[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5554-5555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  (Mr. SHAW asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I want to introduce to my colleagues someone 
that they may already know, Ida May Fuller. Ida May was the recipient 
of the first Social Security check ever issued. In 1940, the year Ida 
May began collecting, Social Security was a dream come true for 
retiring Americans.
  For every Ida May, there were 42 younger workers contributing to her 
retirement. Ida May worked under Social Security for 3 years, paid in 
$24 and got more than $22,000 in benefits. Ida May Fuller got one heck 
of a deal.
  Fast forward now to 2005, March 15, 2005, the day that my 15th 
grandchild was born, Keegan Riley Shaw. Today, there are only three 
workers supporting each retiree; and soon, it will dwindle to two.
  If we do not act now to save Social Security, when Keegan walks 
across the stage at his college graduation, a diploma will not be the 
only thing he is handed. Try a $600 billion-a-year tax hike. And when 
Keegan retires and goes to his mailbox to get his Social Security 
check, unlike Ida May, he will be opening a giant IOU.
  I am fighting so that my grandchildren, and every grandchild in

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America, have a secure retirement, just like Ida May. Let us start 
talking about the next generation, not the next election.

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