[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 21 (Tuesday, March 1, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H816-H817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                SOCIAL SECURITY AND NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Conaway). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to cover three 
topics this evening with my colleagues and frame them in a way that 
suggest that we are lacking in our focus on a domestic policy.
  So many of us have just returned from our districts and had the 
opportunity to interface with our constituents. What has to be a 
driving issue across America is, of course, the preservation, the 
saving of Social Security. But allow me to take you down memory lane 
just for a moment because maybe in this debate as we listen to 
economists, the Congressional Budget Office, the various committees of 
the House and various spokespersons and the administration about Social 
Security, we fail to understand its origins.
  In 1929 we know that there was a market crash, Wall Street crash. We 
look at our history books. We know that a number of individuals of 
great wealth committed suicide. During the course of a very large 
depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected on the 
concept of restoring our economy, began to think about the whole idea 
of investment in our domestic policies. The WPA was formed, educational 
policies were enhanced, opportunities for work were provided, and, yes, 
Social Security.
  At that time, if we look at our statistics, we will find that seniors 
then were in their forties and fifties and were dying because they were 
destitute after long years of work. There were no opportunities to be 
able to protect themselves, provide for their daily needs, and 
certainly there was no opportunity for children to take care of their 
parents at that time. The resources were meager. So Social Security 
became that kind of umbrella, that kind of resource, and it lasted and 
it was steady through the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Then 
President Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together in the early 1980s and 
found a way to shore up Social Security for another 50 years.
  We find ourselves now in 2005 in what I call the ``generational 
divide,'' an unfortunate approach to dividing America over this 
umbrella for a rainy day. Let me first of all say that Social Security 
is what it is. It is in fact a retirement benefit, but it is also a 
survivor benefit for those who lost their

[[Page H817]]

parents. It allows young people to carry on their lives, and it allows 
the disabled to live an independent and productive life because of the 
Social Security benefit.
  It is important that this debate be full of a factual content. It is 
not political. It is not Republican. It is not Democratic. It is really 
an American debate on how we want to take care of those most needy. 
What kind of separate umbrella do we provide? Do we eliminate the 
opportunity for 401(k)? Absolutely not. Private savings account? It is 
your choice.
  Those who are in the generation under 45, under 50 have every right 
to establish their own private savings account, but it is not a place 
for Social Security. Social Security stands on its own feet as an 
investment in those in America, for those who have worked hard and 
those who may have no other options. And I believe it is important that 
we maintain Social Security and not break the bank by taking almost a 
trillion dollars, a trillion dollars to put in a private savings 
account.
  Mr. Speaker, I can assure you in our congressional districts, 
Republicans and Democrats alike are understanding this issue. They know 
that this is divide and conquer, and they know it is wrong. Social 
Security deserves to be saved.
  I want to speak very quickly about this whole issue of low-performing 
schools and not educating America's workforce. The Governors over the 
past couple of days said that they are hesitant on putting No Child 
Left Behind in high schools because it is a problem. It is not working.
  You can have regulations and yet have, if you will, no dollars; and 
that is what we are finding in Houston, Texas, the announcement of low-
performing schools with no solutions. We are working in Houston, Texas, 
where the community has now come together, parents and others, forming 
caucuses around the idea of working to help those low-performing 
schools and give children an opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, regulatory entanglement is not the answer. Leave No 
Child Behind has left many children behind. We now have to get our 
hands involved, our hands on, and we have to work together as Americans 
but also as community people to ensure that our schools are working to 
educate our young people.
  In Houston just a few days ago, we saw a terrible tragedy of a 6-
month-old child abused, sexually abused, physically abused, huge 
bruises all over this child. This is an epidemic. First, I would like 
to thank the Texas Children's Hospital and Dr. Lyn in particular and 
all the doctors in the emergency room that now over the past couple of 
months have allowed this child to leave the hospital and go to a foster 
home.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to call for hearings here in the 
United States Congress. The Congressional Children's Caucus will take 
up this issue to hold hearings, to hear from people around America of 
the epidemic of child abuse. If nothing else, an innocent child 
deserves the right to live a beautiful quality of life. The heinous and 
horrible people, parents or not, that would abuse a child both sexually 
and physically should be obviously put in the criminal justice system, 
and more importantly not be allowed to be able to have that child 
again.
  We must protect our children, and I call for these hearings as well 
as legislation to stop the epidemic of child abuse.

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