[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3917]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, President Bush has invented an immediate 
Social Security crisis, but his privatization proposal does nothing to 
solve his invented crisis.
  Why would President Bush propose a Social Security privatization plan 
that leaves the program worse off after he is done with it? Madam 
Speaker, the President does not want to fix the Social Security program 
we have had in place for the past 70 years. Instead, he wants to 
privatize it. He talks about creating an ownership society, but his 
proposal creates an on-your-own society.
  Madam Speaker, for 70 years, Social Security has improved the lives 
of millions of Americans. Without it today, two-thirds of America's 
seniors would be living in poverty. Social Security gave our parents 
and grandparents independence. Democrats are willing to work with the 
President in a bipartisan fashion to address Social Security's future, 
but we simply refuse to support the President's privatization proposal 
that dismantles the independence Social Security affords our senior 
citizens today and our children when they retire in the future.
  We will work with the Republicans on trying to deal with the Social 
Security problems that exist in the future, but we cannot support 
privatization.

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