The campaign of state Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill) says that U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) is hiding from his "record of voting to raid the Social Security trust fund."

The campaign is referring to comments that Chabot made during the Waycross Community Media debate for Ohio's 1st Congressional District on Tuesday.

The Driehaus camp says that while Chabot denied ever voting to "raid" the fund, a "quick check of his voting record shows that in 2005, 2002, 2001, and 1998 he repeatedly voted to raid the trust fund to pay for other government spending."

"Steve Chabot has a habit of trying to balance the federal budget on the back of Social Security, putting seniors at risk," said Driehaus campaign manager Melissa Wideman.  "These irresponsible accounting tricks might have been acceptable at Enron, but our seniors will not tolerate this irresponsible management of their retirement security.  Cincinnatians want a real fiscal conservative in Congress who will make the hard budget decisions, not raid the Social Security Trust Fund to balance the books."    

The Driehaus campaign points to 2005, when they say Chabot voted for both a budget conference report and a budget resolution that would spend $1.1 trillion of the Social Security Trust Fund over five years to pay for other government spending.

The Driehaus campaign says that in 2002, 2001, and 1998, Chabot voted for similar budget resolutions that attempted to balance the federal budget by using the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund. The Driehaus camp cites the following:

• 2002: Chabot voted in favor of a budget that the President's own Office of Management and Budget said would spend 86 percent of the Social Security surplus over that fiscal year and the following five-year budget window (2002-2007). [HCR 353, Vote 79, 3/20/2002]
• 2001: In 2001, Chabot voted twice in favor of a budget that called for using about $600 billion of the Social Security surplus to fund new privatized retirement accounts for stock market investment. [HCR 83, vote 70, 3/28/001 and vote 104, 5/09/2001]
• 1998: In 1999, Chabot voted in favor of a bill to cut taxes by $80.1 billion over five years, including $6.6 billion in cuts in fiscal 1999. The nonpartisan policy institute Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the tax cut would "divert portions of the surplus designated by statute for the Social Security system to finance tax cuts." [Center for Responsive Politics, 9/16/1998; HR 4579, vote 469, 9/26/1998]

The Driehaus camp has repeatedly gone after Chabot on the Social Security issue.

The Chabot camp says that Chabot's true position is that he has serious concerns with proposals that would reduce Social Security benefits or raise taxes. 

"Chabot is not for the privatization of Social Security, as Mr. Driehaus' liberal allies would have voters believe, but rather, he thinks workers should have the option of investing a portion of their money into a personal account to try to improve their return," the Chabot campaign said. "Chabot is also a longtime cosponsor of the 'lockbox legislation' that would prohibit Congress from raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to spend those funds on unrelated programs."