Senate Defeats Medicare, Social Security ‘Lockbox’ Bills

The Senate yesterday defeated two "lockbox" measures to "protect" the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, the AP/Washington Times reports. On a 54-42 vote, senators voted down a Democratic plan that would require 60 senators to approve future tax cuts or spending that would "eat into" projected Social Security or Medicare surpluses. The Senate also voted 54-43 against a GOP plan that would have "automatically triggered" spending reductions if Social Security funds were threatened. The AP/Times reports that "partisan finger pointing" escalated as each party contended that the other was responsible for "dwindling surplus projections." Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chair of the Budget Committee, said, "I call [the second defeated bill] the Republican broken safe, because there's not a penny reserved for Medicare." But the bill's sponsor, Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), said his plan was "a fire wall against irresponsible spending" (AP/Washington Times, 7/11). After "blocking each other's efforts" to enact lockbox legislation, the senators voted 98-1 in favor of a $6.5 billion spending measure for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the majority of the funding is earmarked for defense, the plan appropriates $100 million for the U.N. to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and $84 million in compensation for miners and civilians in the Southwest "sickened" by nuclear weapons testing (Fram, AP/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7/11).