The House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to wall off part of the fiscal year 2000 budget surplus and use it to pay down the public debt, keeping the money out of the hands of legislators as they head toward another omnibus spending bill negotiation.
The measure (H.R. 4601) was approved Thursday with a bipartisan 32-3 vote, but Democrats mocked the measure as a gimmick with little real consequence.
"It is hard to vote against a bill that does so little," quipped ranking Democrat Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y.
The measure will create an account to hold any on-budget surplus over the $24.4 billion estimated in March by the Congressional Budget Office, the accounting arm of Congress. The surplus-expected to be over $40 billion-would then be used to pay down the public debt, which stands at $3.6 trillion.
Both sides seemed to ignore a warning, contained in a letter from Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, that the bill could damage U.S. credit. Summers criticized the use of debt limits as an "additional means of imposing restraint."
The debate instead focused on whether the bill, narrow even by the admission of supporter and Committee Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, was actually necessary. Rangel pointed out that any non-Social Security surplus already goes toward paying down the debt, and that this law was unlikely to keep lawmakers away from extra spending if that is what they decide to do.
But supporters of the bill said it sends an important signal. "We want to be able to say that [the surplus] is locked in," said Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, a co-sponsor of the bill.
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