Enhancing America's Lifeline

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address a critical issue for all of America, Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, there are more than 70 million Social Security recipients in the United States of America. What most Americans don't realize is that it has been more than 50 years since Congress last enhanced Social Security. Richard Nixon was President of the United States the last time Congress voted to enhance benefits.

Now, some will say: Well, wait a minute, didn't we just recently vote on Social Security in terms of making sure that teachers and firefighters and municipal employees and police officers would be able to get Social Security insurance? The answer is, yes, we did, except it wasn't paid for, which means that when we say it hasn't been enhanced, in fact, what that did is cut the Social Security trust fund.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say that it is long overdue that we have a vote on Social Security. That doesn't seem to ask too much of the new Congress, and after all, the incoming President says that he cares about Social Security and has proposed also that there be tax cuts for people on Social Security. That is a good idea, except they have to be paid for. His legislation doesn't call for that, but ours does.

We have put before the American people, and will be bringing to the floor, Social Security legislation that enhances the program for the first time in 50-plus years. Imagine that, 70 million recipients. There are 5 million of our fellow Americans who get below-poverty-level checks from Social Security after having paid into the system all their lives because Congress hasn't acted. Congress hasn't voted.

There are some 35 million Americans whom the only benefit that they have is Social Security. The average Social Security payment is $18,000 for a male, $14,000 for a female. No one is getting wealthy on Social Security, but it is, as I like to say, the lifeline of capitalism, the full support for capitalism.

It allows people to take risks. It allows us to be entrepreneurial because in the event the business doesn't succeed or fail, there is that system. The genius of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was that he saw that, and the genius of successive Congresses was that they enhanced the program. However, the last time it was enhanced, Richard Nixon was President of the United States in 1971.

This also is, for Americans, a lifeline because of what it does. Speaker Smith was just in the chair before, and I was explaining that in his district, he has over 150,000 recipients, Mr. Speaker. Those recipients are broken down in several different ways: Retirees, over 100,000; spouses, over 8,000; widows, 8,000; 14,000 disabled people in Speaker Smith's district, but they haven't received an increase from the United States Congress since 1971.

If you disagree with it--if you disagree that people don't deserve this, to have their Social Security updated, brought into the modern times that we live in, then vote against it, but for God's sake, for the more than 70 million Americans who rely on this and need this, it is long overdue for a vote. Don't you think so?

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