[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 54 (Thursday, April 28, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H2653]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  (Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, Social Security is one of the most 
successful programs ever enacted by Congress. Through its guaranteed 
benefits and reliability, it has saved tens of millions of seniors from 
a life of poverty during their most vulnerable years.
  To appreciate fully the importance of Social Security, one need only 
to have our grandparents talk about the tragic lives of many of our 
seniors prior to the 1935 passage of the Social Security Act. Yet the 
President's current proposal fails in its protection of our Nation's 
seniors by sacrificing the reliability of Social Security benefits for 
the highly risky scheme of private accounts, subject to the 
unpredictable fluctuations of the stock market. For that reason, it is 
no accident that seniors across the country are opposed to the 
President's ill advised and extremely risky Social Security proposal.
  Let us reject the President's ideas and instead draft a plan to 
ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security and again give 
Americans the safety and confidence they have long enjoyed from the 
Social Security System.

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