Congressional Record, Volume 151 Issue 49 (Thursday, April 21, 2005)

[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 49 (Thursday, April 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2458-H2464]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

SOCIAL SECURITY

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schwarz). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to not
only address the House, but the American people, to make sure that this
government stays within the realm of the responsibility that the
American people have given us to come to this U.S. House of
Representatives and this Congress to represent them and their needs and
their family's needs.
Those great Americans that have worked their entire lives to save and
be a part of the Social Security system, to make sure that we hold our
promise to their well-being not only during their retirement years, but
even those that are beneficiaries of those that have passed on.
The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader,
has designated this hour for the 30-something Working Group. And every
week we come to the floor to address not only the House, but we keep
the American people up to date on what is happening regarding Social
Security and the challenges they are facing with the ongoing effort not
only by the President, but also by some Members on the majority side to
privatize Social Security.
I can tell Members that we pride ourselves on making sure that we get
not only accurate, but up-to-date information so we can share not only
mainly with the Members of this Congress the importance of the reason
why they need to stand up and represent their constituents.
I must say I am very pleased that a number of Democrats on this side
of the aisle, and I do mean almost 110 percent, I will say there are
many Democrats who are big, heavy supporters of Social Security and do
not want to see it privatized. I believe we are 100 percent.
I believe, on the majority side, we have a few Members who are
holding out and are saying they are not going to gamble with their
constituents' future, their guaranteed retirement.
Last week we talked about the 48 million Americans that celebrate a
Social Security benefit which is right

[[Page H2459]]

now, on average, about $955 that each Social Security beneficiary gets.
That is very important because 33 million of those individuals would be
under the poverty line if it was not for Social Security. So when we
start looking at what is going on and the hype around the fact that
Social Security is going to blow up tomorrow, I think it is important
that we share the facts.
The facts are that there is not a crisis as it relates to Social
Security. A crisis is something you have to respond to right now
because if you do not respond to it now, it will turn into something
that will be devastating to whatever the situation may be.
We do know now, in the next 47 or 50 years, we all agree that Social
Security will be able to provide the benefits to the individuals that
are in the program. When they reach retirement, it will be there for
them. That is 100 percent for the next 47 to 50 years. I will receive
100 percent of my benefits if nothing happens to Social Security.
We know we want to look beyond that and do creative things to make
sure that not only my generation, but future generations, the
generation-after-next generation, that Social Security is there for
them. As Democrats, we agree on the fact that we have to make sure that
it is there. But to say to privatize it is the answer, it is not the
answer. I cannot help but share some of the issues that are going on.
Last week we talked about the 48 million during our hour. I ran into
some of my colleagues this past week. They said, We know about that 48
million, and a lot of them are in Florida and that is what you are
concerned about; my State is not really affected, and the private
accounts will not hurt.

I guarantee Members this, they will hurt and benefits will fall in
Social Security if we go to private accounts. That is a fact.
Alan Greenspan had some interesting comments yesterday as it relates
to the stock market, and if we had private accounts right now, how
those individuals would have been penalized. The President said, We are
going to secure and isolate. If you invest in the stock market, it is
very hard to isolate your investments. When it goes under, it goes
under. So to turn Wall Street into Las Vegas as it relates to folks'
retirement, that may be good for a private pension plan, but it is not
good for Social Security.
I pulled some of the statistics from my colleagues' States so they
understand what we are saying about this issue, not just voting with
the next person because they say we have to follow the leadership and
privatize Social Security.
I think it is important to know in the great State of Alabama that
the report as it relates to young Social Security beneficiaries, and I
think this is important because a lot of folks have a misperception of
the fact that Social Security is just for individuals who have retired.
Right now we have 801,290 beneficiaries in Alabama: seventeen and
under, 71,350; from age 18 to 39, we have 30,930; and other ages beyond
that point is 699,010. Those are the numbers of Alabamians that count
on Social Security. And I will say if folks want to start playing the
Potomac two-step with Social Security, they need to understand that
their constituents are going to end up losing versus gaining.
Another State that is important to address because we have folks that
say they do not quite understand what is going on as it relates to the
State of Illinois. 1.816 million individuals receive benefits right
now. The number of those individuals that are over the age of 39
receiving are 1,652,030. I think it is important that people know there
are a number of individuals who will be affected by this privatization
plan.
I want to be able to address the Members and let it be known what we
should be doing. The 30-something Working Group, when we sit down and
talk about this, we talk about bipartisanship, and we talk about the
fact that to come up with a Social Security forecast, Democrats and
Republicans have to come together. In 1986, we know that Speaker Tip
O'Neill and also Ronald Reagan came together to save Social Security,
and I think it is important that we do that now.
Mr. Speaker, maybe under the circumstances we cannot do. It is not
because the minority side does not want to do it, it is because the
majority side does not want to do it. I think it is important that you
understand that we believe in strengthening Social Security 110 percent
because it is a Democratic plan. And it is a plan that Republicans
voted for in 1986, not all of them, but enough to say it is a part of
our Nation. I think it is important for us to realize that with the
numbers we are dealing with now, as relates to Social Security, we must
pay very close attention to what we are doing.
Now, the President has been flying around the country. This is not
about politics because the bottom line is that the President is in his
last term. So criticism that that is just some guy from Florida that is
trying to hurt the President's hopes from being reelected, he cannot be
reelected again. But it is important that we share accurate and good
information, and it is important to make sure that every American has
an opportunity to see his or her President when they come to their town
or their city or their county.
Now, if the President was to come to south Florida and I was standing
in line to see the President, I would not want to be pulled out of line
and escorted out of the parking lot and dropped off somewhere far away
from the convention center or wherever the President is going to speak
because I disagree with him on Social Security.
I guess if I was not a Member of Congress, I would be escorted out.
But we have accounts from throughout the country, and I happen to have
one right here in front of me. Fox News, of all news organizations,
criticized the President on the screening tactics that they are using.

{time} 1800

One of my fine colleagues here in the House said, speaking of the
President, ``Regardless of the affiliation of the individual, anybody
should have the opportunity to go see the President.'' Aaron Johnson, a
spokesperson for the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave), ``It
shouldn't be the job of anybody to make sure the crowd is 100 percent
sympathetic.''
So if I had this sign and I was standing in line, Mr. Speaker, to go
see the President, I guess I could not go in because I do not
necessarily agree with him. That is not democracy. That is kingdom
politics. I think that all Americans and also Members of this House
should not condone that, especially when the President is flying around
on taxpayer dollars. It is important that a democracy stays a
democracy, and it is not in the Constitution. Nowhere in the
Constitution does it say, It's either my way or the highway.
I think it is important, because this is an actual news account, and
AP and other news organizations covered the fact that if you disagree
with the President and you want to show up, you better be undercover,
you better not show your hand, you better not have a bumper sticker
because there are those that are watching out for those kinds of
individuals that are attending these events. I think it is very
unfortunate that that is happening.
That sends a perception out to the American people as though the
President is talking about private accounts and some proponents on the
majority side are talking about private accounts, that it is so great,
that there is not an objection to it.
If I was standing in front of the precinct where I am elected to come
and serve in this Congress and folks were getting out of their car with
the literature of my opponent and I was to have my friends go over
there and escort them down the street so they cannot vote, I would get
100 percent of the vote. So when we send this perception through that
we are all together on this, it is not true. It is important, and I ask
for Members to let their friends know at the White House and other
places where these events are going on that it is important. And also
as it relates to individuals that disagree with the President on other
issues.
I think it is important, not only that the 30-something Working Group
continues to do what we are doing, but we want to commend those other
groups that are out there. AARP, I must add, the largest retirement
organization in this country, continues to go around and raise
objection as it relates to Social Security. It is working. The reason
why there is not a bill here on the floor, the fact that we have other
things to do, which we do, because Social Security is not a crisis. I
mean,

[[Page H2460]]

that has not stopped some people from continuing to talk about it as
though it is a Federal crisis right now. It is not. It is the fact that
the American people object to the idea of privatizing their guaranteed
retirement.
You heard the statistics that I read off as it relates to States of
children that are beneficiaries, receiving survivor benefits. That is
helping them make it through college. That is helping them make ends
meet. They are a part of the 33 million that would be otherwise under
the poverty line. It is important that we pay very close attention to
what is going on.
In that same report, I think it is important as it relates to the
President and what is going on in this one-sided deal, we have the
Secret Service in Denver that told the three the next day that the
bumper sticker on their car which read ``No More Blood For Oil,'' a
common anti-Iraq slogan, triggered the ejection of those three
individuals from the Bush rally, or the Social Security rally. I can
tell you that as we start leading into this era of kingdom politics, we
are going to find ourselves in more and more trouble.

I want to talk a little bit about what is guaranteed under what we
are dealing with now, Mr. Speaker. Some folks say there is a great
mystery of what the benefit of going into, or lack thereof, a private
account and what it means. The President said, well, we are spending
money to save money, $5 trillion onto the debt. There is not a $5
trillion surplus or the surplus that the President had when he came
into office, but this is a $5 trillion loan. I want to just pull my
deficit chart up here. As the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), has said, the only thing
that you are guaranteed, Members, and your constituents are guaranteed,
is the $26,296.10 that you owe right now on the debt.
That is not only for father. That is for mother, that is for child,
no matter what the age of that child. A child that was just born 5
minutes ago, they already have a debt to this country, a financial debt
to this country, not due to the fact of irresponsible spending on
behalf of Democrats. We are not in charge of the House of
Representatives. But when we were in charge of the House of
Representatives, we balanced the budget. We took down the debt. We had
a surplus. So to say, Yeah, it's those Democrats that are spending the
money, that is not necessarily the case. As a matter of fact, we are
being fiscally responsible by looking at it from the standpoint of if
we are going to do something, why make the situation worse financially.
We want to deal with Social Security, but we do not want to dig into
making the debt even deeper, the national debt. And the whole argument
about the reason why we are privatizing or that the President wants to
privatize and some Members of the other body and some Members within
this body want to privatize Social Security is the fact that we have to
watch out for future generations.
Let us look at that for a minute. Future generations. I am a Member
of the U.S. Congress. My mother before me was a Member of the U.S.
Congress. I have two young children. They are going to have a different
experience than the rest of my constituents within the 17th
Congressional District in Florida. Not because they are that much
smarter than the rest of the 8-year-olds and the 10-year-olds in their
community, but it is the fact that I am a U.S. Congressman and their
mother is an outstanding lady and she is a professional and my mother
was a past Congresswoman, that they are going to have a different snap
at life than the next person.
But people did not elect me to have a better opportunity towards not
only health care but a better opportunity as it relates to a good
retirement. They did not say, That's what we're electing you for. They
elected us to represent them. So we have to watch out for the future
generations. A $26,000 debt and change, I must add, is not a way to
help our future generations. There are a number of individuals that are
graduating from college, especially those that have gone through the
postgraduate experience, that are leaving on an average of $20,000 in
debt, and we are adding this debt on what they are going to have to pay
somehow some way in the very near future. Over 40 percent of our debt
is owned by foreign interests.
I think it is important to understand, also, that this information on
the debt can be found. Some people may think, Oh, you're just coming up
with those numbers and you're just putting them out there. I want to
make sure that the Members are aware of this. They can go on
www.house.gov/budget_democrats to get this information, not only on the
ticker but also letting it be known that the $26,000 and change, what
they can actually print out and place somewhere on the door so that
they can know exactly what we are doing to our future generations. If
you can check that Web site, in 4 hours it will even be higher, the
national debt.
I think it is also important to know when dealing with the $5
trillion what could happen and what we could do with that money. We
talked about the fact that it is not a Federal emergency as it relates
to the issue on Social Security, and it is not. But what does $5
trillion do for programs over the next 20 years? I can do an awful lot
for $5 trillion. I was talking to one of my mayors recently, and I
mentioned $5 trillion to him and he said, goodness gracious, we could
solve a lot of the issues facing our cities, and I can probably go
around to many of my friends throughout the country. With $5 trillion
we can make education better, we can make infrastructure better, we can
do better services for our elderly, we can make sure that our
communities are more secure, and we can make sure that we have a future
for many of our young people.
Let us look at $5 trillion. Pell grants. We hear a lot of discussion
about Pell grants. It has helped a lot of young people and folks make
it to school. Maybe they will not have that $20,000 in debt when they
graduate. We know that there are a number of young people that go to
school and have to return back home, not to take care of Mom and Dad;
but it is the fact that they cannot go out and buy a home because they
have debt. Unfortunately, many of our young people fall into that
downward spiral of falling into debt and getting a bad credit rating.

We can raise the maximum Pell grant from $4,050 to $59,500. Now, 5.3
million students receive $4,050 in Pell grants. With $5 trillion, 23.7
million students would receive a $59,500 Pell grant.
I can go on and on and on, but I think it is important for us to
understand what $5 trillion can do. The President and some of those
proponents for private accounts want to go and borrow $5 trillion to
not only take down the benefit structure but the benefits that now
Americans enjoy. I think there is a majority of the Members in this
Chamber, I know on the Democratic side, a supermajority on our side,
and I think there are other individuals on the other side of the aisle
that would say different, that we have other crises that are facing
this country right now versus a crisis that is 50 years off, or could
be a crisis where it would only go down to 80 percent of the benefits
that we have now.
We have got to deal with the Federal debt before we start getting
into saying that, Well, we know we have the highest deficit in the
history of the Republic, the 109th Congress oversees that debt, let's
see, let's make it worse. Let's add 5 trillion more dollars on to it.
Let's really make history. Let's go further than any other Congress has
gone in the light of making sure that the only guaranteed benefit out
of this whole exercise will be a $26,200-and-change debt given to every
American no matter what their age may be.
My colleague from Florida and a member of the 30-something Working
Group and a good friend of mine, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms.
Wasserman Schultz), I am so glad you came down.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you so much, Congressman Meek. We are
continuing to try to educate our generation and other generations about
the significantly negative impact that privatizing Social Security
would have on them. As much as the President, as you have outlined,
would like to lead people to believe that privatization is not going to
harm people 55 and older, and there is going to be this amazing
panacea, this incredible windfall for our generation and for supposedly
savvy investors that are from our generation, we know differently. What
we

[[Page H2461]]

have been trying to do as the 30-something Working Group convened by
Leader Pelosi is to try to separate fact from fiction.
To follow up on some of your really excellent descriptions of what
the kind of money we are talking about really means for people, you
just talked about $5 trillion and what $5 trillion, which is what the
President's privatization proposal would cost and add to the deficit in
the next 20 years, what that would mean, what we could do with $5
trillion instead of ballooning the deficit.
I was just elected. I am a freshman Member of the Congress. We have
had an opportunity to work together over the years. I am still
definitely in learning mode, and I have got a learning curve. One of
the things that I have noticed in my learning curve is that when you go
from being in the State legislature like we were where you are dealing
with billions of dollars, with a B, to the Congress, when you are
dealing with trillions, with a T, it is hard for anyone, Members of
Congress, Members of State legislatures and average citizens to really
grasp what that kind of money is. No one deals with trillions of
dollars. The current budget deficit is more than $7 trillion. It is
$7.7 trillion.

{time} 1815

And what the gentleman just described, the President's privatization
proposal would add another $5 trillion to that.
So let us just take the $7.7 trillion that is included in the
projected deficit now and try to help people get their minds around
what that is. If we took $7.7 trillion and can pile enough $1 bills,
and there are actually people that figure these things out, on top of
one another, it would reach the moon and back.
The Moon is 93 million miles away from here. I am pretty sure that is
right, 93 million miles away from here. So that is two stacks of $1
bills that would reach the moon, and that is how much our deficit is.
We would still have almost $6.5 billion left over. With that money,
after traveling to the moon and back, we could make 1,329 stacks of $1
bills that would reach up into the stratosphere, however high that
would go.
There is a really instructive Web site that the Department of
Treasury has, and I think it would be helpful for people to know what
that Web site is. It gives what the current deficit is, and it also
gives what is each American's share of that deficit. It is a ticker and
it is constantly changing. But that Web site is www.house.gov/
budget_democrats. And they can get access to the U.S. Treasury
Department's Web page with that information; if they sign on to that
Web site, it will link them right to that information.
The national debt as of April 21 is $7,782,705,281,978.34. We could
really improve the quality of people's lives with that kind of money.
And the direction that this country has been going in is really
disturbing. When I go home and talk to the people that live in my
community in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, and we represent both of
the same counties in South Florida, it does not matter whether I talk
to people who consider themselves conservative, people who consider
themselves moderate, people who consider themselves liberal. After the
events of the last few weeks and the concerns that people have over the
deficit, their share of it, this privatization plan which the President
is suggesting would pull the safety net of Social Security out from
under people.
People are really starting to say just hold it a second, we need to
get this train back on the tracks and start going in the direction that
most people are comfortable with.
And I think we really need to start encouraging people, as we have
been doing, to raise their voices to help get that train back on the
tracks, because it is moving so far to the right even for people who
consider themselves on the right, even people like that are coming up
to me and telling me they are disturbed. So I just wanted to share that
illustration with people.
We have talked often about the impact that privatization has had, and
we had been on a break and we were not able to spend time during our
30-something hour. We did not have a 30-something hour last week
because of votes.
So I think it is important, and I am not sure if the gentleman
already talked about it, the impact that privatization would have on
different categories of people. Particularly as the 30-something Group,
we want to explain how it would hurt young people and working families.
The cost of privatization would just explode the national debt, which
we have been talking about, but what it means beyond exploding the
national debt is that people who collect Social Security would
literally experience a 46 percent cut in their benefits.
There has been this portrayal by the President on his 60-day tour of
the country to try to sell this plan, which I know the gentleman
outlined and talked about, how they restrict access to their town hall
meetings and we let anybody come and we are willing to take on the
people who stand up and actually ask questions that are not the same as
the position that we take in our town hall meetings.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is what a
democracy is all about. And I hope that the President disabused himself
of escorting Americans out, taxpaying Americans that want to hear what
he has to say.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue
to yield, it is really unbelievable.
I met with representatives of the Egyptian Government today, and they
were talking to me about the democratic reforms that they are making
and being more inclusive and involving their public in the role that
government has. And I just cannot even imagine what kind of example the
President is setting to burgeoning democracies and democracies that are
trying to become even more democratic.
I mean, if the President of the greatest democracy in world does not
feel that the right thing to do is to let anyone into a town hall
meeting whether or not they agree with him, then that really sends a
terrible message.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the real issue
is that the President would like to put the perception out there of
roaring crowds, saying, ``We love you. We appreciate what you are
doing. Thank God you are saving Social Security by privatizing accounts
even though my benefit level is going to go down.'' And anyone that
objects to that, they are going to see the parking lot.
Ms. WASSERMAN SHULTZ. People have seen the parking lot.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. They will not even see the inside because they
will take those individuals out of line.
Like I said, if anyone were to show up with this, just as an
American, freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court is right across the
street, ``Hands off of my Social Security,'' they are a goner. They are
out of there. They are taking them, ``Excuse me, sir, ma'am, we need to
take you over here.''
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think they made it pretty clear how they
feel about the courts.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is another special order, Mr. Speaker. This
is democracy we are talking about.
I am a member of the Committee on Armed Services. We have men and
women, several thousand, that are fighting against this kind of thing.
And we have to make sure that we give very little to others to point to
and say, ``See, you are telling me to do something, but you are not
doing it.''
And if someone is the President of the United States, they can pretty
much say, if someone has a T-shirt, if someone has a sign, if someone
is standing in line and they say, ``I disagree with the President and I
want to hear what he says, but I do not think we need to privatize
Social Security.'' Or to go in and then come out and talk to the media
or talk to anyone, they have the right to do that.
This is not a private event. This is paid for by the taxes that the
gentlewoman pays, I pay, and all of our constituents pay. So if our tax
dollars are going to work against us because we disagree, and we are
right to disagree, it is insane.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, what I have noticed is that this
President treats democracy as an inconvenience. He treats democracy as
if what it means is ``I am going to listen to you when you agree with
me and I am going to apply democratic principles when I can surround
myself with people who tell me what I want to hear.'' And that is just
the worst message we could possibly be sending.

[[Page H2462]]

When the gentleman and I listened to the State of the Union and we
listened to the Inaugural Address, both of which included a treatise on
the President's desire to help spread democracy around the world, I
really think that the greatest democracy in the world and the leader of
that democracy should be setting an example at home. And I think that
that is what we expect parents to do.
We ask parents to set examples for their children, and we tell
parents that they cannot expect their children to behave any better
than they do. And I do not know how the President could expect
democracies or burgeoning democracies around the world to behave any
better than he does.
There are a couple other things I wanted to highlight for people
about the impact of the privatization plan because we got on our soap
box for a little while.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Rightfully so. I am glad I am a Member of the
Congress and no one can walk in here and escort me out. I mean, right
now they cannot.
But I am glad. I am glad that that is the case because I would be
kind of concerned if I were standing outside at one of the stops that
the President was making and we were having this conversation. We may
very well be asked to spend some time in the parking lot because we
cannot go in.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. And that is because
they do not want the facts to go out. Because if light is shed on their
proposal, if they are forced to face their accusers, so to speak, if
they are forced to respond to people who have the facts, their facts
just do not hold up under the sheen of light.
So what I started to say a few minutes ago was what his proposal does
is, and like I said, I call it a proposal, but I should say his vague
outlines of a proposal, he has promoted across the country the concept
or the belief that private accounts would be a windfall and has led
people to believe that they would both be able to have the money in
their private accounts as well as their Social Security benefits, and
that is not the case. There would be a commensurate cut in Social
Security benefits, about 46 percent, commensurate in proportion to the
amount in someone's private account.
An average 20-year-old, over their 20-year retirement, would lose
about $152,000 in Social Security benefits under the vague outlines of
the President's proposal.
Let us take disability insurance and survivor benefits, because I am
not sure if the gentleman talked about that before I got here; but
Social Security provides disability insurance for young families. There
is no private insurance plan that could compete with the disability
benefits provided by Social Security. For a worker in her mid-20s who
has a spouse and her two children, and there are millions of those
across this country, Social Security provides the equivalent of a
$350,000 disability policy. Most people, especially a young widow with
two children, cannot afford to go out and buy a policy on the private
market like that. It would just not be available to her.
Suppose, God forbid, there is a young parent who suddenly dies.
Social Security provides for the children who are left behind. Social
Security provides survivors benefits. Survivor benefits replace as much
as 80 percent of the earnings for a 20-year-old average-wage worker who
dies leaving two young children and a spouse. For that parent, Social
Security survivor benefits are equivalent to a $403,000 life insurance
policy.
That is what it means when we talk about what privatization would do
to young families. That is real. That would be gone, that benefit.
Because when it comes to disability and survivor benefits,
privatization does not apply because there is no income being
generated. One has to have income in order to have a private account.
People who are disabled and people who are widows and widowers do not
have that income coming in by its very nature.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the thing about it is that
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, white, black, Asian, name it, are
part of the 48 million Americans that are receiving benefits right now.
And this issue is not only in districts on the Democratic side of the
aisle, but on the Republican side of the aisle. And I will tell the
Members this will not hold.
Now, it is not all doom and gloom because, guess what. Thank God the
Democratic leadership is saying we do not want to increase the debt to
go on a scheme of a $500 trillion over the next 20 years cost for
individuals to have to pay more on the debt and also for individuals to
lose some of their benefits.
And the bad thing about what the President and some Members on the
majority side, the Republican side, are proposing is the fact that they
are saying that, yes, it will go up and down but over time private
accounts will win. Guess what. If one is in a private account or they
opt to be in a private account from the Social Security philosophy, and
I must add if I said ``plan,'' I want to take that back, philosophy
that the majority side has and that the President is talking about,
they are going to lose, too. They are going to lose some of their
benefits, too, and I think it is important that people understand that.
Also, let us just put it this way: Some people may say what is the
Democratic plan? I will say what is the Republican plan? Where is it?
What Web site can I go to? Is someone coming to my office with some
sort of bound copy? Maybe I need to come to my office to find out if
something came since I have been here on the floor. Where is the bill?

{time} 1830

Well, there is a hearing that is going to take place on Capitol Hill.
Guess what? There are over 200 hearings that take place in every
Congress. They do not all result in legislation. I am hoping that in
that hearing, if someone wants to do something, or the majority side
wants to work with the minority side, because I do know that the
gentlewoman from California (Leader Pelosi), I know that the gentleman
from Maryland (Whip Hoyer), and our caucus chairman and vice chairman
and others in leadership would love to sit down. The gentleman from New
York (Mr. Rangel) is always saying, my door is open, I am ready to go.
Let us talk about this thing.
But let me just say this, because I think it is important. The
Democratic plan is already in 48 million wallets of Americans that have
Social Security benefits. That is the Democratic plan. Hello? That is
the Democratic plan. So the Democratic plan is to make sure that we do
not add more to the $26,000 that every American already owes the
Federal Government, the highest deficit in the history of the Republic.
The Democratic plan is to fight to bring that number down and to go
into surplus where we were before this administration got in.
That is the Democratic plan.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if I could jump in here for a
second.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Of course. I was looking for my little note
here, because I wanted to remind Members but also the American people.
Please add to this. There is just so much, we do not know what to
share. We have so many other plans as Democrats.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is why we spend an hour on this every
week, because there is plenty of information to disseminate. I sit on
the Committee on Financial Services, and I have an opportunity to
interact with people on the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman
Greenspan, who testified before our committee, and representatives of
the Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade and all of the
exchanges. One of the things that I got out of those meetings that was
clear and that has been written about in the last few days is, let us
remember what the foundation of this whole privatization is built on.
It is built on the stock market. It is built on stocks and bonds.
Now, last week, we had one of the most significant drops in the
market in over 2 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen
more than 9 percent in the last 6 weeks, including a drop of 115
points, or 1.1 percent, on Wednesday. Now, I do not know if most
Americans are going to want to throw their retirement security to the
whims of the stock market. There are two words in the name of this
program: social and security. This proposal removes and decimates the
concept of ``security'' in Social Security. It would be social
insecurity, because there would be no ability to ensure that future
retirees would have that investment there for

[[Page H2463]]

them when they retired, because we have fluctuations in the market.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I see the gentleman from California
(Chairman Dreier) wants us to yield for a minute here, so I yield to
the chairman.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. I am
preparing to make some remarks myself about Middle East policy in just
a few minutes. But when I heard about this drop in the Dow, I just
wanted to state for the record, and my colleagues may not have heard it
today, that the largest gain in the Dow Jones industrial average took
place today, the largest gain in 2 years, and the largest gain in about
9 months in the NASDAQ. So I just wanted to say that, for the record we
had an over-200 point gain in the Dow today. How it fluctuates, I think
that is just an important point I wanted to make.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, that is an important point, and I
appreciate the gentleman making that point.
But the point is that from one day to the next, we had a 200-point
swing. Now, is that what people are going to be comfortable with in
terms of their retirement security, in terms of ensuring that they have
at least a minimum amount of money available for them when they retire?
Because, for example, 20 percent of single retired women, most of whom
are widows, the only source of their income is their Social Security.
Now, if we invest it in the stock market and privatize Social Security,
what are we going to do for those women when their nest egg that they
banked on is not there because of fluctuations like the one that the
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) just referred to? I just wonder.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, that is important, and that is what
happens when we start talking about investing private accounts in a
private system; we may say publicly traded or whatever the case may be.
But I think it is important to understand that what is guaranteed also
is the $940 billion to Wall Street that is guaranteed in the proposal
or the philosophy that individuals have, somewhere around that number.
Now, I do not have a problem with investments, this, that, and the
other; but Social Security, like the gentlewoman said, and her
definition is Webster's definition; it is not a Debbie Wasserman
Schultz's definition.
But let me say, what is interesting here, Mr. Speaker, that we must
pay very close attention to is that there are some very fine Members of
this Chamber that came to this Congress and we were here late one night
in the 108th Congress and talked about, well, this will be the number
as it relates to the medicare prescription drug issue. We have a
number; this is how much it will cost Americans. And some folks ran
around here on the floor and gave emotional speeches about how we have
to get prescription drugs to the people, and it is too high, and this,
that, and the other; and I have another editorial on that.
But we were told by the administration that it will only be $350
billion. I mean, that is a big number. That is all it will be, so you
do not need to be worried about it. Even though we are borrowing that
too, that is all it will be. Later, I was looking, while the
gentlewoman was talking, I was looking through my notes, because that
is the reason why democracy has to play a role here. Bipartisanship has
to be a part of this debate. If bipartisanship was a part of the
debate, maybe we would not have been shocked later to find out that it
would be $400 billion.
Did it stop there? Well, sure enough, after the bill was passed, it
jumped up to $530 billion. Now we are being told, now, just recently,
just a month ago, we are being told that it will be $724 billion. This
is real money. Meanwhile, community development block grants are being
cut. Meanwhile, we are saying that, well, we are going to provide
certain cuts here, certain cuts there, a trade bill here.
Where is my credit card? We are getting the opportunity to pull out
the U.S. Treasury credit card here and say, well, that is fine, let us
just put it on the credit card; it is okay.
We talk a little bit about responsibility within the family. I mean,
my mom, when I used to be in college and say, Hey, I need some money.
Oh, just put it on a credit card, it will be okay. She did not say
that. She said, Either you cannot do it because you do not have the
money, or you need to be able to generate the money to do it. Now, let
me tell my colleagues something. I think they are doing both. They are
generating the money, but they are generating it from the credit card.

Now, some may say, well, he is just talking. By the rules of this
House, if our leadership had the ability within the rules, we
definitely have the will, but within the rules, if we can call a
committee meeting and call some of these individuals out of why we are
continuing to borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. And
I am a Democrat. So when folks start talking about the definition of
the tax and spend, well, that is something that the majority side says,
because that is not reality. The Democratic Congress balanced the
budget, I say to the gentlewoman, and the Democratic Congress, along
with many of the caucuses within this side of the Chamber, works day in
and day out to talk about the Federal debt and the irresponsible
spending, if we want to talk about future generations.
The last point I want to make on this particular subject, I am going
to pick up where I left off as it relates to what is the Democratic
plan. Well, the Democratic plan is $555 on average benefit to 48
million Americans that receive Social Security today. The Democratic
plan keeps Social Security solvent for the next 50 years. That is the
Democratic plan. The Democratic plan is making sure that we do not see,
under the philosophy that the majority has, the 46 percent decrease in
benefits as it relates to the cuts that will happen over time. The
Democratic plan is making sure that the monthly average benefit does
not fall down to $516. That is the Democratic plan. The democratic plan
is to make sure that we work in a bipartisan way with the majority if
we want to approach this issue of Social Security. And the Democratic
plan is to also get out the truth of the fact that this is not a
crisis.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is right.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. So that is the reason why some of the Members
even on the majority side are saying no can do: I am not going to
disrupt my constituents and their way of life and add on to the party
numbers of my district, because it is not right. And if it is not
right, I do not care if you fly around for 160 days. It is not going to
change as long as you are talking about gambling with the Social
Security and the security of folks' retirement.
So I can tell my colleague right now, I look forward to the day that
Americans say, enough is enough, and that we do not have to speak from
the position of saying, well, we are informing you; we will be actually
doing it if we were in control of this House, and that is what the
debate is about. It is about not only sharing with the Members that if
they get into this whole issue of believing the hype on the
privatization of Social Security and folks start losing benefits, they
are making a career decision. They do not want to be in Congress,
because I can tell my colleague right now, when folks say, listen, I do
not know what I have been doing; maybe I have been voting politics over
principle. Maybe I need to get back to voting principle over politics.
Well, they say that the guy that was running against the other guy or
the young lady, that they are tax and spend. Well, you know, the
evidence does not necessarily add up to be that way.
So I love to talk about the Democratic and the bipartisan proposal
that went down in this Chamber in 1986 and even before then. That was
bipartisanship. Even though a supermajority, all Democrats voted for
it, some Republicans voted for it when Ronald Reagan was in the White
House, and we made it happen. It is just that simple.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely
right. We have to right the ship of state. I mean, it is keeling over
right now. It is going to fall from the weight of the debt. I mean, why
the Republican majority here will not listen to Chairman Greenspan when
he expresses again and again, as recently as this week, again and again
he has warned us about the danger of the increasing deficits.

[[Page H2464]]

The leadership here is just ignoring it. It is like they hope that if
they ignore the problem long enough, maybe it will go away. Maybe they
will wake up, just like my kids hope that the next day something that
happened that they did not like the day before will not be true when
they wake up, like so many of us do. But the worst nightmare is that
when something bad happens, when you wake up the next day, you cannot
make it go away just by a night's sleep or ignoring it. It does not
work that way. We have to be responsible. That is the whole way we need
to deal with this Social Security problem. Problem, not crisis.
We have a problem, but we need to be responsible and take the time
that we need to address the problem and do it right. We did not create
this problem overnight, and there is no miracle solution; there is no
instantaneous solution to this problem. The President has already
acknowledged that privatization does not even solve the problem. We
need to make sure that we get privatization off the table so we can all
sit down together, just like they did in 1983, and find a bipartisan
solution that we can all be comfortable with, or at least that the
majority can be comfortable with, because we will probably not get
everybody. But the majority is willing to come to the table, it is just
that the President needs to let go of an untenable proposal that the
vast majority of the people do not support. It is time to let it go,
Mr. President.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is right. We say
this to make sure that the Members and also the American people
understand 110 percent what we are dealing with here. We could have
both been halfway home by now; but we have taken the opportunity
because this is a pivotal time in history as we start looking at Social
Security the way it is now and the way that it could be in the future.
I read those medicare prescription drug estimates that were given to
us officially in this House to serve as an example of the
misinformation that takes place under this dome and the misinformation
that is given to Americans. I talk a lot about the Potomac two-step,
but when it comes down to Social Security and you have one out of six
Americans that depends on this thing as it relates to the 48 million
that is out there, you cannot help but think that if you are serving in
a body where the discussion is taking place, not only in the halls, but
in the newspapers, you cannot help but say in the future, when folks
look back and they say, well, what happened in the 109th Congress and
what role did you play to stop it?

{time} 1845

I am proud to say, boldly and with a chestful of air, the fact that
the Democratic leadership and Members that sit on this side of the
Chamber are sleeping with their fists balled up ready to use any tool
verbally possible and power-wise to be able to educate and to be able
to have town hall meetings with some 300, well now 400-plus town hall
meetings that have taken place on this side of the aisle.
And I can tell you that if someone showed up and said that they
support privatization, they can come in the town hall meeting. They are
not saying, okay, you need to go over here and you need to wait
outside, because you are going to ask a question that we do not want to
answer right now.
We are saying, bring it on. We want to answer those questions because
we have the prima facie evidence to show that what the President is
talking about is not necessarily going to benefit Social Security as we
see it today. So we fight for those individuals that have sent us up
here to deal with that.
Last point, and Congresswoman, we have about 3 minutes left. I want
to close. I want you to make your closing comments, then we will yield
back our time. But, it is important that we keep up the fight. And I
want to commend some of my Members on the Republican side of this aisle
that are saying, no, I am not going to vote to privatize Social
Security.
I want to let them know that as a Member of this House, I commend
them for that, but the American people have a role to play too. They
have to hold us accountable. If they do not hold us accountable, then
the question will be asked of them, what were you doing when all of
this was happening? Did you call your Congressman or -woman? Were you
involved? Did you write? Did you do op-eds to the editor? What did you
do?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I agree with you. I am ready to stand and
fight and make sure that the security remains in Social Security.
And, you know, just to close my portion of this out, the illustrative
thing that I want to leave people with is we are both under 40; that is
why we are here. Our generation, my friends, your friends, most of them
when we chat with them when we are out to dinner, and we ask them
whether they think Social Security is likely to be there for them when
they retire, it is almost universal that the answer is no.
In 37 years, 36 years, let us say 2041, we are going to be 74 years
old. You and I are 3 weeks apart. And I am 3 weeks younger, I might
add. We are going to be 74 years old.
Now, when I learned that, I was amazed because I really was one of
those people. Social Security will be there, even if we do nothing,
which is not what we are advocating. We are advocating take a little
slower approach. Let us make sure that we keep the security in Social
Security.
In 46 years, the outlying date for which insolvency is less likely to
occur, we will be 84 years old. Now, that is well within the number of
years, 20 years after retirement, that we can ensure that Social
Security will be there for us.
What we have to do is we have to stand with our feet firmly planted
on the ground and say you have taken this country this far, no further.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Yes, you are right. And Congresswoman, I am
going to thank you for being an active Member within the 30-something
Working Group and all the input, even when we are not on the floor in
the discussion that we have on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that Members are fully informed
about the fact that Leader Pelosi is out doing what she is doing. She
will be speaking at Columbia University next Tuesday to young people on
the issue of Social Security in New York. It is important that we
continue to share this information.

____________________