constitutional amendment to protect trust funds from being raided by politicians who don’t want to make the tough calls necessary in their budgetary decisions. The TSCL legislative team was anxious to ask the Board of Trustees to formally support the resolution in the 108th Congress. In the beginning of the second session of the 108th Congress, I reintroduced the constitutional amendment. I was proud to have TSCL’s endorsement of the resolution.

In the past, there have been non-binding resolutions and the like to protect Social Security and other trust funds. The problem with this approach is the White House and Congress always found a way to ignore the intent of Congress and to spend those surplus funds anyway. That’s why I believe—as does TSCL—that we need a constitutional amendment to protect the earned benefits of our seniors.

In fiscal year 2003, the IOUs in six trust funds (two Social Security, two Medicare, military retirement and federal employees’ retirement) earned $150 billion in interest, all paid with more IOUs. To redeem those IOUs when the benefits are due, the next generation of Americans will have to come up with the real money. As a father and as a civil servant, that frightens and angers me.

I am currently working to gather support for my constitutional amendment resolution among my colleagues. You can help by writing or calling your elected representatives and asking them to support my resolution, H.J.Res 88. Together, we can educate the American people and move the resolution through the legislative process so the states can ratify it. The American people deserve no less!

April 2004