[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 1, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16455-S16459]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AARP AND SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I came to the floor this morning to speak 
lightly about the AARP, which I will do in a moment. But, as my 
colleague from North Dakota is here, and I have listened to his 
comments today, or a portion of them, and also over the past weeks 
listened to a series of these presentations about the rich versus the 
poor, and various allusions about what sounds to me almost like class 
distinction, class warfare, and also discussions of things like Social 
Security.
  My friend, the senior Senator from North Dakota asks: Why does 
someone not come to the floor and speak on the issue of trade? He 
relates that not four people will come to the floor to do that. I can 
tell you, not four people will come to the floor and tell the people 
honestly what is happening to Social Security either. It is going 
broke. And people here on this floor who speak a great deal will let it 
go broke. There is not any question about what will happen to it.
  And there is not a single argument rendered in this debate on 
reconciliation, where we are talking about Republicans taking from 
Social Security, where the Democrats did not do exactly the same all 
these decades. There has not been a single budget in my presence here 
that did not do what was just done here with Social Security. It was 
done under Carter, it was done under Reagan, it was done under Bush, 
and it is being done under Clinton. The Senator from North Dakota knows 
that. I am on the Finance Committee. There is not a single one of us 
who does not know that the same ``masking process,'' the same 
chicanery, the same smoke and mirrors has been pulled off by the 
Democrats and the Republicans in my entire 17 years here. There is not 
any question about that.
  The Senator's colleague from North Dakota is on the Finance 
Committee, and he would also share that information with the senior 
Senator from North Dakota. Without any question, if anyone believes 
that the Republicans are doing something different with Social Security 
than what the Democrats have done, the same way, the same years--or the 
Republicans--please be disabused.
  I think we should at least remember one--everyone is entitled to 
their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts. If Social 
Security is going to be used in this way, as some horrifying example of 
being ripped to shreds, then go read the Trustees' Report of Social 
Security, which was not prepared by the hobgoblins of the right or 
Ronald Reagan or George Bush. It was prepared by three of the 
President's Cabinet: Robert Rubin, Robert Reich, Donna Shalala, with 
the Commissioner Shirley Chater adding her dimension, and one 
Republican and one Democrat appointed from the general public.
  What do they tell us? They tell us that the solvency of Social 
Security is ``unsustainable.'' We can get another word, we can use 
``broke.'' It is unsustainable in 75 years, unsustainable in every way. 
We know it, the Senator from North Dakota knows it, but more 
importantly the trustees know it. If anyone wishes to have a copy of 
that document, I will be very pleased to share it, because it shows 
that in the year 2013 we will have to be trading in the old IOU's and 
getting the bonds cashed, which is then a double hit on Social 
Security.
  Meanwhile--and I will get to my full theme a bit later--the AARP, 
this remarkable group of people, the American Association of Retired 
People, this extraordinary group of 33 million people bound together by 
a common love of airline discounts and automobile discounts and 
pharmacy discounts and every other discount known to man or woman, is a 
group of organized people who have already settled with the IRS on a 
claim of back taxes for $135 million.
  They asked their executive director, ``How did you pay that?'' and he 
said, ``We just wrote a check.'' They have $314 million in the bank, in 
T-bills. They lease a little hut down here in downtown for $17 million 
a year; a 20-year lease at $17 million a year. That is your AARP, 
speaking for ``the little guy.''
  Where we are is--if anyone cannot understand it yet, is who we are 
going to hear continually about the little guy, the poor, the 
downtrodden, the oppressed, the abused in society--and does anyone in 
America know how Social Security will be restored to solvency? There 
are only two ways. You reduce the benefits or you increase the payroll 
tax. And what do you think the senior groups are continually 
requesting? I can tell you, it is not reducing the benefits; it is 
increasing the payroll tax.
  And who pays the payroll tax? You got it, the little guy pays the 
payroll tax. The little guy in America is the ``stick-ee'' of this 
remarkable process regarding Social Security.
  If you will remember, our fine colleague from New York, Senator Pat 
Moynihan, and a ``Blue Ribbon Commission,'' in the early 1980's, got 
together and honestly put this program ``on the table'' and got off the 
table all the tired babble about Social Security, about the poor and 
the wretched, the disabled and the infirm and so on--got that off the 
table and said, ``This program is going broke, absolutely broke.'' 
Senator Moynihan and a remarkable group of Democrats and Republicans 
then came together. That is impossible in this atmosphere. The water in 
the well is so poisoned now on this issue, we could never address it 
again. You are not supposed to even touch it. My mail will fill the 
room and the phone system will bust down later in the day as I choose 
to address this remarkable issue of Social Security.
  So you have the situation where it was going broke and the Commission 
made some sensible recommendations. The recommendations were made in a 
very conscientious, bipartisan manner, to reflect that, if these things 
were carried out--and remember what one of them was; it was increasing 
of the payroll tax; but we were ready for that then--that the Social 
Security system would be saved until the year 2069. I hope you will 
hear that, 2069.
  That gave everyone a remarkable sense of a job well done. Except, 
since the early 1980's, through, now, the projections of the Social 
Security Administration and the trustees themselves keep moving up the 
doomsday date.
  And guess what the date of insolvency is now for Social Security? It 
is not the year 2069 or 2063 or 2050 or 2040. It is 2029. So since the 
early 1980's, Social Security is still long-term unsustainable, and the 
doomsday date--in just 13 years--has been moved from 2069 to 2029--
moved up 40 years. Next year it is very likely the trustees may present 
to us their report saying that it will not be sustained past the year 
2025. What a tragedy. And here we sit--all of us just sitting. We know 
it. We all know it.
  I am going to accept the word of those three fine Democratic Cabinet 
members, who I respect and know--each of them individually. They are 
able Americans. I like them personally. We have our differences 
politically. But these fine people are telling us that in the year 
2012--stretch it to 2013, if you want to--that the IOU's will be cashed 
in. Bonds will be then sold, and the American people will take a hit 
that will take the Social Security system from the year 2013 completely 
to bankruptcy in the year 2029. Everybody knows it. There is not a soul 
that can come into this debate and tell me that is not true. They will 
not come to this Chamber and tell me that is not true. We all know it.
  So we continue our process of these short-term fixes. Senator Bob 
Kerrey and I, in a bipartisan effort, have presented seven bills to 
restore solvency to the Social Security system. If you really want to 
get aboard, we are looking for cosponsors. But it is a little difficult 
to pick up cosponsors when you mention the secret sinister dual phrase 
``Social Security'' and necessity to restore its ``solvency'' because 
people do not believe it. But Bob Kerrey and I believe it.

[[Page S 16456]]

  So, if we are going to be doing some positive things, why, take a 
look at the good thoughtful bipartisan approach of Senator Bob Kerrey 
and myself and what we are doing to save the Social Security system--
without any gimmickry whatsoever. We are going to phase up the 
retirement age. We are going to let people put in 2 percent of their 
payroll tax into a personal investment plan where they can call the 
shots on that themselves, 4\1/2\ percent would then still go to the 
Social Security system, which will reduce the size of the benefit and 
will also help to salvage the system.
  If the American people understand nothing else--and the fortunate 
part of all this is that we have a year to tell them what really 
happened in reconciliation--if we had but just a few months or weeks, 
we would never be able to get it through the clatter, the flak, and the 
tinfoil that is being shot out over America to, I guess, divert truth. 
But we will have that opportunity for an entire year to tell the 
American people exactly what we are doing--such things as ``doing 
something'' with Medicare, which is going to go broke in the year 2002. 
You have heard that. You are thinking, there he goes again, and they 
are all nuts. They are just telling us that.
  We all know what we did in the reconciliation by allowing Medicare to 
go up 6.4 percent per year, and so I want everyone to be absolutely 
cheered to know that Medicare will now not go broke in the year 2002. 
No, it will go broke in the year 2009. Everybody knows that. I know it. 
Those on the other side of the aisle know it. The President knows it.
  Think of this. This is what is happening. These numbers are correct. 
No one can come and challenge these figures. Somebody will come in and 
say, ``He is terribly wrong. It will not go broke until the year 
2012.'' That ought to cheer us all, too. It will not go broke in 2002. 
It will not go broke in 2009. It will go broke in 2012. That is pretty 
short rations in any form.
  If we are continually trying to frighten ``the little guy,'' then 
there is a good way to really frighten the little guy. Tell him or that 
Medicare will not just be there going up 6.4 percent each and every 
year; it will be broke, flat busted, out of money. Tell them that. That 
will get a reaction out of them--probably a little more startling than 
being told it had been cut. ``Cut schmut!'' How can you say ``cut'' 
when you go up 6.4 percent? That is exactly what we are doing. So if 
you like to frighten the little guy, let us do it right.
  Let us just get down to the political reality because we live in that 
arena. Let us say that we fail to tell our story in a year. There is 
not a question in my mind but that we will, and the American people 
know that finally a responsible political party decided to do something 
responsible.
  Let us say we fail, and they take up a pitchfork on November 6, 1996, 
and just pitch us all out in the snow, which they have a way of doing 
in this country--recalling that ``Get out before they throw you out'' 
is a great phrase in our line of work.
  Let us say they do that. And I guess the campaign then to that date 
to have done that would be a simple one. It will be that ``We saw what 
those rascals, the ragamuffin Republicans, did to you, and we are going 
to get it all back for you. We are not going to let Medicare go up only 
6.4 percent, which is the horrible thing they did to you. No, we are 
going to let it go up 10 percent and 12 percent a year just like it did 
before. We are not going to let them get away with letting Medicaid go 
up only 4.8 percent. We are going to let it go up 9 just like it did 
before. We are not going to let them talk about phasing up the 
retirement age of Medicare so that it matches that same increment of 
Social Security, which we have already done.''
  If that all happens then any figures that I have given you from the 
trustees or other sources--just accelerate them up 100 percent, and all 
of the systems will go broke even faster. Each and every one of them 
will go broke faster.
  Ladies and gentlemen, if we can also get away from the travesty of 
pretending that there really is a Social Security trust fund and that 
somehow we politicians on both sides of the aisle dabble in it and mix 
around in it with our hands as if it were something from the cauldron 
in the first act of Macbeth, as we draw it out of there and wildly 
spend it. Remember there is no Social Security trust fund. And we have 
never ``dipped into it.'' I take it back. One time we did. But that 
lasted only about 2 days. We spanked our own hands so vigorously the 
redness is still there. We never did that again, and cannot, and will 
not by law.
  So, these funds are all in IOU's because the law on Social Security 
says whenever there are surpluses in Social Security--and there are 
huge surpluses right now, and they will become ever more magnificent. 
They could reach $2 trillion before 2012 when the big decline, the 
final fall off, the ultimate drawdown, begins to take place.
  So here we are knowing these things--all of us. All of us know it, 
and we all know, too, that the surplus cannot be used except to be 
placed in securities of the United States of America, secured by the 
full faith and credit of the United States. So every single penny of 
reserves of Social Security is, by law, used to purchase T-bills, 
savings bonds, whatever, backed by the full faith and credit of the 
United States and purchased by your bank, and purchased by individuals 
and other nations' too. The interest on those securities is not paid 
from any Social Security trust fund or funds. It is paid from the 
general Treasury of the United States of America. No one can come to 
the floor and say that is not the case.
  So, when the time comes--and it is coming soon--for when I was a 
freshman at the University of Wyoming, there were 16 people paying into 
the Social Security system and one person taking benefits out. Today, 
there are three people paying into the Social Security system and one 
person taking out, and in 20 years there will be two people paying into 
the Social Security system and one taking out. How long do you think 
that the younger generation then is going to sit and put up $10,500 
each, two people, to sustain a person at $21,000 a year or $20,000 or 
similar amount on Social Security?
  The saddest part of the debate in the last 3 years was that this 
President, President Clinton, put in his first budget--and I commend 
him sincerely and heartily for it--an entire section called 
``intergenerational accounting.'' It was powerful stuff. It was real. 
It was true. It talked about what is going to happen--the program is 
unsustainable, what will occur to the young people, and how it has to 
be adjusted. Yet this time in his budget presentation there was not one 
single word about ``intergenerational accounting,'' not a word.
  I find through my less-than-positive sources, since I labor in 
minority status there on Pennsylvania Avenue, that the good, thoughtful 
people on the President's cabinet and staff wanted to include that 
statement again, Secretary Reich, Dr. Alice Rivlin, several there--but 
that the ``political types'' in the White House said: Do not touch that 
one again. You touched it the first time and it was so true it even 
leaked down and people could understand what was going to happen to 
those systems. But do not touch it this time.
  So we did not touch it. He did not touch it. And then he appointed 
this fine commission to look into these entitlements, with Bob Kerrey 
and Jack Danforth as chair and co-chair. They did a beautiful job. Read 
their report. I commend that to anyone. Then soon after that 
appointment we did another little statute that said we owe it to 
ourselves to examine into these various programs, and somehow we left 
off the word and the entire program of ``Medicare.'' We will not 
address the word ``Medicare.'' The word ``Medicare'' is left out, and 
that is the one that is really eating our lunch. That is the one that 
is going to go broke, and that is the one we all know will go broke.
  Now, if we can wade through this type of garbled activity in these 
next days and weeks, we may be able to get there. If we can wade 
through it in the next year, we may be able to get there.
  And who did this? Who visited this sinful pile of debt upon us? Well, 
let me tell you. I hope the American people understand who did this. We 
did this. This was not done by Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter or George 
Bush or President Clinton. We in the Congress did this. The Presidents 
of the United 

[[Page S 16457]]

States get not a single vote on this. They can veto it, yes. But no 
votes . I have watched this game for 17 years. Wire up a budget, ship 
it to the President, see if it will blow up under their chair. It is a 
great trick. Democrats are highly skilled at it. Republicans, it will 
take us a little longer to learn. Put it together, roll it back and 
forth up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, and see if it will detonate 
under whose chair. And that will not solve much for the people of 
America.
  But we did this. There is not a one of us in this Chamber, including 
your loyal scrivener and correspondent of the moment, who did not 
``hire on'' in some way to bring home the bacon. Bring home the bacon: 
Go get the HUD program; go get this center; this building; go get the 
farm money; go get this; go get the dam; go get that; all accompanied 
with a press release.
  Who do you think did it? Nobody but us. I do not have the courage I 
used to, to do the press release anymore saying, ``Senator Simpson 
announced today more bucks for his State.'' It is a good way to get 
reelected forever, I guess. People I know who have been here have done 
just that. Bring home the bacon.
  I would love to share with you the outlay of Federal expenditures per 
capita to the various States of the Union, and then you might know who 
represents those people in this Chamber of the Senate. You would be 
very intrigued to see who brings home the most bacon, who burdens the 
taxpayers--burdens the taxpayers most.
  Mr. President, $3.6 billion goes to one State with only 0.2 percent 
of the population of the United States. How about that, $3.6 billion in 
Federal outlays to a State with a population of 638,800. That is a per 
capita spending of almost $6,000 of taxpayers' money per person. It is 
No. 6 in the country per capita.
  Those things need to be known, and they are not known. It is time 
they were known if we have to get into this kind of a continual ritual 
that somehow this is abject trickery or somehow it is ``the rich versus 
the poor.''
  Ladies and gentlemen, I know this is shocking, but I have a theory 
about what we might do with the rich. Oh yes. Instead of taxing them 
more, we might well confiscate everything they have. Just take it all. 
Take every stock certificate, every yacht, every ranch, every villa or 
home, every trust, and just snatch it, take it. Go down through the 
Forbe's 400 and the Fortune 500--I am talking about individual wealth 
now--and just snake it off the table, every penny. And guess what? It 
will run the country for about 7 months. Got it. It is a figure of 
about $800 billion. Yes I am talking about the Wal-Mart money; I am 
talking about every family in America that we look upon as ``the 
rich.'' Take it all and it will run the country for 7 months because, 
ladies and gentlemen, the budget of the United States this year is 
$1.506 trillion. Got it? One year.
  Does anyone believe that we are not ``doing something'' for 
Americans? Can anyone believe in their heart and mind and soul that we 
are doing nothing for our country and its men and women and children 
when we are spending $1.506 trillion this year--1 year--1 year to run 
the United States of America?
  I know it is painful to go through these figures again, but it is 
very true that 1 percent of these ``rich'' pay 27.4 percent of all 
taxes in the United States of America. Oh I know I should not even have 
said it. And the top 5 percent pay 45.9 percent of all taxes in 
America, and the top 10 percent pay 57.5 percent of all taxes into the 
Federal Treasury of America. The bottom 50 percent pay only 1.5 
percent, ladies and gentlemen. Those are figures from the Census 
Bureau, figures from the IRS, figures from the GAO report, and that is 
that.
  So when you give tax relief, which the President desperately wants to 
do too--the President of the United States has decided that he wants to 
give people a tax cut. We in the Republican faith have decided that we 
want to give people a tax cut. The President of the United States has 
said that he would like to see Medicare go up only 7.1 percent. We are 
saying that we would like to see it go up only 6.4 percent. So we are 
not that far away.
  Obviously, the President and this Republican majority are right on 
track with Medicare, but you would never know that. Oh, no, a serious 
``cut'' is taking place. What is it then that the President is doing? 
Is that not a cut? You either cut or you cut or you slow an increase or 
you slow an increase. A rose is a rose is a rose. So if the 6.4 percent 
increase of the Republicans is a cut, then the 7.1 percent increase of 
the President is a cut, and we and the public should both use the same 
vocabulary on that. We will get there somehow. If we dull the rhetoric 
and the warfare, we will get there.
  So I just think it is always appropriate to talk about Social 
Security. And when people come to the floor and say let us leave it 
off, we ought to leave off the table Social Security, well yes we all 
did that. It was a magnificent flight from reality. How do you leave 
out of the equation something that is worth $360 billion? Social 
Security, ladies and gentlemen, is $360 billion a year.
  As we scratch around for money on this floor, where we are looking 
for something for my State or something for the State of the Senator 
from North Dakota, looking for only $100,000 or $2 million or $3 
million, I can tell you where we could have found a ton of it. You just 
saw a cost-of-living allowance go out to Social Security recipients 
regardless of their net worth or their income. It was $8.7 billion.
  Mr. President, $8.7 billion went out to all of the recipients of 
Social Security on a 2.6 percent COLA, judged by the CPI, Consumer 
Price Index, and all of it with no means testing, no affluence testing, 
nothing, some of it going to people who have gotten all of their Social 
Security taxes back in the first 5 years. You know that, I know that. 
To some people the difference is not the cost of living but the cost of 
living it up. And we make no means test. No affluence test of any kind.
  You have the issue of part B premiums. If we are really talking about 
the little guy now, I want to hear much more about the little guy when 
we talk about part B premiums because, ladies and gentlemen, part B 
premiums are totally voluntary. Part B is totally voluntary. It was 
never part of any contract with anyone, certainly not with the seniors, 
because you step up, and they say, ``Do you want part B? If you do, you 
are going to pay $46.10 a month.'' And $46.10 a month is 30 percent of 
the premium.
  So, ladies and gentlemen, if you really want to talk about the little 
guy, then remember that the wealthiest people in America who have 
voluntarily chosen part B coverage are paying 30 percent of the 
premium, and the people that maintain this building at night when we 
shut down the action in this ``cave of the winds,'' the people who are 
working hard here, are paying 70 percent of the premium for the 
wealthiest people in America. Got that? Not one person can refute that. 
I want to hear from anyone on that one, if we have any rebuttal at all 
on that one. There will be none. So, 70 percent of all the premiums on 
part B, which is voluntary and which is an income transfer program, are 
paid by the general taxpayers of the United States.
  Let me conclude. I have here in my hand the most fascinating and 
intriguing mailing sent out to me by ``the mother of all mailers'' in 
the United States. This is the AARP I speak of again. The mother of all 
nonprofit mailers. And 1.5 percent of all mail in the United States 
under their particular permit class is by the AARP, ladies and 
gentlemen. And a larger percent of the mail men and mail women all over 
America get hernias carrying their good works and telling of the 
unselfish efforts of the AARP--applications for credit cards, 
insurance, investment advice, and even tax counseling, which is a 
dazzling array of services. I think they do need tax counseling 
because, you see, they settled with the IRS for $136 million that they 
had not paid in taxes because of unrelated business income. But 
remember, they just wrote a check. That is your poor, beleaguered AARP.
  But, anyway, they sent this. It came to the mother of one of our 
colleagues. Of course, the AARP is, as I say, the mother of all 
nonprofit mailers. You might remember them. We sent that group $86 
million in Federal--that is, taxpayers'--money last year.
  This is also the noble group that rakes in more than $110 million--
million--annually in insurance premiums and does not pay any taxes on 
that. 

[[Page S 16458]]

 Prudential, New York Life, RV Insurance, no; remember they get 3 
percent of every premium paid--from Prudential Life Insurance Co. And 
this is also the group that has over $300 million in T-bills just 
``sitting around,'' lying around.
  But one clear use they have found for all their vast money is to use 
it in what I call ``astroturf'' lobbying, which is different from 
``grassroots'' lobbying. Surely you know that. You know what astroturf 
is. It is fake grass, phony, a synthetic facsimile. And ``fakery'' is a 
pretty darn appropriate word to describe the tactics that they employ 
in this piece of correspondence.
  I honestly, for the life of me, cannot figure out how an organization 
of this size, power and clout cannot afford to hire some poor soul to 
get their facts straight. Maybe they do not care to. Perhaps deception 
is the intention. For starters, they say that the Senate ``will vote on 
a proposal to cut Medicare spending by $276 billion over the next 7 
years.''
  There is that word ``cut'' again. We will want to see it again when 
they describe the President's proposal on Medicare, which is a 7.1 
percent increase in Medicare. We will see if they use that word ``cut'' 
again. They used it again when they say ``this level of `cuts' is 
unprecedented,'' even though they all know full well that under this 
plan Medicare will go up 6.4 percent per year, faster than any other 
major spending category in the budget. And, ladies and gentlemen, does 
anyone in this Chamber or in this country believe that if we are able 
to do this--and we will--that 7 years from now we will say a 6.4-
percent increase was not enough, so we should raise it, or say 6.4 
percent was too much, and we will now let it go up by only 2 percent a 
year?
  By then nobody is going to let it go up only 2 percent a year. No, we 
will always, from now to eternity, let it go up 6.4 percent or more per 
year because that is the figure we picked. And then tack 20 or 30 years 
onto that percentage increase and you will really see an unsustainable 
program, totally, totally, hideously unsustainable.
  Here is another one for you from this AARP mailing. It is a real 
chuckler. A headline that says, ``No Medicare Coverage Until 67.'' They 
usually have a block wreath around that or extra emphasis on the ink in 
the title. ``No Medicare Coverage Until Age 67.'' Is that not funny? 
Because I thought the current AARP members were sucked into this 
gargantuan operation when they were 50 years old--and they are. You can 
be a member of the AARP at the age of 50 by paying your $8 or picking 
up a copy of their magazine, usually a 4- or 5-year-old magazine, 
perhaps at the dentist's office. They include that as a membership. If 
there are magazines laying in these places, that is a ``member,'' I 
think, to them. So you can be 50 years old and be a member--whether 
retired or not.
  The plan before the Senate last week would have gradually increased 
the eligibility age to 67 over a span of 24 years, and never faster 
than 2 months per year and, thus, not fully phased in until the year 
2027. Guess why we did that? Yet it was taken out. I hope the people of 
America will realize what will happen by taking it out. We did it that 
way to match what we have already done with the Social Security 
Program, which is already on the track for this kind of a phaseup. Hear 
that.
  So in this deception how old will the youngest current AARP member be 
then in the year 2027? Well, they would be 82 years old. They will have 
been collecting Medicare for more than a decade by the time this 
proposed eligibility age increase was fully ``phased in.''
  In other words, not a single person who is an intended recipient of 
this mailing would be affected by the full impact of that, not a single 
person. In fact, no current AARP member would see their eligibility age 
postponed by more than 1 year--more than 1 year--no current member of 
the AARP.
  Now, that is a real slick organization. They also say that ``only 
$110 billion'' in cuts are actually necessary to restore solvency to 
Medicare. And for how long, I might ask? And they then say to the next 
decade. ``Through the next decade,'' they retort. Great. So up through 
the year 2005 then, only 3 years later than the current crash date. 
What chicanery. What bald-faced balderdash.

  Actuarial solvency is measured by the trustees over a 75-year period, 
and it is unsustainable. They know it and you know it and I know it. 
But the good old AARP is content to let the system go belly up in 10 
years. It strikes me as quaintly odd that the AARP can get so agitated 
over eligibility ages that will not even be fully effective for three 
decades and do not care a wit about Medicare solvency beyond the year 
2005. What a group.
  Here is another intriguing one for you. They express outrage that 
under our plan ``beneficiaries with incomes above $50,000 would pay a 
much higher monthly premium. How long,'' they ask, ``will it be before 
Congress lowers this to $40,000 or even $30,000,'' implying, of course, 
that any attempt--any attempt at all--at means testing or affluence 
testing of anything is dangerous and dastardly oppressing.
  Oh, I wish I could tell you how many times AARP representatives have 
come through my door, along with ``Edna the Enforcer.'' You have seen 
that wonderful cartoon by Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer; 
``Edna the Enforcer'' making her rounds for the AARP in the dark of 
night. She is a husky one. She comes in, and they have a caricature of 
me in the most emaciated form, actually--most shocking! I am saying, 
``Don't pull the phone tree, Edna, not the phone tree!'' and then she 
gives you ``the word.'' Well, those are clever, and Jim Borgmann is one 
of the best. I met him many years ago. Go look at it. Its a kick. See 
it.
  So they have come to my door, the AARP, and visited with me and my 
staff, and they say this. Here is what they say: ``Oh, Senator, you are 
not correct, but we do support some kind of means testing or affluence 
testing. We would like to call it 'income relating' but not affluence 
testing. But we agree, it's the way to go. Of course, we can't come out 
too far in front of it, but we understand you're on the right track.''
  That is the word you get in your office. That's what they tell me. 
What their members are hearing is something quite, quite different.
  Then ``income relating'' is the word they have now used, as they call 
it, and it is portrayed as a sinister precedent--a harbinger of evil 
things yet to come. What a courageous outfit.
  Then, of course, another letter has gone out from them about the CPI. 
They are saying, ``Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't mess with the CPI.'' I 
am on the Finance Committee. Not a single person from Alan Greenspan to 
all the experts we saw said anything but that the CPI, the Consumer 
Price Index, was ``overstated.''
  And get the rest of this latest letter to all of us. This is supposed 
to make you cringe and certainly your staff is supposed to cringe when 
you get this in your mailbox from the AARP dated October 23:

       If Congress adjusts the CPI in the absence of the Bureau of 
     Labor Statistics findings, AARP would regard such action as 
     ``a thinly disguised effort to cut COLA's and raise taxes.''

  I also know what that is. That is a thinly disguised threat.
  Then they go on to say, which they all do, and you know what they 
say, that the people who will be hurt the most will be ``the near poor, 
mostly single women permanently pushed into poverty,'' in addition, and 
so on and so on, not thinking that if they go broke, the poor in 
poverty will really be pushed into something grotesque.
  So this is the kind of rubbish that I see spewed out from the AARP 
through Horace Deets, John Rother--and they are genial people--except 
when they are not, and also their full chorus and company of 
apologists, paid actuaries accountants, lawyers, trustees, and 
trustors. Their budget for staff is $60 million a year. Try digging 
down through various entities and the foundations of the AARP. It is 
like digging through the Pyramids of Egypt. They have the Andrus 
Foundation, this foundation, that foundation, and nobody knows the 
bucks that they have in each of the stack.
  They have never come up with anything new, and everything they do can 
be refuted. Just as when they said to the IRS, ``We do not owe you any 
taxes, don't you understand,'' and then they paid 136 million bucks to 
``settle up'' and wrote a check. When they said to 

[[Page S 16459]]

the Postal Service, ``But we're permitted to mail our insurance 
solicitations at nonprofit rates,'' and the Post Office said, ``No, 
you're not,'' and they had to cough up $2.4 million to get off the hook 
there, and that will be the eternal struggle for them and should be.
  Remember, this is the group of worthies who clog your mailbox with 
1.5 percent of all the nonprofit mailings in their class in the United 
States and this is evidence of the level of trust and reliability that 
they have in this country.
  If everyone in Congress really likes to thump their chest and say 
that they always stand up to the special interests, well, the AARP is 
the biggest, toughest, canniest, most powerful slugger, the most 
ruthless and, I think, the most deceitful of them all.
  So I trust my colleagues will show their true mettle and legendary 
courage in ``standing tall'' as we all deal with this remarkable 1,800-
pound gorilla in the days and months to come.
  I thank the Chair.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that we have 8 
minutes remaining on our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized, 
and they still have 8 minutes.
  Mr. THOMAS. The time was to be from 10:30 to noon for the majority 
leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 8 minutes remaining on the 
Democratic time of the designee for the Democratic leader, and he asks 
for recognition.

                          ____________________