[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 34 (Thursday, March 4, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, 
did you hear the one about the Republicans who think that we ought to 
privatize Social Security because the interest earned on Social 
Security trust funds is too little? Now, they have a plan this week, 
the interest on the trust funds is so little that they are going to 
take it away from the people that paid into the trust funds. They have 
a plan where they say they are going to save Social Security, that they 
are not going to touch the principal of the trust funds or 70 percent 
of it, 60 percent of it, something like that. But what they are going 
to do is they are going to take away the interest. So working men and 
women in this country pay in their hard-earned dollars through the FICA 
tax into Social Security, it earns interest that they are supposed to 
be the beneficiaries of, and along come the Republicans and they are 
going to steal the interest.
  I hope America is watching closely when this legislation comes to the 
floor, because while they say they are going to protect the principal, 
lo and behold we see that John Kasich and others have a proposal to 
take it and use it for tax cuts or to take it and use it for spending 
proposals that they have. If you are going to protect Social Security, 
you got to protect the principal and the interest.

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