[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 9 (Wednesday, February 2, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H339]]
     THE PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS AND SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Culberson). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, tonight is another historic 
opportunity for the President to give direction to this country through 
the State of the Union address. I know we will all be watching, and we 
will all be hoping that he provides the kind of direction that we need, 
both internationally and domestically.
  Internationally he certainly deserves credit for the kind of turnout 
that was experienced in Iraq. It was at least equal to, if not more 
than, most people expected. He still needs to reassure us that there is 
a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and that, in fact, he has plans to 
make this a safer world by dealing with truly critical situations in 
North Korea, in Russia in terms of its retreat to greater control of 
the economy and the society through a more repressive attitude. And 
particularly in light of the fact that there are still thousands of 
nuclear warheads in Russia, we need to make sure through programs such 
as the Nunn-Lugar bill that those nuclear warheads will never be 
accessible to terrorist groups.
  There are a great many challenges internationally. Hopefully, he will 
rise to the occasion and provide leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian 
crisis, which is still the prism through which most Arabs and Muslims 
really throughout the world view our willingness and determination to 
provide balanced, just, and effective leadership in bringing about the 
kind of economic and social interdependence that will stabilize that 
part of the world and protect Israel from its enemies and enable Israel 
to continue to be a true democracy and, in fact, a model for the other 
regimes in that area in terms of full democratic participation.
  These are all important objectives internationally, and we trust that 
the President will provide the kind of leadership we need, and I am 
confident that the Democrats will hold him fully accountable for the 
results in 4 years.
  But we start out now with a President that has just been elected with 
a clear majority, something that did not happen 4 years ago. We need to 
work together. And what we are told on the domestic front is that the 
emphasis is going to be upon deficit reduction and primarily upon 
reforming the Social Security system. This is not where the emphasis 
needs to be in terms of the Social Security program.
  Clearly, the budget deficit is in a crisis situation. We need 
leadership to lead us out of that crisis situation. We are currently 
spending 20 percent of the gross domestic product and bringing in only 
16.8 percent in revenue. The President needs to show us where he is 
going to be able to come up with the kind of revenue to match the 
spending. The President, we suspect, if past is prologue, is going to 
identify a number of domestic programs; but all told those domestic 
programs, if we would eliminate all of them with the exception of the 
defense budget, they do not equal the amount of the annual deficits. So 
we need some clear plans on how we are going to reduce this deficit, 
hopefully through a PAYGO plan that requires offsets against tax cuts 
as well as spending increases.
  But I want to emphasize particularly the Social Security program. The 
President is going to suggest it is in crisis. Mr. Speaker, it is not 
in crisis. In fact, he needs to reassure the American people that there 
is plenty of money currently in the Social Security system to take us 
out at least to the year 2052, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office; and there is enough to provide 73 percent of the benefits for 
another 40-plus years.
  Right now we have about $1.7 trillion in reserves. That amount is 
going to go up by hundreds of billions each year so that we will have 
over $4 trillion in reserves by 2015. By 2018 it starts to tip as my 
generation, the baby boom generation, starts to retire, and then we 
need to make some plans for the future. But let me suggest that the tax 
cuts that we have enacted in 2001 and 2003 total 2 percent of the gross 
domestic product. The Social Security system needs only 4/10 of 1 
percent to cover the shortfall for the next 75 years. Even the taxes 
just on the top 1 percent are 6/10 of 1 percent more than we need to 
cover the Social Security shortfall.
  That is where the emphasis needs to be. We trust that the President 
will provide that kind of leadership this evening.

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