[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 890-891]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         DEMOCRATIC POLICY COMMITTEE HEARING ON SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on Friday of this week we will be holding 
in the Democratic Policy Committee a hearing that deals with part of 
our overall goal to hold oversight hearings that are not being held by 
committees. This Friday's hearing will be on the subject of Social 
Security. Among the

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witnesses at this hearing will be Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandson, 
the AARP, and we will have a couple of employees of the Social Security 
Administration who will testify about efforts inside the Social 
Security Administration to get some of the career employees to push the 
issue of privatization and the issue that there is, in fact, a crisis 
in Social Security. We are going to have a hearing on these issues.
  Incidentally, we have invited witnesses who will provide a full range 
of opinions. A representative of the Cato Institute is invited to 
appear. As we have always done with our hearings, we have people with 
divergent viewpoints. As I indicated previously, I would invite any 
Republicans to join us at any of our hearings at any time.
  Our intention is not to have hearings that are ``gotcha.'' Our 
intention is to have hearings, however, in circumstances where we 
believe oversight has not occurred. These hearings will give us an 
opportunity to explore issues in a more aggressive way.
  We held hearings previously, for example, on contract abuses in Iraq 
by the Halliburton corporation. We will have another hearing on that 
subject, along with allegations about another company engaged in 
contract abuses in Iraq, because there is substantial waste, fraud, and 
abuse. The evidence of that is all around us. There is precious little 
effort or energy on the part of some in Congress to take a look at it 
and deal with it and do something about it.

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