Social Security Town Hall Meetings

SOCIAL SECURITY TOWN HALL MEETINGS -- (House of Representatives - March 02, 2005)

(Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this Friday, President Bush plans to take his traveling White House to New Jersey in the hope of convincing New Jersey workers to support his Social Security privatization proposal. I only wish the President would open his event up to New Jerseyans who did not contribute huge amounts to his reelection campaign or who refused to sign a letter saying they are a card-carrying Republican. Maybe then he would hear the public's real concerns about his privatization plan.

Mr. Speaker, the American people simply do not believe the President wants to strengthen Social Security. President Bush keeps on talking about a crisis, but he has even admitted that his own privatization plan does nothing to fix the problems Social Security faces 40 years from now. Instead of fixing a future problem, the President's privatization plan actually jeopardizes the future of Social Security by moving insolvency forward from 2052 to 2031, meaning we would face a real crisis much sooner under the President's plan.

I welcome the President's visit. For 6 weeks, he has been working to build support for his plan, but it has fallen flat with the American people and it will also fall flat in New Jersey.

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