[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 62 (Thursday, May 18, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H3406-H3410]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Walden of Oregon). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
McInnis) is recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. McINNIS. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman, I think, 
yielded me the balance of his time, which I think would give me an 
additional 7 minutes. So I would request 37 minutes for the special 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's guidelines, the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) is not allowed to yield to the 
gentleman, so the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
McInnis) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. I thank the Speaker for the clarification.
  Good evening, colleagues. I have been listening to the discussions. I 
think we had a healthy discussion, where the gentleman from Iowa and 
the gentlewoman from Connecticut were having a discussion. But previous 
to that I was not quite as inspired as some might have been in regards 
to her attack on the policies of the Governor of the State of Texas, 
the Republican candidate for the Presidency, in regards to Social 
Security.
  Now, my purpose here this evening with my colleagues is not to talk 
to them necessarily about partisan politics. That is not the purpose of 
this podium. My purpose this evening is to talk about an issue that is 
important and, by the way, not just important for women, it is very 
important for women but it is very important for young people, 
regardless of their sex, regardless of their ethnic background.
  I tell my colleagues, we are not going to accomplish a solution for 
Social Security by using fear tactics. Standing up and implying that 
the women of this country, apart from any other segment of this 
country, are endangered by Social Security ignores problems that go 
across the sexes. These are fear tactics that are being launched 
against senior citizens.
  The reality of it is that every one of us in these chambers, every 
one of us in these chambers knows that today every senior citizen, or 
every beneficiary of Social Security benefits who is picking up the 
check today will have the check next month, will have the check next 
year, and will have the check as long as they are entitled to that 
benefit. There is not, under anybody's, under anybody's study of Social 
Security, there is not one beneficiary today who is receiving Social 
Security funds, whose funds are endangered during the period of time 
that they are to receive those funds.

[[Page H3407]]

  It is nothing but pure and simple fear tactics to come out here and 
somehow try to defend the status quo of a system that is not running 
well and by doing that implying that people who are on the system today 
are somehow going to be cut off. Imagine being a senior citizen and 
hearing from a person in these great halls of Congress the implication 
that either because they are a woman or because they are a senior 
citizen that somehow their benefits are somehow going to be canceled 
because a Republican, the Governor of the State of Texas, has come up 
with something that changes the status quo.
  The recommendation to change the status quo comes because of one 
reason: Everybody in these chambers, everybody in our country admits 
that Social Security needs to be improved. How interesting that during 
the conversation of the gentlewoman from Connecticut she speaks 
consistently of privatization. Maybe she should speak, maybe we should 
all speak of personalization. Maybe we ought to look at this Social 
Security System and, number one, admit that it is not working right and 
quit being stuck on the status quo.
  And by the way, this argument that, well, we are reducing the 
national debt. How nice, after 40 years of Democrat leadership, 40 
years of Democratic leadership which drove that debt to record highs, 
which gave us that annual deficit. All of a sudden they have turned a 
new leaf: Oh, let us reduce the national debt.
  Let me tell my colleagues that in my opinion what we need to do is to 
not look at the fear factor of Social Security. Forget the fear factor 
of Social Security. Play fair on this. Look at the business factor of 
Social Security. Let us get down with our pencils and get down there 
with our pads of paper and figure out how we can improve the system.
  I want to give my colleagues a suggestion, a suggestion that 
everybody in this Chamber, every Federal employee gets to enjoy, and 
then I want my colleagues to ask after I bring this system out, I want 
my colleagues to ask why only Federal employees? Why only Congressmen 
and Congresswomen? Why do they get this benefit and the rest of America 
does not? Why are we a special class, as Federal employees? We get to 
choose personalization. The gentleman from Connecticut who spoke up 
here previously gets to choose personalization. All of us have that 
option as Federal employees. As Congressmen we have that option to 
personalize our account. Why can we not look at Social Security and 
compare it to the system we have?
  By the way, the system we have works very well. It is not broken. My 
guess would be that every one of my colleagues on this floor who is 
eligible for what we call Thrift Savings is in it. We are in the 
program. And my bet is that every one of our employees are in that 
program. Now, it is an option to go into that program. It is also my 
bet that most Federal employees are in that program. Why are they in 
that program? Because it works. They had a choice. It works and they 
get some choice in the program. They get to personalize it.
  That is what George W. Bush is talking about. Frankly, I compliment 
him. We need somebody to stand up. Social Security in an election year 
is one hot potato to deal with. It is tough. And here we had somebody 
who had the courage to stand up and put out a plan that I think is 
pretty bold, a plan that I think has a lot of inspiration and 
initiative to it.

  So let me tell my colleagues a little about the kind of plan that we 
have here on the floor, our Federal Thrift Savings Plan. It is really 
broken down into two parts. As a Federal employee, and let me speak 
more specifically, as a United States Congressman, we get every month a 
certain amount of money taken out of our pay that is put in for 
retirement. We have no choice where that money is invested. We have no 
choice how that money is invested. We cannot put our hands on that 
money. That is the safety net. But the second option we have is what is 
called Thrift Savings, and that is the kind of direction that is being 
proposed to look at for Social Security.
  Now, what does the Thrift Savings do? A Federal employee, or a 
Congressman, let us take myself for an example, I, Scott McInnis, have 
the option every month of taking a certain percentage of my salary and 
putting it into the Thrift Savings program. Now, once it goes into the 
program, my personalization really begins. At that point I get to make 
a choice. No one else chooses for me. My employees do not choose for 
me. The bureaucracy does not choose for me. I get to have a 
personalized account.
  And I have three basic options. I can take a high-risk speculative 
stock investment, and in the last several years that has made an 
enormous return, sometimes 24 to 48 percent. I do not have the exact 
figure, but it is a tremendous return. I can go into a little bit lower 
risk with the second option, which are bonds; or I can go into a 
guaranteed fund, which has a low interest.
  Remember, interest is based on risk. The higher the risk, the higher 
the rate. The lower the risk, the lower the rate. So I can go into the 
most conservative of the three options, and it is guaranteed, but it 
does not return a lot of interest.
  Now, when we take a look at what we have, and what has been suggested 
here, I am frankly surprised that the Vice President, under his 
policies, although 6 months ago he was in favor of something like this, 
in the last week and a half, frankly because of the politics, that his 
policy is stick with the status quo.
  My good friend, the doctor here, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Ganske), and I compliment him, as being a doctor, I admire him for that 
background.
  Mr. GANSKE. And if the gentleman, when he gets a chance, would yield 
for just a minute.
  Mr. McINNIS. I will in just a moment, but let me go over a few 
statistics that the gentleman brought up.
  The gentleman before me talked about what are some of the 
difficulties that we face with Social Security today. What are causing 
some of the problems? It is pretty simple. It is demographics. In 1935, 
when our Social Security System was put into place, we had 42 workers 
for every retired person over 65. Today, as the gentleman highlighted 
earlier, we have three workers for every retired person.
  Now, as a compliment to the health care system of this country, when 
Social Security was first put into place, a man could expect to live to 
be 61 years old, a woman could expect to be 65. But because of health 
care and taking better care of ourselves and so on and so forth, that 
has gone up tremendously. So now people are living longer. The result 
of this has been that throughout this period of time we have had people 
who have refused to make those kind of adjustments. We had elected 
officials who continued to defend the status quo and shove it on to the 
next administration.
  Well, I think it is time we take a stand and say we are not going to 
stand for the status quo. This Social Security System owes something to 
the women, absolutely, but we owe it to the women and we owe it to 
every citizen in the United States to stand up now while the system 
still has a positive cash flow and make commitments to move off the 
status quo and improve our system. And the beauty of it is we do not 
have to invent something brand new. This is a trail that has been 
traveled. The snow has been plowed. We have this system, the Thrift 
Savings system currently used by every Federal employee, or at least 
given as an option for every Federal employee, and that system works.
  In just one minute I will yield to the gentleman from Iowa, but let 
me ask my colleagues, and I wish I had the time to go around 
individually to every Member and ask them, since they get the Thrift 
Savings option, what is so wrong with us at least having good 
discussion about the people who are on Social Security or the people 
who will be on Social Security, our young people or now the generation 
behind me who is in the working place, what is wrong with asking that 
generation if perhaps they would not like to personalize their account? 
Tough answer.
  I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. GANSKE. I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and I agree with 
him totally that Governor Bush, to his credit, has had the courage to 
talk about the future retirement of the baby boomers. This is, I think, 
going to be a significant debate, and it should be.
  In the past, any politician that would touch Social Security, it has 
always

[[Page H3408]]

been called the third rail of politics, Governor Bush deserves an awful 
lot of credit for the courage to talk about what are the options.
  As we know from the Social Security Advisory Commission, the options 
are, with all the baby boomers coming down the road, we either, for 
those baby boomers, and we are not talking about current beneficiaries. 
The gentleman made that point clearly, but I want to emphasize it. We 
are not talking about current beneficiaries, we are talking about when 
the baby boomers retire.
  But for the baby boomers, with our huge numbers coming down the road, 
the Social Security Advisory Commission has said that our options are 
one of three: We are either going to have to reduce benefits by 25 
percent for the baby boomers, not for current beneficiaries; we are 
going to have to increase payroll taxes for those workers at that time, 
these are our children that we are talking about; or we somehow or 
other work to help every American in retirement be wealthier, to have 
some type of increased return on investment.

                              {time}  2145

  Now, that Social Security advisory commission was made up of people 
representing labor unions, accountants, businesses, leaders from all 
across the spectrum. They had three separate proposals for how you 
would increase the return, and they vary in some details. But all of 
them agreed, all three of the solutions agreed that the first two 
solutions were not so great, and that was to either reduce benefits or 
to increase taxes. And so I commend the gentleman for giving an 
analogy, because our thrift, the Congressional Thrift Savings Plan is 
equivalent to a 401(k) in the private community. And it is something 
that we can elect to do. And if you are wise and you are looking at 
your future pension requirements, you will take some of your current 
salary and put it into that 401(k), just like people in businesses, 
corporations, employees do.
  But the analogy is very apt in terms of the choices that we have, 
because that is one of the ways in which you could set up these 
personal accounts in Social Security, and, that is, that, number one, 
the government does not own those accounts, individuals do, and that is 
important because you do not want the government to own half or three-
fourths of the stock market. Then the government can control 
investment. I do not think that the government necessarily makes wise 
decisions in investments.
  So that is important. But there are mechanisms whereby through 
certification of funds that can help keep the administrative costs low. 
That has been something that people have criticized these accounts 
about. There are choices that can be offered to individuals. Let us say 
that you are younger, maybe you want to put that account into a growth 
fund for a while but then as you grow older you want to be more 
conservative so you switch it into a bond fund. Those are things that 
Americans have learned to do. And I think it is correct that over 
extended periods of time, you gain about twice or three times the 
return through the market. We are just talking about, though, a small 
percent and we are still talking about maintaining that safety net that 
is very important.
  Mr. McINNIS. The gentleman made a very clear point at the very end, 
and, that is, on the thrift savings, there is an amount of money that 
goes into our retirement every month we cannot touch. That money is 
guaranteed. So even if on our personalized account we mess up, we still 
have a safety net. I would ask every one of my colleagues in here, for 
example, if the gentleman or I won a million dollars in the lottery and 
we decided consciously that we wanted to take that $1 million and 
invest it for our future retirement, how many of us would take that $1 
million and turn it over to Social Security and say, ``Hey, why don't 
you take the million dollars I just won and why don't you invest it 
because I've got confidence that when I get 65 you're going to have 
that million dollars and you will have taken good care in the 
investment of it.'' There is not a person in this country that is going 
to do it.
  That is why when I listened to the previous speaker, let me say with 
all due respect to my colleague, that you cannot maintain the status 
quo. The Vice President has been very clear in his position. He wants 
the status quo. Now, look, things have changed. We have got a new 
economy out there. Take a look at the State of Florida last week. The 
State of Florida took 650,000 State employees and said, hey, we are 
going to let you go into your own, essentially what is a 401(k) 
program. We are letting you come out. You can come out to a Corporate 
Life 401(k) system. They get up to eight mutual funds to invest in. 
Ohio and Kansas are right behind them.
  The States realize this. The employees realize this. The women, the 
children, the workers, they realize this. It is time to take a bold 
move. When we speak of bold move, as the gentleman stated, we are not 
talking about taking all of your Social Security money and putting it 
in, bulk, into this. We are only allowing a transfer of 2 percent. But 
that is considered bold when you are dealing with the status quo.
  Let me mention a couple of other things because my good friend 
brought them up. The program that the Governor of Texas, Mr. Bush, has 
proposed had several principles. You hit on a few of them but that is 
what that Social Security panel said was necessary. Number one, 
modernization must not change existing benefits for retirees or near 
retirees. The current retirees are not going to be impacted by this. 
Their future is secure. And so are the expected retirees.
  Mr. GANSKE. If the gentleman will yield, the retirees, for instance, 
people who are 50 or 55 years or older, because we all recognize that 
you cannot change the system for them. They would not have sufficient 
time to build up additional reserves.
  Mr. McINNIS. Reclaiming my time, the window of opportunity is too 
narrow. That is acknowledged.
  It is kind of common sense, the next thing, that the Social Security 
surplus must be locked away for Social Security only. As you know, when 
these Democrats, frankly, the leadership, had control of this budget 
for 40 years, they used the Social Security money for other purposes. 
It is the Republican bills that changed the status quo and said, wait a 
minute, let us put Social Security money for the purpose of Social 
Security. Social Security payroll taxes must not be increased. That is 
another condition. The government must not invest Social Security funds 
in the stock market, the very point the gentleman made 3 or 4 minutes 
ago.
  Modernization must preserve the disability and survivor components. 
Modernization must include individually controlled personalized 
voluntary, and ``voluntary'' is the key word, personal retirement 
accounts which will augment, supplement the Social Security safety net.
  I wish my colleague were here. I would say what is wrong with any one 
of those elements. But let me say, if we adopt any one of those single 
elements, we move off the status quo. You have got to be willing to 
save Social Security, and to improve that system you have got to put 
your stubbornness aside, Democrats, and be prepared to accept some of 
these principles. And what is wrong with any one of them? There is not 
one of those principles I mentioned that they would disagree with.
  Let me say that I am not attempting up here to throw out partisan 
warfare but I am saying, there is a clear difference, and as my 
colleague who is a Democrat who spoke earlier, she also said there is a 
clear difference between the two, and I think it is important for us to 
distinguish between these two plans. One supports the status quo and 
the second says we have got to make some type of improvement. The 
improvement is based on those conditions I mentioned.
  Again, just recapping, how many Members in here are not in thrift 
savings? We all enjoy thrift savings. It is a voluntary program, it is 
a personalized program. Likewise, how many of us in these chambers 
would be willing to give Social Security a million dollars of our own 
money to invest and plan for our retirement?
  Mr. GANSKE. I think it is important to note that 6 months or so ago, 
President Clinton and Vice President Gore talked about a plan to 
utilize a portion of that payroll tax to go into personal accounts. 
There were some differences in terms of the mechanics that they

[[Page H3409]]

were talking about, but I think it is clear as we look at the 
demographics coming down the road that the status quo, doing nothing, 
just is not going to work.
  Now, when we look at, let us say taking 2 percent out of that 12.4 
percent and moving it into a personal account, that means that there 
are going to be some decreased dollars going into the Social Security 
trust fund for that transition. I have a hard time understanding why 
the Democrats who constantly talk about trying to direct tax cuts to 
those who need it most do not seize on this. Look, the people that we, 
Republicans and Democrats, both would agree need that tax cut the most, 
the working Americans where their payroll tax is the biggest chunk of 
tax they ever pay, why not give them, as Senator Bob Kerrey has said, a 
payroll tax cut.
  Mr. McINNIS. A Democrat, by the way.
  Mr. GANSKE. A Democrat. And then use part of that surplus that we all 
want to keep coming in, use part of that projected surplus to make up 
the difference. That is a tax cut. That is a tax cut for the people who 
need it the most. That is also helping every American who is working 
and paying payroll taxes become richer. As Senator Bob Kerrey says, my 
goal is to help every American in this country become wealthier. And 
the way to do that is to set up these personal accounts while at the 
same time preserving that safety net for those who are currently in the 
program and for those who are coming into the program in, say, the next 
10 or 15 years. And I think that you can do it. If we look at the 
surplus that is coming along, if we look at the projections that have 
been done already through CBO on plans that are like this. I just do 
not buy this, quote, this risky language that we hear all the time.
  As the gentleman said earlier, those are scare tactics. We need to 
have a civil, calm discussion and try to achieve goals that are common 
to both sides. But I think simply saying that the status quo is the 
only way is not recognizing what the experts from the Social Security 
advisory commission are telling us. They are warning us this.
  Mr. McINNIS. One thing we should discuss with our colleagues before 
they join on with the Vice President and talk about how reckless and 
how fearful it is, remember, it is a little hypocritical for any 
Federal employee to talk about the Bush proposal or the committee's 
proposal as reckless when in fact we enjoy the benefits of the thrift 
savings program which does exactly what we are posing in a smaller 
fashion Social Security head towards.
  In other words, I am not sure I have heard any complaint from any of 
our colleagues, and I certainly have not heard any of our colleagues 
calling our own thrift savings which is exactly what the gentleman is 
talking about but as the gentleman knows we have it in place, I have 
not heard any of them say this is a reckless, terrible deal. In fact, 
my colleagues keep asking, why can I not contribute more? We would all 
like to put a little more into this. This is a good idea. That is the 
direction that I think we are headed.
  I read the Wall Street Journal, they had an editorial yesterday, and 
it is called Grabbing the Third Rail. The reason I reference grabbing 
the third rail is it talks about the hot potato. It talks about the 
fact it is time somebody who wants to be the leader of this country, 
the President of this country, step forward and take a leadership role 
and say, ``Look, we have got a storm out there, we can't sit at home in 
the harbor. Somebody's got to take their ship out there and get to the 
other side.''
  Now, what is interesting in this particular editorial is they talked 
about the fact that there has been some criticism, no details, not 
enough details. They give four or five websites that you can go to on 
your computer and these websites even have a calculator built in on 
them, so that you can figure out what would happen to you as an 
individual person. I will not go through all of them although I intend 
to next week because I plan on giving another speech in regard to 
Social Security because as the gentleman and I previously discussed, it 
is important. But let me give one of them: socialsecurity.org/
index.html. That provides a lot of the detailed information that we are 
talking about this evening.
  I can tell the gentleman that when I mention the Vice President's 
policy, that policy parallels the policy of the Democratic leadership. 
Fortunately, not all the Democrats are agreeing with the Democratic 
leadership. We have a number of Democrats, including as my colleague 
mentioned Senator Kerrey who are saying, ``Wait a minute, you can't 
stick with the status quo.'' Come on, let us get off these fear 
tactics. Let us talk about business tactics. We have to change the 
business model, just the same as businesses throughout our country are 
changing the business model to deal with the Internet. We have got to 
do it. This system is 65 years old. Although it is in a cash flow right 
now, positive cash flow, as we both know, on an actuarial basis, this 
deal is in trouble.

                              {time}  2200

  But we got time to save it. The beauty of what we are doing right 
now, our conversation today is we are not worried about a fund that is 
going bankrupt tomorrow. For a change, finally, for a change, you have 
got elected political government officials in this country talking in 
advance of the crisis about what to do to avert the crisis.
  A lot of times the government responds after the crisis occurs. Here 
at least we have had the foresight for you to look at your children, 
myself to look at my children, and say hey, we better do some planning 
for these people.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Walden of Oregon). Under the guidance 
given to the Chair by the majority leader, the Chair now recognizes the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) for an additional 7 minutes, 
which is the remainder of the hour reserved for the leadership.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Ganske).
  Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  As I mentioned earlier this evening, for the last several years, as I 
have done my town hall meetings around my district, I have actually 
taken a computer program, run a laserpoint off it, the program I 
borrowed from Senator Bob Kerrey, who is a Democrat, who talks about 
the impending age wave and the Social Security Advisory Commission's 
recommendations. We have had discussions across the 4th Congressional 
District in Iowa about this.
  For 2 years at least I have been arguing that we need a presidential 
candidate of courage who would bring this up, who would be willing to 
take a risk, to have a full and public debate on where we go with 
probably the biggest issue that is facing our country, as well as all 
of the other developed countries, and that is how do we deal with the 
pension requirements of the baby-boomers in the next 20 to 30 years?
  So we finally get a candidate like this. Governor Bush should be 
given a huge accolade for being willing to bring this to the forefront 
of the presidential debate. There is no question about it, they knew 
fully down in Austin, Texas, that they were taking a risk by bringing 
this important issue up, because this has been an issue that 
politicians have been afraid of.
  Well, we finally have a presidential candidate who has been willing 
to take that risk, because this is the biggest issue facing our country 
in the next 25 to 30 years, and, as the gentleman from Colorado pointed 
out, you need time, time, to effect changes, to bring up the wealth of 
the average American, to make sure that the system is solvent. You 
cannot just take care of it when it is all of a sudden bankrupt, or 
else you are going to have huge shifts and significant pain, both on 
the part of the beneficiaries and on the part of the payees at that 
time.
  Now is the time. This is the election to make a determination and 
have a debate on this issue, that we can then take into the year 2001 
and say we have had this debate, and, if Governor Bush would become 
President, then we will have an opportunity to effect the type of 
changes that will be very important in order to make sure that the 
elderly continue to receive their benefits, in order to make sure that 
the young are not going to be faced with 50 percent payroll tax 
increases at that time.
  This is hugely important, and I am immensely proud of Governor Bush 
for

[[Page H3410]]

having taken this risk, because the easiest thing to have done with his 
lead in the polls would be to play it safe, to just ride it out, to 
take into account ``Clinton fatigue'' or whatever else might enter into 
this election, and to bring honesty to the White House. But, instead, 
he has taken a bold step on this, and I am really proud that we have a 
candidate who has brought this to the debate, because I am sure this is 
going to be a major focus of debate in every presidential debate.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. The 
first step we have to take is, I used to practice law, and when you put 
on a defense, I did not do any criminal law, but even when you put on 
any kind of defense, it has to have some credibility. How can you stand 
up and credibly defend the current system that we have? How can you 
look at the young workers and how can the vice president and his 
policies and his policy for Social Security, how can he look at the 
women of the country or young workers and say I am going to defend the 
status quo, I am going to defend the current system?

  You know what, it does not sell. It is not credible. I urge both 
sides of the aisle to get together and at least have enough courage to 
say, because we are beneficiaries of it, we get to use the Thrift 
Savings Program, that we at least have enough courage to stand out 
there and say, you know, what is wrong with looking at change? What is 
wrong with trying to suggest some improvements for the Social Security 
system? What is wrong with doing like Federal employees, all the 
Federal employees get to do, and that is personalize their accounts? 
What is wrong with standing up and figuring out, hey, there is a better 
way to do it?
  We are not saying dump this system. We are saying improve this 
system. We are certainly not saying, as the gentleman has said, we are 
not saying threaten anybody currently on the system. Not at all. In 
fact, I think most people we talk to out there want us to improve the 
system. They want a system like every one of us sitting in this hall 
tonight are benefits of, a Thrift Savings Program. We get personalized 
choices, and yet we have a safety net back there. We have an obligation 
I think to offer this across the country. Every Federal employee gets 
it. What is wrong with offering it to other people?
  In conclusion, I would first of all thank the gentleman for joining 
me this evening and look forward to further discussions with him. 
Number two, I think this is a very good topic for the presidential 
debates, because I think our next President has got to take a 
leadership role and put this system on a track that improves it, that 
puts it on a system that our young people, and even people our age, are 
not talking or have a fear that Social Security will not be there for 
them. We want a President that will give those people the comfort that 
that system will be there for them.
  So far, frankly, so far the only candidate that has stepped out there 
and said ``I think I have got the system different than the status 
quo'' is Governor George Bush of the State of Texas.
  Again, I thank my colleague for his participation this evening.

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