[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 2542-2543]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            PRESERVING SOCIAL SECURITY FOR WORKING AMERICANS

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, what a rather startling 
revelation by Mr. Greenspan, Chairman of the Fed, that the answer to 
the deficit that this administration has run up and the long-term debt 
of this Nation is to raise the basic retirement age of Social Security 
and to cut benefits.
  Mr. Greenspan and the Republicans speaking for the investor class 
decided that average working people in this country, the ironworkers 
who are rebuilding the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the people who are 
building the skyscrapers in our major cities, who are building our 
transportation systems, who are working out there in snow and rain and 
cold weather all through the winter to provide for their families, that 
they should just work a few years longer so that they will not have to 
pay for Social Security.
  This administration has run up the largest deficit in history, and 
now they are using that deficit as an excuse to attack Social Security, 
which is the backbone of retirement for millions and millions of 
Americans. Maybe not for Mr. Greenspan and his friends who have stock 
options, who have golden parachutes, who have buyouts when they leave 
their corporations, but for millions of hard-working Americans it is 
Social Security, and we should not

[[Page 2543]]

cut it to take care of the Republican deficit.

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