It's time for U.S. lawmakers to start dealing with the deficit in the Social Security program, said U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau.

The Social Security trust fund is $700 billion in debt due to loans to other government programs "to mask size of the federal deficit. This is wrong," Emerson said Thursday night in a speech to the Cape Girardeau Kiwanis Club at Drury Lodge.

The Social Security program, like the federal highway trust fund, "needs to be kept off budget" to ensure full funding of its designated program, she said.

"We definitely have to deal with Social Security this year," Emerson said, adding she expects a special commission to be set up later this year to study the issue.

Americans now receiving benefits or nearing benefit age are safe, she said.

But Baby Boomers nearing retirement age and the generation following "do face some challenges" in determining how to replenish the Social Security program, Emerson said.

Lawmakers are considering funneling budget surpluses back into the Social Security trust fund.

There are also proposals pending to set up individual accounts funded by the FICA tax to be managed by the taxpayers themselves.

"It's a discussion that needs to begin now," Emerson said. "The trust fund is due to be insolvent by the year 2029. While that's not tomorrow, it certainly is near enough in the future that we need to begin planning."

Congress and the White House are due to begin haggling over the federal budget soon, Emerson said.

Congress will submit a balanced budget this year, she said, and President Clinton has presented his spending plan, "and that's his vision. And Congress has its vision, and the House has its vision and the Senate has its vision."

Emerson said the president's budget proposal includes $65 billion in new taxes as part of the tobacco settlement, "which has been scuttled."

"My conservative colleagues do not believe that there should be any tax increases in the tobacco settlement," she said, favoring payments to directly to people who suffer health problems linked to tobacco use.