[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 29183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          GOP BUDGET GIMMICKS

  (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, as the GOP leadership in Congress struggles 
to complete its appropriations work, now a full 40 days past the end of 
the fiscal year, I thought it fitting to examine their record of Social 
Security budget gimmicks this year. There simply are not enough apples 
in this city to demonstrate adequately what the Republican Party is 
doing here. They simply take apples from one basket and, before they 
put it in the other, they take a couple of bites out of it and then 
they turn the apple around so Americans cannot see what they have done 
to that apple.
  Recently the Republican majority in this chamber has gone around 
stating they are the only ones able to protect and strengthen Social 
Security. How come they elected their leader, a person who pledged, and 
I quote, ``to bite the bullet and phase Social Security out over a 
period of time.'' The fact is, Republicans have a history of voting 
against Social Security. In 1935, only one Republican, Frank Crowther 
of my own State of New York, had the courage to buck his party and vote 
against a Republican motion to recommit Title II to strike out old age 
and unemployment insurance provisions. It would have effectively killed 
Social Security as we know it today. Only one out of 96 Republicans had 
the courage to vote in favor of Social Security.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to continue to support the 
Social Security system as we know it today.

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