[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 213 (Thursday, December 9, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H7619-H7623]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SOCIAL SECURITY 2100: A SACRED TRUST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Kaptur). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I rise this afternoon to 
use this hour to discuss ``Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust,'' or, 
as Martin Luther King would remind us, the fierce urgency of now and 
Congress' need to act on Social Security.
  Let me start with the fact that Social Security is the Nation's 
number one insurance program, the number one insurance program that 
some on the other side call an entitlement. There is nothing further 
from the truth, and this is easily verifiable. All you have to do is 
look at your pay stub. It says FICA. FICA stands for Federal Insurance 
Contributions Act. Whose contribution? Every citizen in the United 
States who pays into the program.
  It is an earned benefit, and one that has never missed a payment. It 
is a guarantee, and that is why it is so vitally important to every 
American citizen.
  Congress has been negligent. It has been 50 years since there has 
been an enhancement to the program. It has been more than 38 years 
since there was an attempt at solvency. Yet, 38 years ago, Congress 
enacted a cut that will take place this January.
  The time to act is now. No more procrastination. For all of our C-
SPAN listeners, make sure that you contact your Member of Congress in 
both Houses.
  We are pleased that 200-plus people are original cosponsors of the 
bill. You will hear from some of them today.
  We have taken the liberty of pointing out to every Member of Congress 
how many people in their district receive Social Security benefits and 
what that brings into their district on a monthly basis. I assure you, 
there is no more greater economic development plan for Members' 
districts than what happens on a monthly basis to those who need it 
most.
  Let me reiterate again: Social Security is the number one antipoverty 
program for the elderly and the number one antipoverty program for 
children as well.
  I have here, Madam Speaker, something we have done for every Member 
of Congress. In this case, we are illustrating our great leader, 
Representative  Jim Clyburn, who is a proud cosponsor of this bill.
  In his district, in South Carolina's Sixth, there are 149,433 Social 
Security recipients who receive $189 million in monthly benefits. That 
is monthly benefits. There are 1.2 million Social Security recipients 
in South Carolina who receive $1.7 billion in monthly benefits as well.
  For about half of senior beneficiaries, Social Security provides a 
majority of their income. Now imagine that, for half the seniors in the 
country, Social Security provides a majority of their benefits, yet 
there hasn't been an enhancement or an increase in over 50 years in a 
COLA. That doesn't even come remotely close to what people need.
  For more than a quarter of our seniors, it provides 90 percent or 
more of their income, 90 percent for a quarter of our seniors. At a 
time when the wealth disparity is the greatest it has ever been in our 
country, the wealthiest nation in the world, there are 5 million of our 
fellow Americans, mostly women, who receive a below-poverty level check 
from their government.

                              {time}  1630

  Why? Because Congress hasn't acted. This isn't something the 
President can do through executive order, nor is this something that 
the Supreme Court is going to adjudicate. This is the responsibility of 
the United States Congress.
  I am proud that we had a hearing the other day in the Ways and Means 
Committee that we are going to bring to a markup and ultimately to the 
floor of this House: Social Security 2100. I am proud of the fact that 
we have a President of the United States who refers to Social Security 
as a sacred trust, a sacred trust between the government and their 
people. And Social Security has never failed. It has never missed a 
payment.
  It used to be--and Mr. Cartwright from Pennsylvania knows this--that 
we could go back to 1935 to explain why Roosevelt back then, in the 
midst of the Great Depression, put forward Social Security because of 
the devastation that had taken place in 1929 during the great crash.
  But Members on this floor, Members in this Congress understand all 
too well that we only have to go back to 2008, 2009 during the Great 
Recession when people saw their 401(k) become a 101(k) where people 
lost their benefits. And that coupled with the great pandemic, this 
roller coaster of a pandemic that we are living through now has only 
further underscored the need for us to enhance the Nation's number one 
insurance program.
  And during that same time, during that recession that they witnessed 
their funds depleted and devastated or lost altogether or during 
layoffs that have occurred through no fault of their own, Social 
Security has never missed a payment. Not a pension payment, not a 
spousal payment, not dependent coverage, nor disability.
  Madam Speaker, it might surprise some of our viewers and listeners 
that more veterans depend on Social Security disability than they do on 
the VA. And it is because Social Security provides these benefits and 
especially for our veterans. People in this Chamber and in the Senate 
take great pride in talking about our veterans on Memorial Day and 
Veterans Day, and rightfully so, and saluting them and saying what a 
grateful Nation we are.
  Well, if we are truly a grateful Nation, then it is time we end the 
more than 50 years of neglect and make sure that our veterans are able 
to get the benefits that they richly deserve without 5-month delays, in 
making sure that they have disability that they know they can rely on, 
that works for the times that we are living through currently.
  Children continue to rely on Social Security, and it is the number 
one antipoverty program for children. And you know what, 10,000 baby 
boomers a day become eligible for Social Security, and millennials will 
need the benefit more than baby boomers. Millennials have been put in 
the position where they have less money to be able to afford private 
pensions, where they have been burdened with college loan debt, where 
they are unable to get the kind of mortgages their parents enjoyed, 
and, in fact, have incomes that are below that level, and so, Social 
Security becomes their salvation. But it can't be their salvation if 
they are locked at the bottom, and we are not making the benefit 
increases that will provide that opportunity for all generations to 
enjoy.
  Madam Speaker, we are pleased also that Social Security 2100 will not 
only lift benefits across the board, but it will make sure that no one 
can work all their lives, pay into a system and retire into poverty. 
More than 5 million Americans get a below-poverty-level check from the 
government after having paid in all their lives. That is unfair. That 
is unjust. That is flat out wrong. We are a body that can pass out 
trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the Nation's wealthiest 1 percent 
and yet we can't take care of people who have paid into the system 
because Congress has not fulfilled its obligation and responsibility.
  Now is the time to act, and under Democratic leadership, that will 
take place. People say to me often, ``Well, what is different?''
  What is different is: we have a Democratic House, a Democratic 
Senate, and most importantly, a President who believes that this is a 
sacred trust. A President, as Matt Cartwright also

[[Page H7620]]

knows, who has said we are going to end WEP and GPO.
  And for you listeners, for you viewers, that means for all you 
schoolteachers, for you firefighters, for you police officers, for you 
municipal employees that were penalized under a system who have worked 
hard and played by the rules, the President has called for its repeal, 
and that means benefits flowing to people who rightfully deserve them 
and should rightfully get them.
  I would add that that has had bipartisan support in the Congress, and 
we do have bipartisan support for this bill across the Nation. No one 
yet on the other side has signed up, but yet, all across the Nation in 
large numbers more than 80 percent of Democrats, more than 68 percent 
of Republicans and more than 74 percent of Independents all favor 
increasing benefits because they know of the security and the promise 
and the necessity of Social Security.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright) who is an 
original cosponsor, Madam Speaker, of this Social Security 2100, as are 
you, who understands how critical this is to Pennsylvanians and 
everyone across the Nation.
  Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
thank the gentleman particularly not only for authoring and helping out 
all the rest of us cosponsor this important legislation, but in 
particular for mentioning the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania here late 
this afternoon.
  It was Pennsylvania that was instrumental in actually passing the 
Social Security Act back in the thirties. It was a huge fight. It was a 
time when Republicans called the concept of Social Security, Madam 
Speaker, communism. They called it that. They said it would lead to 
horrible things. They said it would be the ruination of the American 
economy and the American democracy, and it was communism. That is what 
the Republicans called the whole idea of Social Security when the 
Roosevelt administration came up with it.

  And the Roosevelt administration was having a huge fight with the 
Republican-dominated Supreme Court of the United States. They were 
against it. And they kept ruling that Roosevelt's programs, the 
National Labor Relations Act, all of these programs that Roosevelt came 
up with, the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of these programs 
that Roosevelt came up with to try to work our way out of the Great 
Depression, the Supreme Court was invalidating as unconstitutional 
under the Commerce Clause.
  And it was actually a member of the United States Supreme Court, a 
Republican member named Owen J. Roberts who saved the day, Congressman 
Larson. He saved the day because he changed his mind about the commerce 
clause and how it applied to the Social Security Act.
  Owen J. Roberts was a terrific trial lawyer from Philadelphia. He was 
a prosecutor. He was in the U.S. Attorney's Office. And he personally 
handled the Teapot Dome scandal. He prosecuted the criminals who 
perpetrated the Teapot Dome scandal back in the twenties.
  And his career flourished. He started a law firm where I actually 
practiced for 2 years as a young lawyer myself in Philadelphia. And 
Owen J. Roberts went on to join the Supreme Court of the United States 
as an associate justice, he was one of the Republican members.
  There was great controversy about whether Social Security would be 
ruled constitutional. Roberts thought about it, and to his great and 
everlasting credit and to the credit of the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania, he changed his mind. He changed his mind, and he 
validated the Social Security Act. And as a result, it was signed into 
law and it was held constitutional.
  The Social Security Administration took off, and all of a sudden, 
American life included this promise, as the gentleman stated, a sacred 
trust. This promise that if you work your whole life, you pay into the 
system, you pay your FICA taxes all the way through, you continue to 
pay every quarter all the way through your career, that is the promise, 
that when you retire you will not be left destitute. You will not be 
relegated to poverty and to privation, that you will have food on your 
table and a roof over your head because you will have money coming in 
that is your money. It is your money. You paid into it. It is not the 
government, it is an insurance program, as the gentleman from 
Connecticut astutely noted. And it is a promise that has been kept 
every day, every week, every month since the 1930s. We are talking 
about 80 years of keeping a promise for Social Security.
  In my district it makes a very big difference. The gentleman from 
Connecticut is right. There is an awful lot of people who are over the 
age of retirement who are depending entirely on Social Security checks 
to survive. Yes, in some places it is around 25 percent, that might be 
the average. But I can tell you that there are places that are hurting 
in this country where the people surviving on Social Security checks 
and nothing else coming in approaches 40 or 50 percent.
  You can see who it is, and you feel for them, and you know that every 
year they see what they call the COLA increases, the cost-of-living 
adjustment increases. It is all worked out by a mathematical formula. 
It is called CPI, and it is the Consumer Price Index, and it rises in 
accordance with what formula is used.
  Over the years, Social Security has been attacked by Republicans. It 
was attacked savagely at the outset as communism. In the first decade 
of this millennium, the Republicans wanted to privatize Social 
Security, make it so that the money went into the stock market.
  Now, imagine that, into the stock market.
  And then when we had this enormous stock market crash in 2008, the 
retirement savings of all of these people who paid into this wonderful 
insurance program for retirement would have been wiped out. But it was 
Democrats who fought day in and day out in that time. You were there, 
Mr. Larson.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. During that time, our current Speaker led 
the fight when George Bush said he was going to use his political 
capital that they had just gained and were in control of the House, the 
Senate, and the Presidency, they were going to privatize Social 
Security. And it was Nancy Pelosi and people like Marcy Kaptur that led 
the charge in the fight that prevented the privatization of Social 
Security.
  To your point, had that gone into effect, people's total savings and 
everything that is a guarantee under Social Security would have been 
lost in 2008.
  We are beyond 2008 now, but we are still dealing with all of those 
things that people can't necessarily prepare for, whether it is a 
pandemic or whether it is the Great Recession or whether it is the 
vicissitudes of the stock market, as Roosevelt would have said. These 
are the things that people who work hard and play by the rules are 
subject to, and that is why this is a sacred trust. Because in the 
United States we will not let that happen to our citizens because 
nobody deserves to work all their lives and retire into poverty.
  I thank the gentleman for his leadership in this area.

                              {time}  1645

  Mr. CARTWRIGHT. The gentleman is exactly correct. It was an attempt 
to privatize Social Security in those years. And it was only by the 
stalwart, staunch defense of the Social Security system by the 
Democrats--Democrats present here in this Chamber today--who did that 
and fought it off. And thank God they did.
  Because it is true, the stock market crash of 2000 would have thrown 
millions and millions of seniors right into poverty if the Republicans 
had got away with it, had privatized Social Security.
  And it did not stop there. I was not in Congress in those years, but 
I came into Congress. I was elected in 2012. And in 2013, I was sworn 
in for the first time. And here I am, a freshman Democrat, and about 4 
months into my very first term, something happened. The Republicans 
were pushing this scheme called chained CPI. And chained CPI was a $50 
expression that means lower cost of living adjustment increases, lower 
increases year after year.
  The idea was, well, we have to make ends meet at Social Security so 
let's cut increases for seniors. That was

[[Page H7621]]

their plan. And they called that chained CPI.
  Now, there was a big fight over that, of course. And at least at that 
point, the Republicans weren't calling Social Security communism, but 
they were still trying to cut it for seniors, and that is no good. And 
the Democrats fought back hard against that.
  Well, along comes 2013, and in the springtime, the President comes 
out with a budget. And President Obama at the time, he wanted to extend 
an olive branch to the Republicans, it might be recalled. And President 
Obama incorporated this chained CPI notion in his budget. He put that 
in his budget.
  I wasn't having it. I joined a bunch of people--I think the 
congressman from Connecticut was with me--and we went out on the lawn 
of the Capitol to protest against the President of the United States, a 
Democratic President of the United States extending this olive branch 
to the Republicans by putting chained CPI in his budget. We were 
protesting. We Democrats were protesting against a Democratic President 
going along with that notion just to try to get along with the 
Republicans.
  In the end, to his everlasting credit, President Obama withdrew that 
offer and never brought it up again. And now, under Social Security 
2100, there is a real cost of living adjustment formula in there, 
something that actually takes into account the things that seniors has 
to buy; the things that seniors can't afford unless they get the 
increase; the things that seniors need to live in any kind of 
reasonable style of living. There is a reasonable cost of living 
adjustment in Social Security 2100, and I am proud to be on that bill.
  Look, workers paid into this fund all their careers; it is their 
money. And the promise is not that you will get some money, the promise 
is that you are going to get enough money to make it out of poverty in 
your retirement. And if you have other things coming in, fine, but 
there are people who rely entirely--that is their sole source of 
support--the Social Security checks that they get.
  Madam Speaker, in my district, 140,000 people, relying on those 
Social Security checks coming in. And my suggestion this evening, as we 
talk about Social Security 2100, let's pass it and keep the promise.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania for joining us this afternoon.
  Madam Speaker, I would point out a couple of things, something the 
gentleman knows--and we have been joined by the gentlewoman from 
Illinois, who will address us shortly--but the number of groups that 
are endorsing Social Security 2100:
  The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, 
Social Security Works, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the 
Paralyzed Veterans of America, the NAACP, the National Organization for 
Women, Latinos for Secure Retirement, the National Education 
Association, AFGE, the American Federation of Teachers, The Arc of the 
United States, National Retiree Legislative Network, the Gray Panthers, 
American Family Voices, The Senior Citizens League. And the list goes 
on and on and on, because everybody understands the importance and 
significance of this.
  Madam Speaker, I recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois, who has 
worked tirelessly on behalf of seniors across this country, and has 
headed a task force for more than a decade now that was instrumental in 
providing us with all the detailed information with the over 17 
proposals that are included in Social Security 2100, a sacred trust.
  Madam Speaker, we make this point often, and I want to make it here 
tonight, because you are well-aware of this as well. That in 
legislative parlance, the bill is called H.R. 5723. But what I want our 
viewers, our listeners, and most importantly, our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle to understand, this is about your parents. This 
is about your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles. This is 
about your next-door neighbor, your coworker, the people that you 
worship with.
  This is not legislative parlance, this is the reality that they are 
living; and the disparity that exists today, the gap that exists, can 
be closed if Congress does a job that it has neglected for more than 50 
years in terms of enhancing a program that is a necessity for your 
parents, for your brothers and sisters, for your aunts and uncles. All 
you have to do is ask them. It confounds me that anyone can look their 
constituents in the eye and say that we are doing enough for you, or 
that you are okay.
  We all know, and I have heard Jan say this many times--I know my 
mother said it--she says, Oh, I just care that my children are okay, 
and I just don't want to be a burden. Of course people feel that way. 
It is their humility and their kind of generation and people that we 
know. Nobody wants to be a burden. But I assured my mother she was no 
burden. She was an inspiration. And for us to stand by in the midst of 
this, the wealthiest Nation in the world, and not do our responsibility 
as a Congress and vote.

  The President can't do it by executive order, nor will the Supreme 
Court adjudicate it. It is only Congress. And thanks to the efforts of 
Jan Schakowsky, we are getting there.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I thank my brother for yielding.
  Madam Speaker,   John Larson and I came into the Congress together, 
elected in 1998 to be here. But I want you to know, John, that I have 
been working on issues of Social Security since the 1970s--well before 
I was eligible for Social Security.
  When I was an organizer in Chicago, one of my first organizing 
efforts was to help establish Metro Seniors in Action, an organization 
in the city of Chicago of older Americans. I will tell you what, John, 
I learned a lot from them. One of them was courage to stand up to 
power, to not be afraid of the old Mayor Daley in Chicago, not to be 
afraid of anyone, to stand up for rights. One of those priorities then, 
as well, was making sure that Social Security was solid.
  Now that you have talked about the Alliance for Retired Americans, I 
was the executive director of the chapter of that in the State of 
Illinois throughout most of the 1980s until I ran for the legislature 
in 1990. And again, we were fighting--I remember well--to protect 
Social Security.
  Well, guess what? Now, we are not just talking about protecting 
Social Security, but we did have a battle when George W. Bush decided 
that he thought privatizing Social Security was a good idea. Well, all 
over the country we organized, seniors organized, the Democrats 
organized, to make sure that privatizing Social Security, which would 
have jeopardized the security of that benefit--and actually, let me 
correct that for a minute.
  You know, many people call Social Security an entitlement. This is 
something that people in every paycheck that they have had is paid for. 
This is a program that is paid for out of the pocket of workers and has 
to be there when they retire. This is not some sort of a gift from the 
American people. This is something that has been earned by the American 
people.
  But we won that battle with George W. Bush because that was not the 
direction that the majority of Americans--Democrats, Republicans, 
rural, urban--wanted. They wanted to make sure that Social Security was 
reliably there. But it was always to protect Social Security. And now, 
thank you,   John Larson, because now we are talking about improving 
Social Security benefits. And isn't it about time?
  Right now, the majority of Americans get more than half of their 
income from Social Security. When Franklin D. Roosevelt first talked 
about Social Security, it was thought of as a three-legged stool.
  Did you talk about that already?
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. No.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Okay. So the first was people's savings. You know 
what? There is hardly any savings anymore for the elderly. And 
actually, for most Americans, hardly have any money, unfortunately, 
that has been put away, because average wages, compared to the 
wealthiest people, have gone down.
  The second was pensions. Remember that? There were pensions. People 
would have that guaranteed retirement benefit from the work. Those are 
largely gone. And then, Social Security to help along. Well, now it is 
mostly about Social Security. More than half

[[Page H7622]]

of Americans rely on Social Security for more than half of their 
income. And a quarter of seniors now rely on Social Security for 90 
percent or more of their income. You need Social Security to survive.
  But let's talk about what survival is. The average monthly Social 
Security check is $1,543 per month. Who can live on that? I mean, it is 
really a struggle, at the very best, to be able to even make it. That 
is it--$1,543 a month.
  So the gentleman's legislation is so incredibly important. And you 
talked about grandparents. Well, you know, plenty of us in the Congress 
now are also Social Security-eligible. And those who are not, are 
thinking about their parents and loved ones. But I also want to point 
out that two of my grandchildren benefited from Social Security 
because, sadly, their mother had died. And so they were eligible for 
benefits that helped them to be able to continue with their education.
  So it is a family plan. Social Security is a necessity. And for a 
long time we have also been talking about women, particularly women, 
people who have left the workforce to become caregivers. But there has 
been no help for them, even though they haven't been able to pay into 
Social Security.

                              {time}  1700

  I now understand that there will be a provision for a caregiver 
credit?
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Correct.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank so much; for people who have taken time out 
of the workplace. Many of us have heard from public employees, 
including school teachers, who have lost Social Security benefits due 
to the so-called windfall elimination provision that has meant unfairly 
that they have lost Social Security benefits.
  Finally, after years and years and years of fighting, that unfairness 
will be gone because of your legislation.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, this has been bipartisan. 
Chairman Neal, a Social Security recipient himself lost his father, 
lost his mother, his grandmother was then raising him, and then he lost 
his grandmother.
    Tom Reed, the ranking member on the Social Security Subcommittee, 
and   Tom Rice, they both lost parents and were raised on Social 
Security as well.
  Mr. Davis has put a bill in and has sponsored a bill for a number of 
years to eliminate the windfall elimination provision.
  Finally, President Biden said we are going to repeal this in its 
entirety. It shows that there is an ability, a bridge to come together 
in so many of these things, including caregiver opportunities, that are 
bipartisanly-sponsored within this bill and included as part of the 
bill.
  We have yet to have anyone endorse and support the bill, but that is 
a matter, I think, of voting and getting beyond what happens in this 
Chamber and in discussions between here and the Senate is that there is 
an awful lot of talk about helping veterans, but nobody actually votes 
one way or the other. There is an awful lot of talk about understanding 
what we have to do, but then nobody votes.
  The time for reckoning, this is a point President Biden makes all the 
time, and I know, Madam Speaker, you understand this as well. Our very 
democracy and our Republic is at stake here because government, in an 
entrepreneurial capitalistic system like ours, where there has to be, 
by the nature of the system, risk that is taken. Well, that is 
important and good, but by the same token, Roosevelt and subsequent 
Presidents, including Eisenhower, including Nixon, and including 
Reagan, recognized this. We need that safety net there for people who 
work hard and play by the rules.
  President Biden has said, yes, this is a sacred trust. Martin Luther 
King came to Washington, D.C. in 1963 during the famous march, and gave 
us the phrase, ``the fierce urgency of now.'' He was talking at the 
time about segregation and about the need for voting rights.
  But the fierce urgency of now applies to all of our citizens that 
have been addressed in the remarks, who need this and who are suffering 
and receiving below poverty level payments from their own government 
after they have paid in. This is at a time when we gave the Nation's 
wealthiest 1 percent an 83 percent tax cut. God bless them.
  It hasn't trickled down to everybody else. That is why we have the 
system that we do to take care of. It is the government's 
responsibility. And if a democracy is going to work, if we are not 
listening to what, as all the polls say, and we have accompanied more 
than six different polls talking about where the America people are, 
this is not partisan. This is totally bipartisan in terms of people's 
understanding of what their needs, their belief in a system they know 
that has never failed for them.
  Dr. Martin Luther King said: Now is the time to make real the promise 
of democracy. Now is the time to make good on the promise of the 
Federal Government. That is what Joe Biden has said and what he so 
eloquently has called a sacred trust. Now is the time for us.
  This is beyond urgent, though it is the fierce urgency of now. It is 
shameful that this body, the world looks in on this great Nation, this 
great democracy that we have, it looks how we treat our people; how we 
treat our veterans; how we treat our children. The statistics that you 
rallied off about what is going on in this country and how they are 
depending on it, and then realizing that Congress hasn't done a thing 
in 50 years?
  This is not anything that can be done--and I repeat this again--by 
executive order or by adjudication from the Supreme Court. This is the 
responsibility of every man and woman in this Chamber, of 535 of us 
overall, but it is our responsibility and the time to vote is long 
overdue.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, let me just close with this. We are 
going to hear, oh, well, you know, too much money. We can't afford to 
increase the benefits. I think it is important to remind people that 
Social Security was born during the greatest depression that this 
country had ever seen.
  It was from the understanding of the President at that time, 
President Roosevelt, who understood that we cannot have poorhouses for 
older Americans. That this country, if we can't afford to do that, then 
we cannot call ourselves a real democracy, a country that really cares 
for people.
  At this point we are the richest country in the world; the richest 
country ever on the planet. Now is the time when we need to do this. 
There is absolutely no excuse. You have said about the urgency of now. 
This is a moment of opportunity, and we should not make the mistake of 
overlooking it.
  We have got everything in place. We have got your bill. We have got a 
President. It is time now to engage everyone in this country to say 
yes. Let's make improvements to one of the greatest things that ever 
happened in the United States, the greatest treasures that we have, and 
that is Social Security.
  Let's make it even better. God bless you for leading the way on this. 
I am so proud to be helpful in any way that I can to be a partner with 
you. We can do this.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, we can do this. I think 
Martin Luther King coined a phrase as well, and I am paraphrasing here: 
This is not the time for the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. This is 
not the time in the face of so much inequality and inequity. That is 
when problems happen in society, when the people see that their 
government has not lived up to its responsibility.
  As noted, they pay into the system weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Our 
good colleague and friend, John Lewis, said: This is not only an 
important issue in terms of our people, this is a civil rights issue. 
He said and believed that with every fiber in his being because what he 
saw is the people that were discriminated against were the low wage 
earners.
  Unfortunately, as you know and have spoken eloquently on, most of 
them are women, and specifically, women of color. So whether you had a 
job as a waitress or a seamstress or whether you were one of those 
caregivers that everybody relies on, or whether you had to go home to 
provide care for your family and you didn't pay into a system, or your 
wage level, long before pay equity, was far lower than your male 
counterpart, this is not a reason

[[Page H7623]]

you should live out your remaining days in poverty. This happens for 5 
million Americans.
  In a blink of an eye we can do a tax cut. In a blink of an eye we can 
pass a defense bill. I support both. But I fervently support the fact 
that we have to take care of our citizens. It is this body's 
responsibility, Congress' responsibility. We cannot walk away.
  Every citizen in this country ought to make sure that they are 
holding their congressional delegations responsible for doing their 
job. This is nothing that should be kicked down the road again or put 
off to some gradual dealing with the subject matter, or yet, another 
study that we are going to try to look into this on.
  We don't need to study this. We know what the issue is here. We have 
looked in the mirror, and the problem is the United States Congress, it 
is the body that votes and changes the policy and the direction.
  Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for joining us.


                             General Leave

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and 
extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of 
our Special Order today, Social Security 2100, a Special Trust.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Connecticut?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I want to thank as well 
President Biden for having the temerity to not only on the campaign 
trail, but to speak directly to the American people and let them, and 
ensure them, that we understand that this is a sacred trust, a bond 
that will not be broken. Not on our watch. That we will fulfill that 
promise and make sure that they are receiving the kind of benefits that 
they have paid into a system for and are, yes, entitled to receive 
because there is no greater Nation in the world than the United States 
of America.
  When this body sets its mind to it, as witnessed how bipartisan the 
public feels about this on the outside and a number of the great 
inclusions that both Democrats and Republicans feel about, now is the 
time for us to act on behalf of the citizens we are sworn to serve.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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