OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Keeping Social Security Secure for the Future

Date: March 10, 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Senior Citizens Entitlements and the Safety Net


KEEPING SOCIAL SECURITY SECURE FOR THE FUTURE -- (House of Representatives - March 10, 2005)

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

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, President Bush and congressional Republicans have yet to offer a plan that makes Social Security solvent beyond the year 2052. As far as I am concerned, until the Bush administration takes its privatization plan off the table, we cannot work together to address Social Security solvency.

Even one of our Republican colleagues, Senator Lindsey Graham, has admitted that privatization is not a plan that will fix Social Security. On Tuesday he said, "We now have this huge fight over a sideshow. It has always been a sideshow, but we sold it as the main event." That is a Republican Senator calling the President's plan a sideshow.

Mr. Speaker, it is a sideshow because it does nothing to strengthen Social Security. Democrats are willing to work with Republicans to extend solvency beyond 2052, but we cannot do that until Republicans are serious about extending solvency and rejecting privatization.

Democrats want to keep Social Security secure for the future. When that is the Republican goal, we can finally begin to work together in a bipartisan fashion.

http://thomas.loc.gov

arrow_upward