[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 15, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H5607-H5608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Larson) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to be here 
this evening with you and to talk about--during this time of the COVID 
pandemic--something that is near and dear to the hearts of the people 
impacted the most by this pandemic.
  Madam Speaker, as you know, more than a million people now have 
perished because of the COVID pandemic, and 750,000 of them are 
American citizens over the age of 65. In addition, because of the war 
in Ukraine, because of this pandemic, and because of this inflation, 
who is the group in America that is most impacted by the pandemic and 
the ensuing inflation? It is the senior citizens of our country, and it 
is people over the age of 65. They are people who are on fixed income.
  These individuals need the help of the United States Congress. I 
commend Chairman Rich Neal, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 
and a Social Security recipient himself, who knows and understands the 
necessity and the absolute dependence that so many of our fellow 
Americans have on the Nation's number one insurance program.
  The insurance program that keeps our seniors off of poverty. It also 
happens to be the number one insurance plan for children. Madam 
Speaker, it is the number one plan for veterans who rely more on Social 
Security Disability than they do the VA.
  For more than half of our fellow citizens who are on Social Security, 
it is the only benefit that they have. That benefit, on average, is 
$16,000 per individual. Nobody gets wealthy on Social Security. Yet, it 
is our number one anti-poverty program for the elderly. It is the 
number one anti-poverty program for children. It has incredible 
benefits for people on disability, like our veterans.
  Yet, here today, and just last Thursday, and before that, we learn of 
new plans from the Republican Study Committee and from Senator Scott--
these are plans that will end Social Security. These are plans that say 
in 5 years these benefits will disappear.
  The Ways and Means Committee has a bill to say: No, this is not the 
time to end Social Security, this is the time to enhance the benefits 
in Social Security. This is the time when our fellow seniors, who need 
this money to sustain themselves at base levels, are crying out for 
help from their country.
  This is not the time, Senator Scott, for us to kill Social Security. 
It is not the time, I say to the Republican Study Committee, for us to 
end Social Security, cutting its benefits. For every year you call upon 
someone to raise the age of Social Security, that is a 7 percent cut.
  How in God's name, in the face of this pandemic and with people 
living longer, do they need lesser benefits?

                              {time}  1830

  Madam Speaker, if you listen to the logic that people are living 
longer so we have to hike the age, how does that possibly benefit 
someone struggling to make ends meet? Those are the same people who are 
putting food back on the shelves or can't afford their prescription 
drugs.
  How does that allow them to subsist by cutting their benefits because 
they are living longer?
  Democrats have a plan, and basically that is what Congress should be 
all about: the vitality of ideas and placing those ideas side by each.
  While the Republican Study Committee has said that, yes, they have a 
plan, it is former Congressman Sam Johnson's plan to make sure that 
Social Security is solvent. I served with Sam Johnson. There is no more 
honorable person who served in this body. His bill was never allowed to 
be brought forward by the Republican leadership. There was never a vote 
on that. The reason there was never a vote on it was because it cut 
benefits. It made Social Security solvent by cutting benefits. That is 
not the way to fix Social Security.
  Social Security does not need to be cut. The benefits need to be 
enhanced.
  More than 3 million of our fellow Americans receive below-poverty-
level checks from Social Security after they have paid into Social 
Security for a lifetime, Madam Speaker. That is flat-out wrong.
  The COLA for Social Security has been so ineffective that it is long 
overdue to have a change that embraces a COLA based on the actual 
expenses that seniors incur, whether that is heating and cooling their 
home or paying for home heating oil or just simply paying for their 
pharmaceuticals. It is long overdue that Congress enhances the benefits 
of Social Security so that people can subsist and survive.
  Nobody is getting wealthy on Social Security or reserving a condo in 
Florida with the money they receive from this. These are people who are 
struggling to make ends meet.
  Congressman Neal's committee on social equity most recently pointed 
out, as well, that the equity and the difference between what people of 
color and specifically women of color receive in terms of benefits is 
appalling. They receive below-poverty-level checks after contributing 
to the program their entire life.
  Poverty level is $12,600.
  How would you subsist on less than that, Madam Speaker?
  Americans need to rise up. They need to understand that what we need 
now during this pandemic and during this time of inflation is to assist 
people so that they get the money that they need to make the payments 
they richly deserve.
  That is why the proposal before the Ways and Means Committee enhances 
benefits. It provides a 2 percent across-the-board increase. It makes 
sure that nobody can retire into poverty, and it makes the new floor 
for Social Security 125 percent of what the poverty level is. It makes 
sure that a new COLA is instituted, and, yes, it also makes sure, as 
President Biden has called for, the repeal of WEP and GPO.
  Where is the Republican plan?
  Their committee says that they are following Sam Johnson, and yet the 
subcommittee has never received a bill in the last 4 years that would 
indicate what their plan of action is--though it is detailed here, as 
Mr. Scott has outlined, to end Social Security in 5 years. Ending 
Social Security--killing Social Security--is not any way to help out 
those citizens--those fellow Americans--who need this assistance the 
most.
  It is long overdue in this Chamber and also in the Senate. And even 
though Mitch McConnell may stand up and deny that they are going to 
take forward Senator Scott's proposal, he very smugly says when asked 
what his agenda is that they don't have an agenda. They will tell the 
American voters what their agenda is after they win.
  America can take it to the bank, Madam Speaker: just like they did 
under the Biden administration, they are coming for your Social 
Security and Medicare. They outline it in no uncertain terms, both in 
Senator Scott's proposal and also in the Republican Study Group's 
proposal as well.
  They are coming after your Social Security at a time when Americans 
need it most.
  There is a difference. Democrats are here to recognize that it has 
been 51 years since Congress has enhanced Social Security. It has been 
51 years since Congress has done anything to enhance the number one 
insurance program for our elderly and the number one insurance plan for 
our children.
  It also is the Nation's most effective program. I hail from a part of 
the country that is an insurance center, and

[[Page H5608]]

there they know what a 99 percent loss ratio means. What that means is 
that Social Security has been able to operate, function, and be the 
most efficient governmental agency because it does so with less than 1 
percent administrative costs to make sure that Americans receive the 
benefits that they need.
  The truth of the matter is that the Social Security Administration 
needs more funding so that they can become more efficient because this 
pandemic has also hit both governmental employees as well as it has our 
citizens and has made servicing more challenging, which is all the more 
reason for government not to be talking about cutting Social Security, 
as our Republican colleagues are, but enhancing Social Security so that 
both administratively and individually people are getting the services 
that they need and that they richly deserve. It has been 51 years since 
Congress has taken any positive action to enhance people's benefits.
  Madam Speaker, a gallon of milk cost 72 cents in 1971. Look at the 
cost today. Look at the burden that people on fixed incomes have.
  Help is on the way. The Ways and Means Committee will mark up and 
send to the floor Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust. A sacred trust 
is what President Biden labeled Social Security because the American 
people understand this.
  How do they know?
  It is simple. We don't have to go back to 1935 and Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt. We only have to go back to 2008 and 2009, during the Great 
Recession, when people saw their 401(k) become a 101(k). Yet during 
that same time period, Social Security never missed a payment--not a 
pension payment, not a spousal payment, not a dependent child payment, 
and not a disability payment.
  It is America's number one insurance program. It is America's most 
efficient and effective program, and it needs to be enhanced. It needs 
to be augmented with benefits that haven't been adjusted in 51 years.
  During this same time period--and we could go back, as Chairman Neal 
often talks about, to the S&L crisis. What happened during that?
  People at the bottom lost everything. People at the top managed to 
protect their benefits and pensions. And the same was true in 2008 and 
2009. People who endured that recession saw their 401(k)s become a 
101(k)s. People at the top kept their pensions and benefits.
  Thank God for Social Security. Americans understand this, and that is 
why they overwhelmingly--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--
support enhancing these benefits.
  Madam Speaker, how can you go home to your district in this pandemic 
during this time and say to your brothers, your sisters, your mothers, 
fathers, aunts and uncles, the people you work with, the people in your 
community whom you go to church with, that no, this is the time to cut 
benefits?
  This is the time we should end Social Security in 5 years?
  This is the time we should raise the age so that you can't receive 
benefits?
  How about we do something simple? How about we vote to enhance Social 
Security? The simple thing is to vote.
  If you agree with Senator Scott's proposal to end Social Security, 
then by all means vote for it. Put it out there. Let's contrast the 
programs: the Democratic initiative to enhance Social Security and the 
Republican position to cut the benefits.
  It would be great to have people join together, as we often do here, 
and come up with a solution; but instead, we have been waiting for 4 
years now on the Social Security Subcommittee and haven't received a 
single piece of legislation that would address this, that outlines 
these bills, and that says exactly what they would do to enhance Social 
Security.
  Instead, as has been reported in the news, what these proposals do is 
end Social Security or cut Social Security. That is death by 1,000 
slashes.
  Whom are they hurting?
  Whom are they slashing here?
  Our fellow American citizens.
  So if we want to come together, we are open. We have accepted many 
good ideas that have come forward with regard to enhancing Social 
Security.
  Congress hasn't done its responsibility. There is nothing the 
President can do through executive authority and nothing the Supreme 
Court is going to act on.

                              {time}  1845

  This requires congressional action. The American people are watching, 
and either these bodies, the House and Senate, are going to take action 
or they are going to doom people to Senator Scott's proposal to end 
Social Security in 5 years.
  The Republican Study Committee said this is immoral, that Social 
Security, if nothing was done, would be cut by 24 percent in 2034. They 
propose raising the age and cutting people's benefits in order to make 
Social Security solvent.
  That is not the way to make the system solvent, on the backs of 
American people who are already overburdened and suffering.
  In this time of inflation, let us make sure that we are sending the 
relief to the people who need it the most, people who have worked all 
their lives, paid into a system, and understand that this is an earned 
benefit.
  Rise up, America. Let your elected representatives in the Senate and 
House know that help is on the way, and either you are for enhancing 
benefits to deal with inflation during this pandemic or you are for 
cutting them. Let your message ring loud and clear to elected officials 
who are about to vote on this very important agenda.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________