[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 87 (Wednesday, June 26, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H4036-H4037]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1915
                          HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kerns). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, not surprisingly, in this election year the 
Republicans are attempting to portray themselves as the protectors of 
Social Security; and many of our women colleagues tonight, led by the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) and the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Mrs. Thurman) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Woolsey) will be discussing this more.
  During my 5 minutes, what I would like to do is put some history on 
the record.
  First, the Republicans have advocated mailing out fancy but 
meaningless guarantee certificates to Social Security beneficiaries 
this year at a cost of $16 million to the taxpayers, and each million 
that would be needed to produce and mail these certificates would pay 
for the processing of maybe 1,400 disability claims.
  When it started to come out how they wanted to waste the money on 
those kinds of phony certificates, and that proposal literally flopped, 
Republicans have sought other forms of political cover but to no avail. 
So now they have moved into the avoidance mode and are simply dodging 
Social Security, blocking key legislation from coming to this floor.
  The American people deserve to hear the details of the Republicans' 
privatization plans for Social Security before the election. That is 
why I signed the Democratic discharge petition to bring this vital 
debate to the floor. It requires 218 Members of the House to sign that 
discharge petition to bring up the bill.
  Now, realistically, will the Republicans allow these bills to come 
forward? Well, let us see. Probably not, because the Republican 
leadership of this House knows that Democrats will stand against 
privatization and expose their risky and flawed plans for what they 
are.
  Truly, Republicans have always had trouble believing in Social 
Security

[[Page H4037]]

and have a long record of opposition to our Nation's premier social 
insurance program. Let me put this on the record.
  Beginning with the original Social Security Act when the ranking 
minority Republican member of the Committee on Ways and Means was 
Representative Allen Treadway, a Republican from Massachusetts, he led 
the attack here in Congress, in the House, offering a motion to delete 
the old age and unemployment insurance programs and stating that he 
would vote, and I quote, ``most strenuously in opposition to the bill 
at each and every opportunity.''
  At that time, 95 of 103 Republicans voted along with Representative 
Treadway to gut the original act. That was 92.2 percent of the 
Republicans. But they failed because there were more Democrats that 
believed that we should lift those in poverty who are seniors to a 
level at least of subsistence and to dignity in their retirement years.
  Now, Republican opposition in the Senate was also pronounced, with a 
majority of Senate Republicans voting with Senator Hastings to delete 
the retirement program from the Social Security Act. As we all know, 
the Act went on to pass both Chambers and was signed into law by 
Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt on August 14, 1935.
  But Republican opposition to Social Security was not limited to the 
old age and unemployment provisions. In 1956, 38 of 44 Senate 
Republicans voted against an amendment to restore the disability 
insurance program to the bill. That was 86\1/2\ percent of the 
Republicans in the Senate not wishing to include the disability 
insurance provisions, which are the lifeline for millions and millions 
of people who have been stricken in their families with illness or with 
injury.
  In 1965, when Medicare Part A and B were created, when President 
Lyndon Johnson was President and led this fight for health care for our 
seniors, 128 of 165 House Republicans, or 77.6 percent, three-quarters 
of them, voted to recommit the bill and replace it with, guess what, a 
voluntary system. Have we heard this before?
  Most recently, Republicans have broken their repeated promises, 
voting seven times on the issue to ensure that, as they say, every 
penny of Social Security will be locked away in a lockbox. Instead, 
they have drained the budget, even as we stand here tonight, with tax 
breaks for the super rich and are plundering the trust funds of Social 
Security over the next 10 years by nearly $2 trillion.
  So every week I am coming down here to the floor to take a look at 
the grade on the Social Security trust fund. I call it the debt clock. 
As of today, Republicans have raided now $223,945,205,479 from the 
Social Security trust fund, which averages now about $796 per American.
  Every week since we have come on the floor, that is up over $6 
billion from last week. They keep going into the trust fund to give 
money away to CEOs like Kenneth Lay, who, believe me, owes us money. 
The Social Security recipients of this country and the taxpayers owe 
him nothing.
  Democrats believe Social Security is a compact of trust between 
generations. We will continue to fight against the Republican raid to 
ensure that Social Security's existence will continue for generations 
to come. Democrats have always believed in Social Security, and we 
always will.

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