Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed that so far in this Congress we have not yet seen any sincere effort to cut any spending. The latest ploy has been the Treasury report that claims the deficit is shrinking up to nothing. In the first 6 months of this year we are in deficit of $101 billion and this is claimed to be a victory, thus taking off the pressure to work harder to cut spending. How did they do this?

The first thing we did was we sent the IRS agents out and hounded the American people and collected $28 billion more than they did in the first 6 months of the last fiscal year. But they did something else. They keep borrowing from the trust funds. They borrow from the Social Security fund, further jeopardizing that whole program. Looking at the statistics more carefully, they claim the deficit is $111, but during the past 12 months our national debt went up $241 billion. There is no way to predict what the next 6 months will bring. Interest rates may rise, revenues may dwindle if the markets and the economy slumps.

I think that we ought to have some truth in lending and truth in legislating here by honestly telling the American people that there is something wrong here that could and should be adjusted with decreased spending, not raising taxes and not further robbing the Social Security trust fund.

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