[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8100-8101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL SECURITY

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, from the book of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 
25, 26, and 27 of the King James version of the Bible, I read as 
follows:

       And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds 
     blew and beat upon the house, and it fell not for it was 
     founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings 
     of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish 
     man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain 
     descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat 
     upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of it.

  Mr. President, 70 years ago the Social Security Program was founded 
upon a rock. It was designed to shelter workers in their old age and to 
withstand the storms that can wipe away their savings. For 70 years, 
the Social Security Program has stood as a protector of workers and 
families. It is their safeguard against economic peril.
  Social Security provides the essential support for 405,000 West 
Virginians. In every county across the State, men and women, workers 
and retirees, their spouses and their children rely on their monthly 
Social Security check, and it comes as regularly as the mail man runs.
  And so it is with great trepidation that they listen to apocalyptic 
tales about Social Security's future. It is difficult to understand, 
and perhaps incomprehensible to comprehend, how workers could spend 
their lifetime contributing to the Social Security Program only to find 
that the benefits promised to them may not be available when they 
retire. Demographic projections show that the next generation of 
workers cannot support the retirement and disability benefits promised 
to this generation of workers. The Social Security trustees warned us 
that this demographic storm would erode the rock upon which the 
retirement security of workers has been built. Soon the rain will 
descend. Soon the floods will come. Soon the winds will blow. Our 
challenge is to keep that house from falling. And our challenge is 
great.
  It is within this context that President Bush has proposed changing 
the scope of the Social Security Program, adding personal accounts to 
wean workers from the traditional program. He offers the opportunity 
for higher returns in the financial markets in exchange for workers 
relinquishing a portion of their benefits guaranteed under the current 
system. Be careful.
  Needless to say, the outcry to such a proposal has been deafening. In 
the State of West Virginia, thousands and thousands of constituents are 
contacting my office--phone calls, e-mails, letters--in opposition to 
the President's Social Security plan. These people fear that personal 
accounts are a scheme to take away their Social Security benefits. They 
fear it is an effort to crack open Social Security and break it apart, 
piece by piece. I, too, fear such efforts. Feeding that fear is the 
secret that permeates the administration's plans.
  The X factors are multifarious, impacting every worker and every 
employer who pays into the Social Security Program, every future 
retiree and every future disabled worker who expects one day to receive 
Social Security benefits.
  My constituents are right to be leery of a scheme to privatize Social 
Security, particularly when efforts to learn more about Social 
Security's reforms are being stonewalled. We cannot get that 
information. If we knew the answers, if we knew for certain the 
retirement security of our constituents would be protected, that would 
be one thing, but this proposal for personal accounts seems a lot like 
the kind of telephone scams we hear about when folks are told they have 
won a prize and then are asked for their bank account number. Hold on 
here.
  We are all enticed by the idea of ensuring the solvency of Social 
Security, but what are workers being asked to give up? No one in the 
administration, no one in the White House is willing to tell. Hear me 
when I say I will oppose this plan as well as any plan where the costs 
are undefined and the benefit cuts so uncertain.
  Four months of high-publicity tours and photo-ops by President Bush 
and members of his Cabinet all across America, including stops in West 
Virginia, have yielded little new information about how the President's 
plan would affect workers' benefits. We do not know. We have not been 
told. We cannot get the answers. We ask for the plan, we ask for the 
details, and nothing happens. What level of benefit cuts is the 
President advocating? How much of their guaranteed benefits is the 
President asking workers to relinquish? On this subject the White House 
has been evasive. The White House has been equivocating.
  What about the volatility of the financial markets? Recent news 
reports serve as a vivid reminder that the stock market has severe ups 
and downs. What happens when it comes time to retire and a worker 
discovers that he or she does not have enough saved to ensure a decent, 
respectable living? What guarantee would the administration support to 
ensure a minimum benefit from each individual account? The White House 
will not respond to this question. There is not a sound to be heard by 
way of answering that question. What are the costs of the President's 
Social Security plan? The White House Budget Office has $754 billion, 
but the Vice President says trillions of dollars. How about that? How 
can this administration reconcile mounting debt and its own warnings 
about the need to limit the further growth of deficits with a plan that 
requires borrowing trillions of dollars

[[Page 8101]]

more? Again, the White House has no response to the question.
  This week, the Senate Finance Committee began hearings on the 
President's plan. I hope these hearings will yield more information. 
Our senior citizens need answers to these questions.
  I sent a letter to this President earlier this year urging him to 
send a detailed legislative proposal to the Congress. Send it up, a 
detailed legislative proposal. I have asked questions of the Secretary 
of the Treasury at Appropriations Committee hearings as recently as 
this week. The Congress and the people have been patient in waiting for 
answers, but still no answers come forth. Honesty and candor are now 
required. We cannot legislate on rumors and guesses. The ducking and 
the dodging on the part of the administration serve only to fuel 
speculation that it is hiding something--yes, hiding something--from 
the public or, worse, seeking to cut benefits surreptitiously.
  Fortunately, any legislation submitted by the President to change 
Social Security will require 60 votes to pass the Senate; that is, as 
long as the nuclear option has not descended upon the Senate, as long 
as the filibuster is still around. Any legislation submitted by the 
President to change Social Security will require 60 votes to pass the 
Senate. Long live the filibuster. It may be needed to protect Social 
Security. The danger of the nuclear option becomes crystal clear as we 
contemplate the momentous debate on Social Security which looms just 
down the road, just up ahead.
  Only the Senate, here in this forum, only the Senate has the ability 
to insist on its right to unlimited debate. I hope the Senators will 
stop, look, and listen. Only the Senate, may I repeat, has the ability 
to insist on its right to unlimited debate. Let's maintain that right. 
It has been there for 217 years. Its roots go back to the English Bill 
of Rights to which William III and Mary subscribed on February 13, 
1689, 100 years before our own Republic began, the Bill of Rights, 
enacted on December 16 in Parliament. The Bill of Rights guaranteed 
freedom of speech in commons, and our own Constitution in section 6, 
article I, guarantees that right which cannot be questioned in any 
other place. Retain it, maintain it, keep it, hold it, collapse it to 
thy breast.
  Only the Senate has the ability to insist on its right to unlimited 
debate. No Social Security legislation will fly through this Senate 
without thorough scrutiny, unless the nuclear option is employed. 
Senators can insist and Senators will insist on the time they need to 
probe the details of the President's plan and to extract answers to 
their questions. The Senate will have the opportunity to amend, the 
Senate will have the opportunity to debate, and then, if it desires, 
the Senate will have the opportunity to amend and debate some more. And 
then some more. The threat of a filibuster means that no legislation 
will be enacted into law without bipartisan support in this Senate, 
which means that no benefits will be cut, no taxes will be increased, 
and no radical change codified without adequate debate.
  The Senate will require a compromise if and when Social Security 
reforms are ever enacted, fulfilling its role exactly as the Founding 
Fathers envisioned. Yes, yes, that is why we have a Senate. Thank God 
for the Great Compromise which was agreed to on July 16, 1787. Praise 
God for that Great Compromise. But for it, the Presiding Officer would 
not be sitting at the desk. But for it, I would not be standing here. 
But for it, this might never have been a Republic. That is why we have 
a Senate with its rules for unlimited debate--Lord, God, keep it, save 
it, collapse it to thy heart--to forge compromise and to ensure 
moderation in the laws enacted.
  To those who advocate chipping away at that rule, limiting Senators' 
right to debate in regard to judicial nominees, hear me when I say the 
crucial need for keeping those rules strong in order to encourage 
compromise and moderation is right before us as the Senate proposes to 
debate changes in Social Security. Hear me out there in the Plains, in 
the prairies, across the rivers from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We 
ought to engage in a genuine effort to end the rumors and help the 
public understand exactly what is being asked of them with regard to 
their Social Security benefits--your benefits.
  I urge this administration to lay its case before the American 
people. Come on, open up, lay the case before the American people. Tell 
us what your plan is. Give us the details of your plan. The last thing 
we need at this late point with the Social Security storm looming on 
the horizon is to find another house has been built upon the sand.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, how much time remains on the minority 
side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority's time is now expired.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, do I understand that the Senator from 
New Mexico has up to 10 minutes at this point in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has up to 30 minutes, if he would 
like.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you very much.

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