[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 22527]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 SOCIAL SECURITY RECIPIENTS NEED A COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT NEXT YEAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, earlier today the House passed a bill that 
will give relief to about a quarter of the Nation's seniors on Social 
Security by not having them experience a Medicare premium increase this 
year. That's all well and good and meritorious. Times are tough. But it 
doesn't go to the other three-quarters of the Nation's Social Security 
recipients, and it doesn't get to the bottom line that there is, for 
the first time since we had a regularly adjusted Social Security COLA--
it used to be into the fifties and early sixties before we put in place 
a regular COLA, a cost of living adjustment for seniors on Social 
Security. They would get one in election years, strangely enough. The 
Congress would wake up, notice that seniors were out there and give 
them some sort of an increase.
  We fixed that problem many years ago by saying, Well, Social Security 
benefits would be automatically adjusted. But the measure that is used 
is incredibly flawed, and it was not only flawed to begin with. The 
cost of living index is calculated on a lot of things that seniors 
don't buy, things that have gotten cheaper in this bad economy, 
actually, like giant flat screen televisions, computers and cell phones 
and other things that are not consumed to any great extent by our 
Nation's seniors.
  But if anybody has checked the price of pharmaceuticals or medical 
care or basic utilities or many other must-have expenses, they haven't 
gone down. In fact, they've gone up. But seniors, some of whom are 
living only on a Social Security check, many who are principally 
dependent upon a Social Security check, are not going to get a cost of 
living adjustment this year because the formula that is used is faulty. 
It's not only faulty; it was actually tampered with by the Republicans 
and Alan Greenspan, that great guru, the guy who helped almost destroy 
the world's economy recently through his deregulationist philosophy 
which became so embedded that Wall Street ran wild.
  Alan Greenspan has always hated Social Security since he was on a 
commission many years ago and tried to find ways to go after it. A 
number of years ago he convinced a Republican Congress that the cost of 
living index actually overestimated inflation and that you should take 
away one point before you give a COLA to seniors on Social Security. 
The Republican Congress did that.
  Now here we are today. We have a Democratic Congress. We're being 
told that there is no inflation; seniors won't get a COLA. The Obama 
administration says probably for 2 years they won't get a cost of 
living adjustment. That's not right. The things they are buying are 
going up in price, dramatically, and they're having tremendous 
difficulties making ends meet, living on that fixed income.
  I have had a bill for many years that would put in place a new cost 
of living index for seniors called a CPIE--elderly--to look at the 
things they really buy and have to buy to live and get by. That hasn't 
gone anywhere, but I'm still pushing that idea.
  But while we're working on developing a true index that would really 
look at the costs for seniors, we should pass a 1-year cost of living 
adjustment. And we can do that without borrowing the money, with no 
impact to the Social Security trust fund, very simply. We would just 
say that those who earn between $250,000 a year and $359,000, they 
would pay the same rate of Social Security tax as every normal wage-
earning American who earns less than $106,000 a year. If you earn less 
than $106,000 a year, you pay Social Security tax on every penny of 
your income. If you earn $250,000, well, no, you just pay on the first 
$106,000. You don't pay after that. Your tax rate is lower.
  Let's have a little bit of equity here. So we would simply have 
people earning between $250,000 and $359,000 pay the same rate of 
Social Security tax as every other American that would pay for a one-
time COLA for seniors to help them make ends meet. We must act and act 
soon to get this done before this injustice happens next year.

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