[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 117 (Wednesday, September 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8310-H8312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   A TRIBUTE TO DR. NANCY S. GRASMICK

  Mr. EHRLICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
McInnis) for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership on such an important issue, nuclear security. He is a good 
friend and a great colleague and a fine Member of this House.
  I intend to yield back, but what I would like to do, Mr. Speaker, for 
a few minutes is truly switch gears.
  We talk about education, education policy in this country an awful 
lot. It is an important debate. It is a debate in the presidential 
campaigns and a debate on this floor almost every day. And there are 
special people who stand for educational excellence in this country, 
and one happens to be a friend of mine, and she happens to be from 
Maryland.
  So for a few minutes I would like to pay tribute to a lady by the 
name of Nancy S. Grasmick.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in proud recognition of Dr. Nancy S. 
Grasmick, superintendent of Maryland State Schools, for having been 
recently named recipient of this year's Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in 
Education.
  Dr. Grasmick is one of only three individuals nationwide to receive 
this distinguished award, which annually recognizes outstanding 
commitment to education in our country.
  Dr. Nancy Grasmick defines education reform and excellence in America 
today. Dr. Grasmick has devoted her entire life to helping young people 
achieve the American dream. Her beginnings as a special education 
teacher in Baltimore County Maryland only hinted at what lay ahead for 
Maryland schools and indeed the entire State.
  She advanced through the county school system and constructed a 
legacy that can be felt in every classroom in Maryland today. Thanks to 
her leadership and participation in countless school reform efforts in 
other States, that legacy is also felt across the Nation.
  Dr. Grasmick's reform efforts were well under way when she was named 
Maryland Superintendent for Schools in 1991. At that time I was in the 
Maryland General Assembly. Her immediate goal was to establish 
accountability standards for teachers, administrators, and individual 
schools.
  She challenged the status quo by proposing and successfully 
establishing teacher standards, students standards, and annual school-
by-school evaluations.
  She fought for unprecedented increases in State funding for education 
and school construction. At times, and I know this for a fact, Mr. 
Speaker, her plans met resistance and criticism. But she backed up her 
reform efforts with real progress in student performance. And is that 
not what really counts? She exhibited courage by forcing State 
takeovers of underperforming schools and has used her pulpit to bring 
every county school system into her reform initiatives.
  Nancy Grasmick has simultaneously served as the Maryland Special 
Secretary for Children, Youth and Families also since 1991. At her 
urging, the position was established to bring together the myriad 
components of what she knew then was required to educate our young 
people: quality schools, stable family lives, and responsible health 
care.
  I am proud to have known and worked with Dr. Nancy Grasmick for more 
than 10 years. Receiving the McGraw Prize in Education is simply the 
latest in a series of her professional achievements. In my opinion, Mr. 
Speaker, she is the leading educator and reformer in America today.
  By every measure--student performance, school achievement, and 
teacher certification--she deserves this great

[[Page H8311]]

recognition; and we in Maryland are quite proud of her. And, I should 
add, we in the Ehrlich family are equally quite proud of her.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend who I know also has very serious views 
on education, education reform and probably enjoyed hearing about this 
great lady in Maryland, who has brought standards and true reform to 
Maryland schools, and I yield back.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. Not 
that this is jumping on media day, we have heard my previous comments 
about the fellow out of Los Alamos labs, it is interesting in our 
society today, we can go back to the Roman Empire where the Gladiators 
get all the attention, and a woman who is outstanding as this woman is, 
who has devoted her entire life to education, whose entire hope was not 
for her but for the next generation and the following generation, would 
probably capture maybe one column in a local newspaper, while the 
sports section, it is amazing to me, we can pull out a newspaper and 
take the middle 20 pages or 30 pages or 40 pages out on the sports 
section, and yet a little paragraph about someone who is as outstanding 
as your friend.
  Mr. EHRLICH. If the gentleman would continue to yield for one second, 
it will not surprise the gentleman to learn, because she is a true 
reformer and has demanded accountability, she has taken quite a few 
hits in Maryland, and she has survived, because she has the factual and 
the moral high ground on this issue. That is why I wanted to come to 
this floor and congratulate her in front of the entire country.
  Mr. McINNIS. Of course, as the gentleman knows, the person that has 
enough guts to get out of the fox hole usually draws the fire but 
somebody has to get out of it and somebody has to lead the charge. I 
commend the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to continue, I have about 16 minutes left. I am 
just going to comment for a few minutes about a speech that I want to 
make next week in regards to Social Security. It is unfortunate. It is 
reality, I face it, and it is just natural. It is inherent with the 
system that we have, but we have a general election coming up here in 
about 5 weeks or 6 weeks, and unfortunately, a lot of the good ideas, 
ideas that require bipartisan support, bipartisan coalition building 
get drowned out by some of the impacts of an election and by the 
advertising.
  I want to tell my colleagues that several months ago, I had the 
opportunity to go down to Texas. I went to law school in Texas. I have 
a great fondness for that state, and I was able to sit down with their 
governor, George W. Bush, and we talked a little about Social Security.
  We talked about the threat to future generations. And next week, I 
intend to expound on what I think is a solution, a solution that has 
been drowned out in this election process, a solution that George W. 
Bush parallels, a commitment that he feels very importantly about, 
because of the fact he is running for President, because he has 
proposed it as a part of this program instead of a methodological 
analysis and thoughtful analysis of what he is saying, people say it is 
a risky scheme. We hear people that say stay with the status quo.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here to tell my colleagues that tonight we cannot 
stay with the status quo of Social Security. Social Security is in 
trouble. It is not in trouble today. It is not going to be in trouble 
for my generation, my generation and the generations ahead of me, they 
are okay. We are going to get our benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, where it is going to be in trouble is the generations we 
ought to be worrying about, the generation behind me, my children. And 
at some point in time, my children's children. And we have a fiduciary 
responsibility to make Social Security a system that is sound from a 
fiscal point of view.
  Today Social Security has more cash coming in than it has going out; 
that is called a cash basis. It has a positive cash flow. But if we 
take a look at the actuarial numbers, actuarial meaning that while the 
cash is coming in today, that cash is earmarked for future obligations. 
So we get the cash today, but we do not have to spend it for a while.
  It is coming in today, our younger generations are contributing. My 
son and my two daughters are contributing to this Social Security 
system, with the expectation that they will have some return on their 
money, but without really the knowledge of that on an actuarial basis. 
Social Security is going to be bankrupt; we have that obligation to go 
forward.
  It got there for several reasons, and I thought this evening I would 
just go over, with the time I have remaining, how Social Security got 
in trouble and why some of it frankly is good news. You know, when 
Social Security first came into place in 1935, we had 42 workers, 42 
workers for every person that was retired.
  Forty-two workers here working and generating and putting cash into 
the Social Security system up here, which was distributing to one 
worker; 42 to 1 was the ratio. Today we have three workers over here 
contributing to the cash system up here distributing to one retired 
person here, so ratio is from 42 to 1 down to 3 to 1. And in the next 
10 to 15 years it is going to be 2 to 1, and if we are not careful, in 
about 25 years, it is going to be 1 to 1.
  How does a system sustain itself? Well, first of all, the first thing 
if we look at a system and we are trying to figure out how do we 
address future obligations, the first thing we need to do is figure out 
is this system working today? Do we have a sound, economic, smooth-
running machine in that Social Security system? If we do not, do we 
have to oil it? Do we have to replace some parts? What do we have to 
do?
  The facts are clear. The facts are clear. The Social Security machine 
is broken. Now, it is still not working, but it is not working at the 
kind of capacity that will be needed to supply what is necessary for 
those future generations.
  Now, there are some of the reasons Social Security got in trouble; 
one I just went over with you, the retirement ratio; the second one is 
good news for all of us. When Social Security was first put into place, 
women could expect to live to be an average of 65 years old and the man 
could expect to live to probably an age of 61. Today that is well into 
the 70s for both sexes. So we have had an extended life span, a lot in 
regards to improvement in our life-styles, like trying to get rid 
of smoking, a lot of it in regards to our health care system and the 
new products and the new medicines and the new machines, premature 
babies used to die in the past, today we can save them.

  There is lots of medical technology that has extended the life span, 
but, unfortunately, in the Social Security system, this machine that we 
have did not have a part in it that worked faster when people live 
longer. In fact, it worked at the same speed and enabled us to produce 
more, because we had more people living to a longer age to an older 
age. This part of the machine had to generate.
  It had to work faster. It is not working faster. In fact, it is 
working and producing at the same rate that it did 35 years ago, when 
people would live to 61 in the case of a male or 65 in the case of a 
female. Mr. Speaker, we have to do something about that.
  And the other thing is that the Social Security system, and this is 
politics, it happens everywhere in the world, it happened in the 
history of the world, political bodies have a difficult time saying no 
to consumers that want something for nothing. As time goes on, we have 
some good sound programs.
  By the way, when they want something for nothing, it is not that the 
program sounds bad, you know, the survivor's benefits or some of these 
other benefit programs that we have had, Social Security, SSI, things 
like this, they come to this body with a good sounding program and, in 
fact, sometimes they are great programs, but nobody really stood up and 
had the guts to say but can we afford it? I know I am going to be the 
most unpopular person up here. But slow it down, can we afford it?
  And over a period of time, we have indebted this country to further 
obligations through Social Security. Some of those additional 
liabilities that we picked up were justified. But if we are going to 
pick up an additional liability, we have to go to the other side of the 
ledger. Any of us that have basic accounting, and almost all of us 
have,

[[Page H8312]]

we know any time we have a debit, we have a credit; any time we have a 
credit, we have to have a debit, except when it gets to the politics.
  The politics just continues to put on and put on one side of the 
ledger, and it continues to put obligations on one side of the ledger 
without figuring out on the other side of the ledger how we are going 
to pay for it. So we have got to figure out a program.
  When I had my discussions with George W. Bush, and why I am excited 
about that conversation and why I think it is imperative to bring it 
up, is because I think the merits of this program are being drowned out 
by the rhetoric that we have heard out there on the election trail. 
What is important about the program is, first of all, for our future 
generation, we have to have a program that is voluntary, not being in 
Social Security, we have to be in Social Security, but it is your 
choice. We want to offer people some choice.
  I happen to think, and most of us happen to think, the generations 
behind us, they are very capable, they are the brightest generations 
this world has ever known, my kids, that generation, they can make good 
decisions on personal choice. They ought to have some more choice on 
how their investment or a portion of their investment in Social 
Security, where they put it. It should be voluntary for them.
  And you know what? They should pick up some property rights with 
their Social Security investment. What I mean by that is, if they die, 
they ought to be able to pass on to their family the benefits that over 
their working career they had accumulated. This is the kind of program 
we need to have. Guess what?
  As you will find out from my comments next week, this is not a new 
program. It is not a new invention. We are not plowing new ground. In 
fact, there is a program that is almost as identical and we have test 
marketed it, we have. We have actually gone out and test marketed an 
alternative to Social Security, an addition to Social Security that 
gives people choice, that is voluntary, allows people to take a higher 
risk or lower risk, higher return or lower return.
  Do you know what happened in our test market survey? Eighty-five 
percent of the people that we put into the test market are in it. They 
like it. They voluntarily signed up and they are staying in the 
program. In fact, we are growing our numbers in this test market.
  Now, where is this, you say. Wait a minute, Scott, what are you 
talking about? Where is this test you are talking about? What kind of 
retirement system are you talking about as an alternative or as a way 
to improve Social Security? It is our retirement. It is our retirement, 
the U.S. Congress. It is the retirement of every Federal employee, 3 
million people are in this test market. It is a program called the 
Thrift Savings Program.
  Every Federal Government employee on a voluntary basis can take a 
percentage of their salary every month and have it matched by the 
Federal Government to the extent of 5 percent, and they then exercise 
the choice of where they want that money to go, whether they want to 
put it into high risk stock market, which usually brings a higher 
return, or whether they want to put it into a lower risk bond market or 
they want to put it into a guaranteed no loss savings account.

  And you know what happens if they die, if a Federal employee dies? 
They get to pass it on to the next family member. So the answer is, 
wow, it is working. The participants in the program are satisfied with 
the program. The program allows benefits to continue beyond their death 
to their family. The program funds itself.
  You know what the returns are, take a look at the returns that Social 
Security has today. Here is the returns from my generation on Social 
Security, less than 1 percent, and what if we do not change this 
system, this system is going to produce a return of less than 1 
percent. Your certificate of deposit was 0 risk, returns, almost a 
little over 5 percent, and your government bonds return 7 percent.
  Social Security takes your dollars and gives you less than a 1 
percent return. And by the way, there is no guarantee of safety. So 
what I am saying here is, next week I intend to go into much more 
detail, but I think the American people deserve to know that their 
government employees have an alternative system.
  Now we still participate in Social Security. Do not believe that 
stuff you see on the Internet that we are exempt, we do not have to; we 
participate in Social Security, but we have this additional benefit, 
and it works. It is good. It provides a return.
  So next week, I am going to go into a little more detail on that and 
why I think that George W. Bush's approach is look, stand up. I think 
it is a bold approach, and any time you make a bold approach, you are 
going to get criticized because a lot of people are comfortable with 
the status quo, but the status quo ain't going to hunt, it is a dog 
that is not going to hunt.
  So we need to have change, and we need to have a plan that is going 
to work. So what we ask the American people and in this discussion I 
had with George W. Bush several months ago, when we go to the American 
people, look, they are relying on this, we have to give them a product 
that has been test marketed. We have the product that has been test 
marketed. We know it works.

                              {time}  1900

  So why resist it.
  Well, right now the resistance comes in because of politics. We have 
an election. So they do not dare. One side does not dare say to the 
other side, well, that is a good program; that might work.
  We have got a good program here, and I look forward in the next week 
to go into much greater detail on this alternative that I think the 
Federal Government uses for its own. What is good for the goose is good 
for the gander. So I think that is exactly what we ought to take a look 
at.
  In conclusion, I look forward to seeing my colleagues next week on 
this. Let me say, going to the first part of my speech, please take the 
time to look at the other side of the story on this Wen Ho Lee guy out 
at Los Alamos. Do not think he is a victim. Do not think he is being 
picked upon. In my opinion, he has probably committed one of the most 
egregious transfers of thermonuclear material in the last 100 years.
  I do not have much sympathy for him, and I intend to pursue that side 
of the story. I have heard both sides, and I have made my decision. The 
victim here in that case is the United States of America; it is not Mr. 
Lee.

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